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POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES DOUGLAS OF CAVERS. 
 
 EDINBUKGH: THOMAS CONSTABLE AND CO. 
 
 LONDON : HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. ; GLASGOW : D. BR.YCE ; 
 ABERDEEN : LEWIS SMITH ; DUBLIN : JAS. M'GLASHAN. 
 
 MDCCCLII. 
 
/cornellN 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
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 !Y 
 
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 EDINBURGH: T. CONSTABLE, TRTNTER TO HER MAJESTY 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 It is written. — In these words of Emanuel — God in our 
 nature, we have the Divine point of view in which the Holy 
 Scriptures are to be regarded. Within this circle there is light 
 and life, peace and assurance for ever. 
 
 It is not written — Within this circle there is doubt and dark- 
 ness, and inextricable error. 
 
 From the Bible proceeds the religion of God, pure, unchange- 
 able, and eternal, like its Author. From the fallen mind of man 
 issue the religions of men, vain as various ; ever changing, yet 
 ever marked with the impress of departure from God, which they 
 derive from their inventors. The Bible is a perfect whole. It 
 admits of no additions from the superstitious, and no curtail- 
 ments from the rationalist. It remains fenced, as holy ground, 
 from every impure hand, with the Divine sanction on its perfect 
 integrity ; having the closing words of the Bevelation applicable 
 to every part of it — " If any man shall add unto these things, 
 God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this 
 Book : and, if any man shall take away from the words of the 
 book of this prophecy,' God shall take away his part out of the 
 Book of Life," &c. 
 
 Of the Bible it may be said, in a far higher sense than of Tyre 
 of old, " Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in 
 
2 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 beauty.'' The Bible is its own evidence — like its Divine Author, 
 whose brightness and character it reflects. It is a light, which 
 "coming into the world enlighteneth every man" who is willing 
 to receive its testimony concerning Jesus. It is also its own 
 commentary — explaining, enlarging, and confirming one passage 
 by another, and one book by another. It is our prayer-book — 
 containing words given from God Himself, whereby we may ap- 
 proach Him — pleading the most needful petitions, in the aptest 
 words. It is our creed, and confession of faith — for there we 
 find every statement that is requisite concerning God our Creator 
 — God our Eedeemer — God our Sanctifier — free from all scho- 
 lastic technology, and bearing directly upon the heart and the 
 life. In the Bible we have our best and only true Theology, 
 containing all that can be certainly known respecting our salva- 
 tion — not arranged in an artificial system — but so disclosed to 
 us, both in its light, and in its shadings, as to present to us not 
 only what is true, but every truth in its due proportion and dis- 
 tance. And the written word is thus complete, because it is the 
 exact transcript of the ever-living Word — the Word that was in 
 the beginning — the Word that was with God — the Word that 
 was God. The Bible is the complete record of a divinely com- 
 pleted salvation. Holding the Head, we possess all things. 
 Being in Christ, we are complete before God in Him. When 
 we believe in Him, He is ours and we are His. His life is ours, 
 and his whole fulfilment of the law, during a life of sorrow and 
 suffering. As He lived for us, so He died for us — and as by faith 
 we partake in the benefits of His death, so we become sharers in 
 the glories of His resurrection. 
 
 We are saved by faith — and by faith alone — by believing 
 God's testimony concerning His Son, we pass at once from death 
 unto life, and into a preparation for future glory. All who by 
 believing belong to Christ are led by the Spirit of Christ. The 
 Spirit is one infinite Spirit, but the gifts of the Spirit are divided, 
 in order that the whole body of believers may be united — none 
 having a self-sufficiency of spiritual graces appropriated to them- 
 selves, but all made complete only in the unity of Christ's Uni- 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 3 
 
 versal Body — the congregated assembly of believers throughout 
 all ages, to be united together in the Heaven of Heavens. 
 
