ertain that there were many such temples in _Pagan_ Rome, and are
as many in _Christian Rome_; and since there never was an example of it,
but what was _Paganish_, before the time of _Popery_, how is it possible
that it could be derived to them from any other source? or when we see so
exact a resemblance in the copy, how can there be any doubt about the
original?

"What he alleges, therefore, in favour of _incense_ is nothing to the
purpose: 'That it was used in the Jewish, and is of great antiquity in the
Christian churches, and that it is mentioned with honour in the
Scriptures,' which frequently _compare it to prayer_, and speak of its
_sweet odours ascending up to God_, &c., which figurative expressions, he
says, 'would never have been borrowed by sacred penmen from heathenish
superstition;' as if such allusions were less proper, or the thing itself
less sweet, for its being applied to the purposes of idolatry, as it
constantly was in the time of the _same penmen_, and, according to their
own accounts, on the _altars of Baal_, and the other _heathen idols_: and
when _Jeremiah_ rebukes the people of _Judah_ for _burning incense to the
queen of heaven_ (Jer. xliv. 17), one can hardly help imagining that he is
prophetically pointing out the worship paid now to the _virgin_, to whom
they actually _burn incense_ at this day under that very title.(96)

"But if it be a just ground for retaining a practice in the _Christian_
church, because it was enjoined to the _Jews_, what will our Catholic say
for those usages which were actually prohibited to the _Jews_, and never
practised by any but by the _heathens and papists_? All the _Egyptian
priests_, as Herodotus informs us, _had their heads shaved, and kept
continually bald_.(97) Thus the Emperor _Commodus_, that he might be
admitted into that order, _got himself shaved, and carried the god Anubis
in procession_. And it was on this account, most probably, that the
_Jewish priests_ were commanded _not to shave their heads, nor to make any
baldness upon them_.--(Lev. xxi. 5; Ezek. xliv. 20). Yet this _Pagan
rasure_, or _tonsure_, as they choose to call it, on the crown of the
head, has long been the distinguishing mark of the _Romish priesthood_. It
was on the same account, we may imagine, that the _Jewish priests were
forbidden to make any cuttings in their flesh_ (Lev. xix. 28, xxi. 5),
since _that was likewise the common_ practice of certain _priests and
devotees among the h