The Sun.
London, England, 1823-03-05 00:00:00

FOR THE SUN.

Ma. EDlTOR—Catholic Emancipation has been
fully discussed in a political, but, in a religious
view, has been little touched upon. A Corres-
pondent of yours, in a- Letter addressed to Lord
Grenville, ridicules the notion that the People
of England, in this enlightened age, could be in
any danger of being led astray by the arts of
Popish Priests in case the Emancipation Bill
should be passed.
" It is not," he says, cg by a passion for the fan-
tastical fooleries of Popery that our Church can
be pushed from its strong foundations." And, in-
deed, it seems to be the opinion of the majority of
one part of our Lestislature that these Idolaters
may safely be admitted into our Council of State;
that there can be no danger of contagion among
a People who are now so much better informed
in religious knowledge than they were formerly.
Such an opinion arises in some, I do not doubt,
from a conviction that the doctrines of the Church
of England are most agreeable to Scripture, and
from a confidence of their own stedfastness in
what they think the true faith--in some from
want of a due attention to the subject, bdt in
others, I fear, from a disbelief in Scripture, and
an indifference to all religious tenets whatever,
holding those of the l'apist, and those of the
Protestant, in equal estimation. To such scoffers,
who deny the Lord that bought them, I do not
address myself; but to the former I should re-
commend a constant vigilance, and to take heed
lest they fall, for their adversary, the evil one,
is particularly active in these latter days, assail-
ing the Church of England (the first object of
his hatred) with Popery on one side, and fana-
ticism on the other, so that he shall almost
deceive the very elect. Who would have thought
St. Peter, after his strong professions to the con-
trary, would have denied His LoßD,'or that Solo-
man, the wisest of men, could have been induced
to build a temple to Moloch, after the LORD had
appeared unto him a second time, and told him
the consequences of his obedience and disobedi-
ence to his commands ? Idolatry is the fashion of
the world, and almost all nations have practised
it, and the frequent denunciations of Gon's wrath
against it to the Israelites ought surely to raise a
suspicion in our minds that there is a bewitching
proness in the heart of men towards it beyond
what your Correspondent is aware, of ; and that,
therefore, it is our duty to watch and guard
against the most distant approach of it.

In the 20th chapter of Exodus, God says,—
" Thou shalt have no other Gods before me ;"
(coram me), nor make them with me, or unto
you; which surely must exclude all use of
saints and images and relics altogether, if
words can exclude them. In chapter 23, he
says,--" Make no mention of the names of
other gods, neither let it be heard out of
thy mouth." In chapter 34,—" Take heed
to thyself lest thou make a covenant with the
inhabitants of the land—lest it be a snare
unto thee," &c. 44 Thou shalt make no molten
gods." They are commanded not to bow down
to them, nor worship them ;—and in Deutero-
nomy the command is repeated. The Almighty
we see thought these injunctions against idola-
trous worship necessary to be often repeated to
a people who had so lately seen his glory and
heard his voice out of the fire ; a voice so dread-
ful that they desired Moses to talk with them in
future, that they might not hear it a second
time, and who had been eye-witnesses of all the
wonderous works that he had done for them
in the wilderness and the Red Sea, and shall
we notwithstanding think ourselves so secure in
our own strength, as to need no such warning
voice ? Shall we fraternize again with men who
acknowledge themselves subservient in their
faith to a power who arrogates to himself the at-
tributes of God, granting as well absolution for
sin, as a license to commit it, saying he has the
keys of Heaven, and can admit or exclude whom
he pleases (by what right he claims these keys,
see Bishop Horsley's Sermons on that subject,
who clearly proves that St. Peter's grant was
merely a temporary authority to preach salvation
to the Gentile world (that is to what part of it
he thought proper) through the redemption of
Jesus Christ. St. Peter has bequeathed us two
Epistles, but says not a word of his heir or as-
sign. Again,—He styles himself the Vicar of
Jesus Christ on earth, and impiously invades his
office of intercessor, by authorizing prayer to be
put up to the spirits of dead men, that they will
intercede for the supplicants ; and how does the
use of images in the Roman Church differ from
the use of the molten call in Horeb ? The Jews
persuaded Avon to make them a God to go be-
fore them. He made a molten calf, and pro-
claimed a feast of the Lord for the morrow, but I
in what manner they intermixed the worship of
God with that of the Calf does not appear. In
whatever manner an Image is applied in worship
before God, it is a violation of his commandment;
he even orders his altar to be of unhewn stone ;

if they lift up a tool upon it they defile it. What
agreement has the Temple of God with Idols, says
St. Paul ? It is true, the commandments are
given to the Jews, but as far as they are con-
firmed in the New Testament, they are binding
upon us; we Christians are
.now the Israel of
God, and no doubt, he is as jealous of our wor-
ship as he was of theirs. Let us compare the
prosperity of those kindoms with the state of
those nations who worship the Virgin Mary, and
authorize a profanation of the Sabbath, and we
shall have reason to be thankful for the superior
blessings which he hath bestowed upon us, and from
what era can we date the rise of this prosperity,
but from the day when the Papist was driven from
the helm and the Church of England renounced
Idolatry ? Are we prepared to see the Mass
carried by a procession of Monks about our
streets, and part of the populace bowing down
to the creature instead of the Creator ? are we
prepared to see the livings in the gifts of Roman
Catholics occupied by Clergy of that persuasion.
God forbid that by a false step our Legisla-
ture should forfeit his favour and bring a curse
upon the land and not a Messing,
March 3, 1823.

. A LAYMAN.