 The true religion evidently consists in receiving the Bible, 
 the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. He who would 
 mix man's words and man's thoughts with God's words and 
 God's thoughts, neither truly believes in the Bible, nor in its 
 Author. " Add not thou to His words lest He reprove thee, 
 and thou be found a liar." He who would attempt to illus- 
 trate, confirm, or extend the Truths of God by the comments of 
 man, might as well light candles to search for the sun shining 
 in noon-day splendour in the heavens — and he who would turn 
 aside his ear to hearken to what man is saying, when God Him- 
 self speaks, would act as unwisely and impiously as an Israelite, 
 who might have ceased to listen to the voice of Jehovah, speak- 
 ing from Sinai, in order to count the reverberations of the ac- 
 companying thunders, as they rolled from mountain to mountain, 
 in the increasing distance. 
 
 Tradition always alters where inspiration ceases. The scho- 
 lastic maxim is true, " whatever is received, is received according 
 to the capacity of the recipient." Something is omitted, and 
 something is added, as tradition passes from mouth to mouth ; 
 and what was imperfect at first, becomes mutilated or perverted 
 at last. This has been the case in philosophy and in false 
 religion, as well as in true religion. In the philosophy of the 
 mind, we formerly pointed out a striking instance, in the school 
 of Pythagoras. " If innovation in opinions could ever possibly 
 have been checked, it would have had no place among the 
 disciples of Pythagoras, who silenced every rising doubt by the 
 Pythagorean ' Ipse dixit,' and affirmed the truth of their doc- 
 trines by oaths as well as arguments — swearing by the name of 
 their master — the demigod who had revealed to them the inner- 
 most secrets of nature ;" " but, as in pouring liquor from one 
 vessel to another, a minute portion is generally lost, and a secret 
 taint may be received ; so opinions adapt themselves to the mind 
 that receives them, and the same words in another mouth have 
 no longer the very same significance — for their meaning is, in 
 
-t POPEET AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 some degree, qualified or clouded — coloured or expanded. To 
 the eye of the passing observer the current of opinion may seem 
 to run smooth in its ancient bed, nevertheless it is all the while 
 wasting away the opposing banks, and preparing for itself 
 another channel." And, if the intelligent followers in almost 
 every succession of this school altered the tenets of their master, 
 how much greater a change would the higher doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity have suffered had they been entrusted to tradition, without 
 written and inspired records, when passing through the hands of 
 the first unlettered disciples ! 
 
 Another example of the disfiguring effects of tradition might 
 be taken from the false revelation of the Koran. The religion 
 of the Caliphs was different from that of their prophet, owing to 
 the additional mass of legends and traditions that were accumu- 
 lating round it ; like the vapoury tail of a comet, much larger 
 than the little nucleus to which it is attached — and when the 
 Wahabees began to separate these foreign admixtures from the 
 original elements of Islam, they seemed like the propounders of 
 a new faith, to the majority of the Moslem. 
 
 But far the most striking example is that of the Jews about 
 the time of our Saviour. Though venerating the sacred volume 
 of the Old Testament with a blind and unhesitating homage, 
 counting each book and section — and letter — to preserve it free 
 from admixture, they so obscured the heavenly light with the 
 clouded fancies of their own minds, and the dark traditions of 
 their rabbins, that they incurred the merited condemnation of 
 the Divine teacher, who had descended into the midst of them : 
 " In vain do ye worship me, teaching for doctrines the command- 
 ments of men." And, if the Church of the Jews drew down 
 upon themselves such a sentence, what doom is impending over 
 the false Church of Rome, which has heaped up human authority 
 above measure ; and buried the living oracles under a tumulus 
 of the piled up rubbish of antiquity, and a mass of idolatrous 
 fables. 
 
 Rome subordinates the Bible to tradition — the infallible to 
 the fallible — God to man — and the Divine words to the human 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 5 
 
 comment — for, if the Bible is to be interpreted by tradition, 
 mightier is tradition than the Scriptures ! But where does that 
 tradition exist, and in what form ? God has so ordered it, that 
 though all traditions are defective, Christian tradition is most so. 
 We shall first point out the fact, and then assign the cause. 
 
