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The second council of Nice.

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Lombard kings and of the Roman emperors!* He afterwards took a journey into France, where he anointed with oil the King of the Franks; and, by the authority of St. Peter, forbade the French lords, on pain of excommuni. cation, to choose a king of another race. Thus did these two ambitious men support one another in their schemes of rapacity and injustice. The criminality of the pope was, indeed, greatly aggravated by the pretence of religion. "It is you," says he, addressing Pepin," whom God hath chosen from all eternity. For whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called them he also justified.”

Yet the question concerning images was far from being. put to rest either at Rome or Constantinople, but continued to agitate the Catholic church for a length of time, and gave occasion to the assembling of council after council, one council annulling what the former had decreed. During the reign of the emperor Constantine Copronymus, a synod was held at Constantinople to determine the controversy. The fathers being met, to the number of three hundred and thirty, after considering the doctrine of scripture, and the opinions of the fathers, decreed, "That every image, of whatsoever materials made and formed by the artist, should be cast out of the christian church as a strange and abominable thing," adding an "anathema upon all who should make images or pictures, or representations of God, or of Christ, or of the Virgin Mary, or of any of the saints," condemning it as

Socrate's Eccles. Hist. b. vli. ch. 29.

It was at this time the prevailing fashion in the Catholic church to digrify the Virgin Mary with the title of "Mother of God." The emperor one day said to the Patriarch of Constantinople, “ What harm would there be in terming the Virgin Mary Mother of Christ? God preserve you, an swered the Patriarch from entertaining such a thought. Do you not see how Nestorins is anathematized by the whole church for using similar lan. guage? I only asked for my own information, said the Emperor: let it ga no further."

a vain and diabolical invention "-deposing all bishops, and subjecting the monks and laity, who should set up any of them in public or private, to all the penalties of the imperial constitution.* Paul I. who was at this time pope of Rome, sent his legate to Constantinople, to admonish the emperor to restore the sacred images and sta tues to the churches, threatening him with excommunication in case of refusal. But Copronymus treated his message with the contempt it deserved.

On the decease of Paul I. A. D. 768, the papal chair was filled for one year by a person of the name of Constantine, who condemned the worship of images, and was therefore tumultuously deposed, and Stephen the IV. substituted in his room, who was a furious defender of them. He immediately assembled a council in the Lateran church, where the renowned fathers abrogated all Constantine's decrees, deposed all the bishops that had been ordained by him, annulled all his baptisms and chrisms, and, as some historians relate, after having beat and used him with great indignity, made a fire in the church and burnt him to death. After this, they annulled all the decrees of the synod of Constantinople, ordered the restoration of statues and images, and anathematized that execrable and pernicious synod, giving this curious reason for the use of images" That it was lawful for emperors, and those who had deserved well of their country, to have their images erected, but not lawful to set up those of God, the condition of the immortal God would be worse than that of man."

Thus the mystery of iniquity continued to work, until at length, under the reign of Irene, the empress of Constantinople, and her son Constantine, about the close of this century was convened, what is termed the seventh

* Platina's Lives of the Popes-Life of Paul I.

Platina-Life of Stephen.

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Rise of Mahomet.

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general council. It was held at Nice, and the number of bishops present were about three hundred and fifty, In this venerable assembly it was decreed "That holy images of the cross should be consecrated, and put on the sacred vessels and vestments, and upon walls and boards, in private houses and in public ways. And especially that there should be erected images of the Lord God, our Saviour Jesus Christ, of our blessed Lady, the mother of God, of the venerable angels, and of all the saints. And that whosoever should presume to think or teach otherwise, or to throw away any painted books, or the figure of the cross, or any image or picture, or any genuine relics of the martyrs, they should, if bishops or clergymen, be deposed, or if monks or laymen be excommunicated." They then pronounced anathemas upon all who should not receive images, or who should apply what the scriptures say against idols to the holy images, or who should call them idols, or who should wilfully communicate with those who rejected and despised them; adding, according to custom," Long live Constantine and Irene his mother-Damnation to all heretics-Damnation on the council that roared against venerable images The holy Trinity hath deposed them."* One would think the council of Pandemonium would have found it difficult to carry impiety and profaneness much beyond this.

