brute nature, uninfluenced by man." A more felicitous illustration can hardly be imagined. The contrast between the Gospels and the legends of the saints, is that between the divine and the human and even the animal ; between Christ (with reverence be it spoken) and St. Anthony. Another principle on which these ecclesiastical miracles may be classified, is the design for which they were wrought or adduced. Some are brought forth as proofs of the sanctity of particular persons, or places, or things ; some to sustain particular doctrines, such as purgatory, transubstantiation, the worshipping of the saints and of the Virgin Mary, etc., some for the identification of relics. It is no injustice to the authorities of the Church of Rome, to say, that whatever good ends these mir- acles may in any case be intended to serve, they have in the ag- gregate been made subservient to the accumulation of money and to the increase of power. The amount of money drawn from the single doctrine of purgatory and the assumed power of the keys over that imaginary place of torture, is beyond all computation. And the whole fabric of priestly power, the most absolute and the most dreaded ever exercised over men, would fall to the ground if it were not the belief of the people, founded mainly on " lying wonders," that the priests have power to forgive sin, to save or to destroy souls at will, or at discretion. If this doctrine be false, the whole Romish system is false. Romanists, therefore, have everything at stake on this question. Bishop Jeremy Tay- lor, writing to a lady " seduced to the Church of Rome," said long ago, " All the points of difference between us and your Church are such as do evidently serve the ends of covetousness and ambition, of power and riches." l
4. A fourth general remark on this subject is, that it is no just matter of reproach to the authorities and people of the Romish Church that they believed in these false miracles. Faith in the frequently recurring interference of supernatural influences in the affairs of men, was for ages universal. Even so late as the seventeenth century Protestants as well as Catholics, of all ranks, believed in ghosts, witches, necromancy, and demonocracy. Cotton Mather's " Magnalia " is a match for the Legends of the Saints.
5. It is not that Romanists believed in the frequent occurrence of miracles, but that they propagated reports of miracles, know- ing them to be false ; that this was done for the purposes of de- ceit ; that this is persisted in to the present day ; and that the
i First Letter to One Seduced to the Church of Borne ; Works, edit London, 1828, voL ri. p. 189.
456 PART IH. Ch. XIX. — THE LAW.
honour, truth, integrity, and infallibility of the Church are pledged in support of their actual occurrence. The truth of Christianity depends on the historical truth of the account of the miracles re- corded in the New Testament. The truth of Romanism depends on the truth of the miracles to which it appeals. What would become of Protestantism if it depended on the demonology of Luther, or the witch stories of our English forefathers. The Romish Church, in assuming the responsibility for the ecclesias- tical miracles, has taken upon itself a burden which would crush the shoulders of Atlas. These " lying wonders " are endorsed, not only by the negative action of the authorities of the Church, by allowing them to be believed and cited in proof of its doc- trines and divine mission ; not only by the recognized expounders of its faith referring to them and asserting their truth ; but also by solemn official action of the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries, including a long succession of popes. As no one could be canon- ized unless his saintship was sustained by at least four miracles, when any one was proposed for canonization a commission was appointed to ascertain the facts of his life, and especially of the miracles which he wrought. This commission reported to the Pope, who, if satisfied, decreed the enrolment of the candidate in the list of saints. These official documents contain the record of the most trivial, and, on other grounds, most objectionable miracles.1 And to such miracles the Church of Rome has given her sanction, and on the truth of these it must stand or fall.
1 Accounts of these miracles may be found, not only in the original documents, but also in numerous works, as those of Bishop Stillingfleet and others, written to expose the im- postures of the Romish Church. The Rev. John Cumming of London, in his Lectures on Romanism (Boston, 1854), has cited from these official records examples sufficiently numerous to satisfy any ordinary man. For example, it is said of Santa Rosa Maria of Lima, among many other things, that the Virgin often appeared to her and talked with her; that the Saviour came to her in the form of a child leaning on his mother's arm, to col- lect roses scattered on the ground, and then the Divine infant took one of them and said ''Thou art this rose." (Cumming, p. 629.) When her tomb was opened fifteen years after death, her remains " exhaled the odor of roses." Of St. Philip Neri it is said that he was so agitated by the love of God, that the Lord broke two of his ribs to give freer action to his heart, (p. 634.) Of Sister Maria Francisca, it is certified that when placing a holy Bambino {i. e., image of the infant Jesus) into the manger, such a light emanated from ths Bambino as to blind her for three days. On another occasion, when dressing the image, she said, " My little child, if you do not stretch out your feet I cannot put on your shoes and stockings," and the wooden image immediately stretched out its feet. It is also asserted that she obtained from Christ permission to suffer vicariously for a limited time, in the place of some of her friends, the pains of purgatory, and accordingly endured for a month the most intense agonies. It is further said, that she had imparted to her the sufferings of Christ, his bloody sweat, the anguish of the crown of thorns, his scourging and agonies on the cross, and had his wounds visibly impressed upon her. (Cumming, pp. 649-653. ) Car- dinal Wiseman edited a book including the lives of several saints, and among them that of St. Veronica Giuliani, who was canonized so recently as 1839. Of this saint, he says, among many similar things, that God recompensed her readiness to drink of the chalice of