 We must, however, premise, that two works are especially- 
 wanting, a complete Church History — and the lives and opinions 
 of the early Fathers. Two works which would stand in intimate 
 relation with each other, as History and Biography, (the size 
 need not alarm, if the rubbish were cleared away ;) and might 
 well be executed by the same hand, from the same materials. 
 Historians too frequently veil the defects of the absence of docu- 
 ments, endeavouring to make that appear continuous, which is 
 only fragmentary : thus Gibbon conceals the want of information 
 by the oracular style of Tacitus, and covers over the chasms of 
 history with a profusion of flowers. 
 
 The writer of a just and genuine Church History would be 
 careful to point out that his work must necessarily be fragment- 
 ary, from the want of that which Kome with all her arts cannot 
 supply, genuine Christian tradition. The progress of Chris- 
 tianity is imperfectly noted — the attention of the earlier Chris- 
 tians was arrested by two subjects — heresies and persecutions. 
 " If you can follow the Christian Church in her early history," 
 says Leighton, " it is by the track of her blood ; and if you 
 would see her, it is by the light of those fires in which her 
 martyrs have been burnt.'' 
 
 Milner greatly perverts history by selecting only pious senti- 
 ments, and leaving the impression that these were characteristic 
 of the life and actions of the person who spoke them : he is more 
 partial than Gibbon himself, though in an opposite direction. 
 What can be more contrary to the whole truth than Milner's 
 account of Pope Gregory the Great ? Mosheim, though trust- 
 worthy, presents but the skeleton of antiquity. Neander's, 
 though full of promise, is, properly speaking, no history at all. 
 It is not a narrative of events, but a narrative of what Neander 
 felt and thought when he was revolving these events in his 
 
6 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 mind ; and with him, as with later Germans in general, the sub- 
 jective overpowers the objective — the narrative is often omitted 
 and forgotten, while the meditation alone remains. Though 
 Neander is more at home in giving an account of heresy, than 
 of the progress of Christianity, yet even here it is but an ideal 
 account ; not what was actually thought, but how thoughts ought 
 to have run in the current of error, had the Heresiarchs been 
 under the guidance of some German professor, and not been left 
 free to follow the native aberrations of their own age and mind. 
 
 A work upon Church history* would be one of the best refu- 
 tations of Popery — though brief and compendious necessarily, 
 from the want of authentic materials ; and, purposely, for the ser- 
 vice of the people. It would cut up the pretence of infallibility 
 by the roots, for it would shew a continued change of opinion, 
 and an unceasing accession of error. Bungener's work on the 
 Council of Trent x points out how opinions were there formed, 
 and decrees ratified — with what imperfect information, and what 
 worldly motives. A similar analysis might be applied to all pre- 
 vious councils ; and before councils ever existed there would 
 be traced the secret growth of heresy within the Church, as well 
 as its open proclamation beyond its boundaries. 
 
 But tradition cannot even perpetuate itself, and either escapes 
 into the region of mythology, or is fixed at some particular stage 
 of its metamorphoses, in writings long subsequent to its origin. 
 When the Eomanists refer to tradition, they must appeal to the 
 writings of the so-called " Fathers." The mass of the first 
 Christians were an unlettered people ; this is plainly marked in 
 their epitaphs from the catacombs, by their defective spelling, 
 and still more defective Latin. Many of them were scarcely 
 even a reading people, as the names of Asinius and Porcius, 
 having an ass and pig appended to them, for the benefit of 
 the unlearned, but too sufficiently demonstrate. The Christian 
 writers, to borrow a phrase from Dr. Chalmers, were oftener " ab 
 extra, than ab intra" — new recruits who brought their taste 
 
