Kings & rulers > History of the reign of the Emperor Charles V. > Volume 1

PROOFS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 243
age of the faints ; for, if you obferve thefe things, you
may come with fecurity in the day of retribution to the
tribunal of the eternal Judge, and fay, “ Give to us,
O Lord, for we have given unto thee.” Dacherii Spice-
legium Vet. Script, v. ii. p. 94. The learned and ju¬
dicious tranflator of Dr. Molheim’s EcclefiarticalHiftory,
to one of whofe additional notes I am indebted for my
knowledge of this pafTage, fubjoins a very proper re-
fleflion s “ We fee here a large and ample defcription
of a good Chriftian, in which there is not the leaft men¬
tion of the love of God, refignation to his will, obedience
to his laws, or of juftice, benevolence, and charity
towards men.” Molh. Ecclef. Hift. v. i. p. 3x4.
NOTE XII. Sect. I. p. 21. [M].
That infallibility in all its determinations, to which
the church of Rome pretends, has been attended with
one unhappy confequence. As it is impoffible to re-
linquifh any opinion, or to alter any practice which
has been eftablilhed by authority that cannot err, all its
inftitutions and ceremonies muft be immutable and
everlafting, and the church muft continue to obferve,
in enlightened times, thofe rites which were introduced
during the ages of darknefs and credulity. What de¬
lighted and edified the latter, muft difguft and fhock
the former, Many of the rites obferved in the Romilh
church appear manifeftly to have been introduced by a
fuperftition of the loweft and moft illiberal fpecies.
Many of them were borrowed, with little variation,
from the religious ceremonies eftablilhed among the an¬
cient Heathens. Some were fo ridiculous, that if every
age did not furnifh inftances of the fafeinating influence
of fuperftition as well as of the whimfical forms which it
aflumes, it muft appear incredible that they fliould have
been ever received or tolerated. In feveral churches of
France, they celebrated a feftival in commemoration of
the Virgin Mary’s flight into Egypt. It was called the
Feaft of the Afs. A young girl richly drefled, with a
child in her arms, was fet upon an afs fuperbly capa-
rifoned. The afs was led to the altar in folemn pro-
V » ceflion.