But if this were the only manner in which Popery adapts itself to the natural man, there would be comparatively little cause for complaint. There is no sin in an attractive exhibition of the truth, nor is it wrong to enlist the tastes in favour of the Redeemer’s kingdom, for the Apostle to the Gentiles was himself “made all things to all men.” So soon, however, as the truth itself is modified in order to suit the prejudices or inclinations of those to whom it is addressed, the accommodation from that moment becomes sinful in its character. Now it is impossible to study the records of Romanism without perceiving that it is perpetually guilty of this sinful modification. Thus in different countries it assumes different external aspects. In catechisms for the Irish, for example, it omits the second commandment, while in those for England it generally inserts it, adapting itself in each case to what it considers that the people’s mind can bear. In China the Jesuist missionaries actually went so far as to omit from their teaching the great fact of the crucifixion, because they considered that a truth so humbling would be unwelcome to that proud and self-sufficient people. The foundation of Christianity was removed in order to accommodate it to the pride of the natural heart. Thousands of other instances might be adduced to show the pliability of the system. It is like the camelion, and varies its colour according to the soil on which it treads. It will even preach justification by faith in those parishes where the people have learned the value of that blessed truth; while, at the very same moment, in the decrees of the Council of Trent, it levels its anathemas against those who venture to maintain it. In Protestant countries it will be foremost in its denunciations of idolatry, while in others, where the people are prepared to bear them, it will fill its churches with its idols. In all cases, it accommodates itself to the existing bias of the mind addressed. But these things are rather the dress of Popery than its essence; they form the apparel with which she has arrayed herself in order to appear before the world, but they do not constitute the real deep secret of her strength. They are nothing more than the paint upon the cheek, the arts which the system has assumed, but are not the source from which the system itself has sprung. To this _inner source_, then, we have now to turn our thoughts, and we have to shew that Popery has founded itself upon the essential truths of Christianity, but has so altered and perverted them by addition, by subtraction, and by alteration, as to accommodate them to the wants of unconverted men.