 * Would that the author of " Ancient Christianity" had cast his work into a continuous 
 and completely historical form, 
 t History of the Council of Trent ; from the French of It. F. Bungener. Edinburgh, 1852. 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 7 
 
 for literature with them, from the heathen Bar, or the heathen 
 schools of philosophy ; and who were prone to teach, before they 
 had thoroughly learned their lesson. The title of '' Fathers" is 
 not very applicable to such writers, but antiquity, and imperfect 
 acquaintance, render every thing that is recondite venerable. 
 The lives and writings of the Fathers in moderate compass, con- 
 taining specimens both of their excellences and defects ; just to 
 their merits, generous to their unavoidable short-comings, would 
 do a very great service to the cause of truth. They certainly, 
 with rational men, would not stand high as authorities ; even as 
 witnesses they are inaccurate, as well as injudicious — their chief 
 excellence is their frequent quotation of Scripture, but their 
 interpretation of Scripture is inferior and fanciful. There is 
 evidently a great chasm in tradition even from the earliest times. 
 The varying explanations of the most important passages shew 
 that the meaning of them was not handed down from apostolic 
 times to succeeding generations. Such as the Commentary is, 
 however, it is against the claims of Popery — against the tra- 
 dition of the Church, against its immutability, and against its 
 infallibility. 
 
 Eome leans on tradition, and professes to be built on the 
 foundation of the Fathers ; but many of the Fathers remove its 
 only foundation, the supposed support that it has in the declara- 
 tion, " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my 
 Church,'' as Mr. Faber well sums up, in his " Difficulties of 
 Eomanism," — " Justin, the oldest father who notices the place, 
 contends, that the rock, upon which our Lord promised to build 
 his Church, is, not Peter individually, but Peter's confession of 
 faith. Athanasius, Jerome, and Augustine maintain that the 
 rock is Christ Himself." But the Fathers differ not only from 
 each other, but often from themselves. " Chrysostom, in one 
 place, supposes Peter individually to have been the rock, but in 
 another place he pronounces, with Justin Martyr, that the rock 
 was Peter's confession." And Mr. Faber might, if he pleased, 
 have produced a host of authorities on either side of the question. 
 
 " Whatsoever Time," as Milton says, in those words which 
 
8 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 will almost outlast Time, " or the heedless hand of blind chance, 
 hath drawn down from of old, to this present, in her huge drag- 
 net, whether fish, or sea-weed, shells or shrubs, unpicked, un- 
 chosen, those are the Fathers." 
 
 Though the opinion of Milton may sound too severe, yet, it 
 approaches much nearer the truth than the very groundless 
 reverence that is often paid to antiquity. A candid examination 
 would shew how deficient the Fathers were in facts, and in 
 general information — hence the poverty of Church History. 
 How inexact in their utterance of their opinions — hence the 
 difficulty of deciding what they actually thought, when any 
 subject, in our days, is brought into dispute. How very imper- 
 fect, not to say erroneous, were their rules, when they had any, 
 for the interpretation of Scripture ! and from what impure, and 
 even Pagan sources, many of their tenets were derived ! It 
 would be necessary also strongly to note, how variable, on many 
 important subjects, the opinions of the early Christians were. 
 For example, at one time Millenarianism prevailed ; at another 
 time, Anti-millenarianism. But one topic alone, if thoroughly 
 examined, would put to flight the dreams of Eome, respecting 
 the authority of the Fathers, and the infallibility of the Church ; 
 we mean the doctrines entertained concerning the Trinity by 
 the early Christian writers. In modern controversies, the 
 Fathers seem to lend themselves to every interpretation. How 
 great is the noise of disputants ! Each citing the Fathers, and 
 each claiming the victory; while the contending champions, 
 like the heroes in Homer, are encircled by a sudden cloud, and 
 rescued by the friendly darkness, in the very jaws of defeat. 
 