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Irene and Constantine approved and ratified these de crees-the result of which was, that idols and images were erected in all the churches, and those who opposed them were treated with great severity. And thus, by the intrigues of the popes of Rome, iniquity was established by a law, and the worship of idols authorized and confirmed in the Catholic church, though in express opposition to all the principles of natural religion, and the nature and design of the Christian revelation.

*Platina-Life of Hadrian I.

But it is time for us to return and take some notice of another important branch of ecclesiastical history, which belongs to the period of the seventh and eighth centuries, viz. the rise of the Mahommedan imposture.*

MAHOMET was born in the year 569 or 570, at Mecca, a city in Arabia Felix. He was descended from the tribe of Koreish, and the family of Hashem, the most illustrious of the Arabs, the princes of Mecca, and the hereditary guardians of their code of religious institutions. In his early infancy he was deprived of his father, his mother, and his grand-father; but his uncles were numerous and powerful, and in the division of the inheritance, the orphan's share was reduced to five camels and an Ethiopian female slave. At home and abroad, in peace and war, Abu-Taleb, the most respectable of his uncles, was the guide and guardian of his youth. In his twenty-fifth year, he entered into the service of Cadijah, a rich and noble widow of Mecca, who soon rewarded his fidelity with the gift of her hand and fortune. By this alliance he was raised from a humble sphere in life to the station of his ancestors; and the lady who had thus elevated him, was content with his domestic virtues, 'till, in the fortieth year of his age, he assumed the title of a prophet, and proclaimed the religion of the Koran.

According to the tradition of his companions, Mahomet was distinguished by the beauty of his person. Before he spoke, the orator engaged on his side the affections of his audience, who applauded his commanding presence, his majestic aspect, his piercing eye, his gracious smile, his flowing beard, his countenance that painted every

* The story of this extraordinary man, the pretended Arabian prophet, has been written by the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman empire," with all that felicity of diction, for which he stands unrivalled ; but at much too great length to be introduced into this sketch. I have endeavoured to seize the more prominent features of the portrait.

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Principles of Mahomet.

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sensation of the soul, and his gestures that enforced each expression of the tongue. In the familiar offices of life, he scrupulously adhered to the grave and ceremonious politeness of his country; his respectful attention to the rich and powerful was dignified by his condescension and affability to the poorest citizens of Mecca. His memory was capacious and retentive, his wit easy and social, his imagination sublime, his judgment clear, rapid, and decisive. With all these advantages, Mahomet was an illiterate barbarian; his youth had never been instructed in the arts of reading and writing; the common ignorance exempted him from shame or reproach, but he was reduced to a narrow circle of existence, and deprived of those faithful mirrors which reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes. Yet the volume of nature and of man was open to his view. When only thirteen years of age, he twice accompanied his uncle's caravan into Syria, to attend the fairs of Bostra and Damascus, but his duty obliged him to return home as soon as he had disposed of the merchandize with which he was entrusted. From his earliest youth, Mahomet was addicted to religious contemplation; and every year during the month Ramadan, he withdrew from the world and from the society of his wife, to the cave of Heva, three miles from Mecca, where he consulted the spirit of fraud or enthusiasm, and where he at length matured the faith which, under the name of ISLAM, he at last preached to his family and nation; a faith compounded of an eternal truth and a necessary fiction-THAT THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD, AND THAT MAHOMET IS HIS APOSTLE.”

Such are the first principles of the religion of Mahomet, which are illustrated, and enlarged upon with numerous additional articles in the Koran, or, as it is sometimes termed, the Alcoran. The prophet of Mecca rejected the worship of idols and men, of stars and planets, on the