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hometanism, that was at once perfected into a system), while it reigned triumphant till the tenth century, which Roman catholic writers themselves characterise "the as age of darkness and ignorance." * Blackness is its fitting symbol, and marks its character as a religion. The Bible was long unknown in the vulgar tongue, and the word of God was only to be believed in, as interpreted by a succession of mortals, whose changeable decisions were marked with all the weakness and blindness of humanity. The light of the gospel was hid, and dark superstition took its place. The mind was muffled, like the face of a nun. The commandments of men, or as avowed "the commandments of the church," were held of as high authority as the word of God. Its brightness was obscured; its whiteness was tarnished; the word that could have made men clean, was kept from them; and, when it was hid by human art from the eyes of men, and when at the same time the exercise of private judgment was taken away, the mind was necessarily turned into blackness; and when popery reigned triumphant, an ignorance even of the first principles of natural religion, came over the minds of men, such as paganism itself could not have deepened. How, in this respect, do the writings of heathens put to shame many a popish legend. What one word but black, could designate the church, when documents were attested by a mark, because my lord the archbishop could not write, and when a bishop reading the Bible could say that he knew nothing of the book but that it was written against them; or, to adopt a more general illustration, when saints were invoked as intercessors, when penances were done for crimes, when indulgences were granted for money, and, as the cause of all, when the Bible was a sealed book.

* Du Pin's Ecclesiastical Hist. vol. viii. p. 66.

The religion of Mahomet took peace from the earth; but popery for a long period extinguished the light of the Gospel, and imposed a yoke upon the world. According to its prevalence darkness reigned, and the soul was enslaved. All right of appealing to Scripture was withheld from the laity; and it formed the least part of the studies of the clergy. The opinion of the church, instead of the Scriptures of truth, became the rule of faith; and the least variation in doctrine from its standard for the time, was branded as heretical. Contrary to the example of the apostles, there arose lords over God's heritage. The popes claimed infallibility as their own. Every opinion was judged, every doctrine weighed, according to the balance held in the hand of him who ruled over a dark and apostate church. In one scale lay the opinion of the church, the decision of councils, or the canon law; in the other, all private sentiments were laid; and if the latter either fell short or preponderated a single scruple, if the balance swayed a hair's breadth, or, in other words, if men did not believe as the church of Rome believed, they were denounced as guilty of error, and the dictates of conscience, or the authority of Scripture, were no more regarded than dust in the balance. So appropriate is the simile, that Gibbon speaks of "the nice balance of the Vatican."

It is not then from want of an apposite illustration, but in more direct conformity with the original, that we would prefer another reading than that of the English translation. The term, a pair of balances, or a balance, does not once occur again in the whole of the New Testament; but the original word (Zugos) occurs repeatedly, and is uniformly translated yoke. Take my yoke upon you, said the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking of his religion and of the duty he imposes, for my yoke (zugos) is easy, and my burden is light,

(Matt. xi. 29, 30.) Speaking of the rite of circumcision, and the burdensome ceremonies of the Jewish law, Peter sharply rebuked those converted Jews who wished to impose such rites upon the Gentiles, (Acts xv. 10.) Why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? Addressing the Galatians (chap. v. 1,) on the very same subject, Paul thus commands Christians, as being the children not of the bond-woman but of the free,-Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. In reference to a state of temporal bondage it is said, (1 Tim. vi. 1,) Let as many servants (or slaves) as are under the yoke, count their own masters worthy of all honour. In all these instances the word translated yoke, is the very same as the word in our text,—and he that sat on him had a yoke in his hand.

The Apostle Peter reproved his brethren of Israel for seeking to impose the yoke of Jewish ceremonies and ordinances on any Christian converts. The Apostle Paul declares that he was afraid of the Galatian church lest he had bestowed on them labour in vain, as they desired again to be in bondage to the weak and beggarly elements, and observed days, and months, and times, and years. The history of the papal church gives no illustration of such freedom, purity, and faith, as the apostles practised and enjoined. The pretended successors of Peter imposed on all a far heavier yoke than that which he would not suffer to be laid on any disciple. And the Romish religion greatly consists in the observance of days and months, and times, and years. With the introduction of the pomp of ceremonies, a way was prepared for the slavish subjection of the church to a multitude of superstitious rites.

Unlike to the Mahometan religion, which owed its

origin to its founder alone, and which was speedily completed by each succeeding chapter of the Koran, the Roman catholic faith grew by slow degrees, and did not attain to all its darkness, or impose its yoke in all its heaviness, till after the lapse of many ages.

It was long after the times and laws were first given into his hand that the yoke which finally characterised catholicism, was seen in all its strength in the hand of the pope. As the darkness increased, the yoke gradually became heavier. In the seventh century

"Every Roman pontiff," true to his character, "added something new to the ancient rites and institutions. These superstitious inventions were, in the time of Charlemagne, (A. D. 800) propagated from Rome among the other Latin churches, whose objection to the Roman ritual was necessary to satisfy the ambitious demands of the lordly pontiff."* "*"it would be endless to enter into an exact enumeration of the various rites and ceremonies which were introduced for the first time in the ninth century."+ "In order to have some notion of the load of ceremonies under which the Christian religion groaned in this superstitious age, (the tenth century,) we have only to cast an eye upon the acts of the various councils which were assembled in England, Germany, France, and Italy. The number of ceremonies increased in proportion to that of the saints, which multiplied from day to day; for every new saint had appropriated to his service a new festival, a new form of worship, a new round of religious rites," &c. I

Popery was distinguished by the yoke which it imposed, as well as by the darkness which it generated. Their union was natural.

"The Grecian, Nestorian, and Jacobite pontiffs, that were any way remarkable for their credit or ambition, were desirous of transmitting their names to posterity by the invention of some new rite, or by some striking change introduced into the method of worship that had hitherto prevailed.

* Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. cent. vii. p. 2, chap. 4. + Ibid. cent. ix.

Ibid. cent. X.

This was, indeed, almost the only way left to distinguish themselves in an age, when all sense of the excellence of genuine religion and substantial piety being almost totally lost, the whole care and attention of an ostentatious clergy, and a superstitious multitude, were employed upon that round of external ceremonies and observances that were substituted in their place." In Italy, Spain, and Portugal, where the feeble glimmerings of Christianity that yet remain are overwhelmed and obscured by an enormous multitude of ridiculous ceremonies, and absurd, fantastic, and unaccountable rites; so that a person who arrives in any of these countries after having passed through other nations, even of the Romish communion, is immediately struck with the change, and thinks himself transported into the thickest darkness, into the most gloomy retreats of superstition."+

But, exclusive of these illustrations, the historian here incidentally adopts the language of prophecy, and describes the protestants as having "withdrawn their necks from the papal yoke. And this term, as will incidentally be seen, is of frequent occurrence in modern ecclesiastical history.

The notoriety of the fact that the pope, as the head of the Romish church, held a yoke in his hand, might well render the proof of it superfluous. But it is meet that the period when it was fully imposed should be marked, as consequent to the rise of Mahometanism, and that the very word should be given as history records it. The inquisition, which at length fixed the yoke on the church of Rome, was an invention of the thirteenth century. And the slavish subjection of the mind to superstitious fears, was the power which, in his reign of darkness, the pope exercised in exalting himself and supporting the interests of the church by a multiplicity of ceremonies and observances, such as no other form of faith has scarcely ever, if at all, imposed upon the world. Sixty-eight

*Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. cent. xii.
+Ibid. cent. xvi. part 2, c. i.

Ibid. cen', xvii. § 11. p. 1. chap. i. § 5.

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