 An impartial account of the difficulties attending the testi- 
 monies of the Fathers on this subject, might have its use ; and 
 these difficulties, we believe, might have almost all their solu- 
 tion in observing, what has generally escaped notice, the influ- 
 ence which the Emanative philosophy exercised over the theories 
 of the early Christian writers. But as tradition does not convey 
 to us the correct history of events, far less could it be expected 
 to hand down to us the orthodoxy of opinions. 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 9 
 
 The deficiency of tradition in recording events, may be 
 strongly exemplified in a particular subject — the harmony of the 
 four Gospels. After every attempt we find it impossible to make 
 them coincide, so as to form a perfect whole. If a precious por- 
 celain vase is broken, we can piece it together again, if we have 
 all the fragments ; but if some are lost, the attempt is hopeless. 
 Had tradition preserved to us additional events in the life of 
 the Saviour, even in a very imperfect form, we should have 
 found a part of what we wanted ; but no incident connected with 
 his life, and unrecorded in the Gospels, has survived. The 
 apocryphal gospels are mere puerile inventions, not even the 
 distorted rumours of what had formerly taken place. What 
 tradition denies to us, she denied to the first succeeding ages, as 
 is evidenced by the early attempts at Diatessarons, and by their 
 being all unsatisfactory, one Diatessaron speedily succeeding 
 another. There were chasms that could not be filled up ; the 
 Gospels were fragments then, as they remain fragments now, the 
 sole survivors of a former age. And what was the cause of this 
 defect of tradition ? The Scriptures themselves. " Forasmuch 
 as many have taken in hand," says Luke, " to set forth in order 
 a declaration of those things, which are most surely believed 
 amongst us," &c, &c. What has become of these narratives ? 
 As soon as Luke had written, they naturally ceased to be read ; 
 the stronger light extinguished the weaker. 
 
 The two rotten pillars on which corrupted Christianity rests 
 are early Tradition and Apostolical succession. Tradition, as 
 we have seen, falls to the ground. There is no Papal Talmud, 
 like that of the Jews, which the Romanists can produce, shewing 
 where or from whom their traditions proceeded ; designating the 
 school, or the doctor, as the celebrated Rabbi, or " the house of 
 Elias," where the traditionary document had its original seat : 
 they can only have recourse to the Fathers, and the testimony of 
 the Fathers is variable and contradictory. They are equally un- 
 happy with regard to Apostolical succession. We may cite Dr. 
 Wiseman, though, with the privilege of a cardinal, he takes 
 rather too great liberties with the Fathers of his Church ; but as 
 
10 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 the liberties here taken are liberties of omission, we accept 
 them and are grateful. " Saint Irenasus, one of the oldest 
 (Fathers,) writes as follows : — ' As it would be tedious to enume- 
 rate the whole list of successors, I shall confine myself to that of 
 Rome, the greatest, and most ancient, and most illustrious 
 Church, founded by the glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul ; re- 
 ceiving from them her doctrine, which was announced to all 
 men, and which, through the succession of her bishops, is come 
 down to us.' " We leave out a sentence erroneously translated, 
 but not applying to our present purpose, and resume — " ' They, 
 therefore, having founded and instructed this Church, commit- 
 ted the administration thereof to Linus. To him succeeded 
 Anacletus ; then, in the third place, Clement. To Clement 
 succeeded Evaristus, to him Alexander ; and then Sixtus, who 
 was followed by Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius, and Anicetus. 
 But Soter having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius, the twelfth 
 from the Apostles, now governs the Church.' " We have here 
 an example of the little intelligence and attention with which 
 the Fathers read the Scriptures. The Epistle to the Eomans 
 would shew a Sunday School scholar of our days, that the 
 Church of Eome had been founded before St. Paul visited it. 
 The same epistle would also demonstrate that the Church of 
 Eome was not founded by any other Apostle, for one object of 
 the Apostle's proposed visit, was to impart to them those gifts 
 which were communicated by laying on of the hands of the 
 Apostles. 
 
 It is not proved that the Apostle Peter was ever in Eome ; 
 certainly not till long after the foundation of the Church, and 
 not till after its visitation by Paul. The whole, therefore, of 
 IrenEeus's account is a baseless fabric. So much for Tradition ; 
 so much for Apostolical succession. 
 
 But there are, if possible, still greater errors, and a deeper 
 ignorance behind. Dr. John Brown, in his learned and admir- 
 able exposition of St. Peter's first Epistle, observes, " that the 
 only Bishops known in the New Testament, are the same class 
 of persons who are termed Elders, may be made very plain in a 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 1 1 
 
 few words. Paul, on hie journey from Macedonia to Jerusalem, 
 sent from Miletus, and called the Elders of Ephesus ; and when 
 these elders had come, he exhorted them to ' take heed to all 
 the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made them overseers,' 
 bishops. Paul writing to Titus, states, that he left him in 
 Crete to ordain elders in every city. He enumerates the qualifi- 
 cations of an elder, and then adds, ' for a bishop (or overseer) 
 must be blameless,' &c. ; if this does not identify the bishop with 
 the elder, what can do it?" Accordingly, the scriptural bishops 
 are always in the plural number ; and bishops and presbyters 
 are terms interchangeable, forming the council or senate of the 
 Church. We believe that Diotrephes, " who loved to have the 
 pre-eminence," is the first example in the Scriptures of a singu- 
 lar president, who took the whole reins of ecclesiastical govern- 
 ment into his own hand, in order to exclude the Apostle John. 
 
 Bishops in the singular number, and distinguished from the 
 elders, became afterwards common during the second century. 
 Of this change Irenasus appears to have been ignorant ; so thick 
 a cloud of darkness had fallen even upon his times. What 
 should we think of a list of consuls, (whose very names indicated 
 their joint authority,) in which list a line of consuls in the 
 singular only was mentioned? We must conclude it to have 
 been forged after the Eepublic, and even after the Empire. A 
 list of the Bishops of Rome in the singular, must not only have 
 been fabricated, but fabricated after the memory of the Apostoli- 
 cal church had vanished away. The distance was but short 
 between the times of Irenseus and the Apostles, and had there 
 been but one bishop from the beginning, we have no doubt the 
 lists would have been correct; but when there were many 
 bishops their names were less important, nor could the succes- 
 sion of a plurality of church officers be marked with the same 
 accuracy as when there was but one eminent individual. 
 
 Hence a chasm at the commencement of the pedigree, and the 
 diversity between Irena?us and Tertullian. Irenseus making 
 Linus the first bishop, and Tertullian, Clement. Dr. Alexander, 
 in his excellent observations on Apostolical succession, asks, 
 
12 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 " What should we think of a man who should claim a dormant 
 peerage, on such pretences as those on which the Anglican clergy 
 claim spiritual descent from the Apostles ?" certainly such claims, 
 with such miserable lack of proof, would not be entertained by 
 any court of law. 
 
 The term Apostolical succession contains in itself an absurdity. 
 The Apostles could have no successors. It is pointed out in the 
 Acts, that the Apostles " must needs be witnesses of the life and 
 resurrection of Jesus.'' The Apostle Paul considered himself as 
 one " born out of due season," though a personal witness of the 
 presence and glory of the Lord Jesus, after his resurrection. 
 But by this ill-defined phrase, is probably intimated merely a 
 claim to be successors to those who were appointed by the 
 apostles. Then the Church of Borne is the worst chosen Church 
 to found such a claim upon. 
 
 It was founded without the Apostles, by the early disciples ; 
 and that party in the Church of England, who would derive 
 their succession and authority from Eome, have the least claim of 
 all — for even the ultra-Papists, who exalt the Komish See to 
 the uttermost, never ascribed a suicidal authority to the Pope. 
 He may give authority to preach in favour of Eome, but he 
 cannot give authority to preach against it ; when the connexion 
 ceases, the derived authority must cease also. 
 
 The charm of the succession must be ascribed to a mysterious 
 virtue derived from the hands of the Apostles — but the Apostles 
 did not lay on hands arbitrarily — the Cheirothesia (to use a Greek 
 term familiar with the readers of the Greek New Testament, and 
 of Harrington) required to be preceded by the Cheirotonia : none 
 were ordained who were not popularly elected. Where there is 
 no foundation, there is no superstructure ; where the beginning 
 is wanting the consummation is wanting also. Besides, the 
 claim to Apostolical succession leads to a conclusion very different 
 from that which is desired. The Apostles prophesied of the great 
 apostasy, and of the false teachers who were to succeed them — 
 that falling away interrupts the Apostolical descent by a chasm 
 which cannot be overpast — and the line ends, not in the imme- 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 13 
 
 diate successors of the Apostles, but in those " grievous wolves" 
 which were to enter in, " not sparing the flock." 
 
 But if there he no succession, whence do evangelists and pas- 
 tors derive their authority? From the same source from which 
 the Apostles derived theirs — the truth. " We believe, and there- 
 fore we have spoken." No authority can justify error, and no 
 authority can prevent the truth from not only being believed, 
 but proclaimed. No injury can be derived, from the truth 
 being its own sole warrant. Thus truth and authority remain 
 coincident — and while authority is inseparably connected with 
 truth, it can never be abused. The ministers of the Gospel fall 
 under two classes — that of evangelists, and that of pastors. 
 Every man has both a right and a duty to proclaim aloud the 
 fire that is about to consume his neighbour's dwelling ; and he 
 who believes the truth, to the saving of his own soul from the 
 flames of eternity, has a right and a duty to announce the same 
 saving truth to others. All that an evangelist requires is a deep 
 conviction of the truth, and the will and the ability to utter it. 
 With regard to the pastor, two wills must coincide — the choice 
 of the people, and the consent of the pastor, both parties being 
 guided by prayer, and both placing themselves, according to 
 the word of God, under the Divine direction. If there be the 
 right cheirotonia, the effective cheirothesia will follow. If the 
 hand be outstretched, first to seek the Divine direction, then to 
 designate the fit person, the Divine blessing will flow forth, 
 whether there be the imposition of mortal hands or no. At 
 Athens there were two churches, or ecclesias ; the assembly of 
 the people, and the assembly of God — the one consisting of the 
 citizens who were enrolled — according to the law, in the legal 
 lists — the other of those whose names were written in the book 
 of eternal life ; the one, of whom " Minerva" was " bishop" — the 
 other ruled by the humble overseers whom the people chose, 
 and Paul ordained. Both governed according to their respective 
 written laws — the orators citing the decrees of the people — the 
 pastors the oracles of the living God ; but both, however diffe- 
 rent in their objects and ends, having a common designation, 
 
14 POPERY AND INFIDELITf. 
 
 and much of a common character. The Episcopi of the Chris- 
 tian Church, like the Ephori of Sparta, began by being the 
 organs, and ended by becoming the masters, of their respective 
 communities. At first, a Christian Church was a free society 
 for mutual instruction. Spiritual gifts were not accumulated 
 upon a single head, but were divided throughout the members 
 for their mutual edification — and the distinction was strongly 
 drawn, between the visible Churches and the invisible Church 
 — between those little seminaries, where souls were preparing 
 for heaven, and the upper paradise to which, when prepared, 
 they should be transplanted. 
 
 But there is nothing upon earth, except the word of God, which 
 is stable. The outward form of discipline and the inward spirit 
 of life, remained not for a single age the same. The Church of 
 Ephesus had left its first love, even during the life of the Apostle 
 John ; and among the plurality of bishops there was one, it would 
 seem, who was seeking to become sole overseer, while the pres- 
 byters were about to become a subordinate body. In the aposto- 
 lical epistles the body of the faithful is generally addressed, more 
 rarely the office-bearers, but, as by a large admixture of those 
 who were slow to learn, " though for the time they ought to 
 have been teachers," the people, by disuse, had lost their privi- 
 leges, and in like manner, as kings of an abject multitude be- 
 come " the state," so the office-bearers became " the Church," 
 the community receiving their religious opinions from the mouths 
 of their usurping instructors. The same names remained ; but 
 how different in their import were the churches and bishops of 
 the real, or pseudo Ignatius, from the overseeing elders of Paul, 
 and the churches planted in Greece and Asia by him ! As Nature, 
 first used as a term of convenience, and to prevent the too fre- 
 quent repetition of the name of the Deity, passes, in philosophic 
 writing, from the mere constitution of the creation, to become 
 an idol invested with semi-divine attributes, and at last to usurp 
 the place of the Creator ; so the Church — the idol of the super- 
 stitious, as Nature of the irreligious, becomes, first a personifica- 
 tion, and then an imaginary power : taking the place of Christ 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 15 
 
 and invested with several of the attributes, as well as with 
 the authority of the Saviour. Three figments gradually set 
 themselves up in opposition to the truth — a pretended Apostolical 
 succession — setting aside the Divine regulations : a pretended 
 Tradition, taking its place beside the Bible, and gradually adul- 
 terating its meaning, and superseding its authority : and the 
 imaginary Church — a phantom, whose ill defined magnitude was 
 constantly expanding, standing between earth and heaven, and 
 interposing between the sinner and the Saviour. 
 
 There have been three periods, leaving out of view the con- 
 stant tyranny of Kome, of such high-church pretensions as we 
 have been describing : — the age of Constantine, and of his suc- 
 cessors ; the time of the usurpation of Charles and Laud ; and 
 the more puny, and we trust short-lived pretensions of Puseyism ; 
 which last is so rapidly merging into the great mass of Komish 
 corruptions as almost to require an apology for noticing its 
 ephemeral existence. Puseyism, of all heresies, has given the 
 most ingenuous account of its origin. It seems to have taken 
 for its model the proceedings of " the unjust steward." " I am 
 resolved what to do,'' said this prudent person, so careless for 
 his master's interest, so careful of his own, " that when I am 
 put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their 
 houses." In a similar strain says No. I. of " The Tracts for 
 the Times," — " Should the government and the country so far 
 forget their God as to cast off the Church, to deprive it of its 
 temporal honours and substance, on what will you rest the claim 
 of respect and attention which you make upon your flocks? 
 Hitherto you have been upheld by your birth, your education, 
 your wealth, your connexions ; should these secular advantages 
 cease, on what must Christ's ministers depend ? Is not this a 
 serious practical interrogation ? We know how miserable is the 
 state of religious bodies not supported by the State." — " I fear 
 we have neglected the real ground on which our authority is 
 built — our Apostolical Descent. Now every one of us believes 
 this ; I know that some will at first deny they do ; still they do 
 believe it. Only it is not sufficiently practically impressed upon 
 
16 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 their minds. They do believe it ; for it is the doctrine of the 
 ordination service," &c. " Receive ye the Holy Ghost," &c. 
 
 An additional claim is also made to the veneration of Britain 
 on the ground of spiritual monopoly, " The Church of England 
 being the only Church in this realm which has a right to be 
 quite sure that she has the Lord's body to give to His people." 
 Where we see that not even a proviso is made to save the rights 
 of the Mother-Church of Rome. Professor Sewel, though a 
 noted Tractarian, and assenting to these ingenious tactics, is 
 somewhat astonished at his own boldness. " These powers are 
 very great ; they are even awful, if not truly conferred by God, 
 they are blasphemously assumed by man." That they were as- 
 sumed by man, and assumed for a present exigency, is evident 
 from the above quotations ; that they were assumed without 
 scriptural authority, (and therefore blasphemously assumed,) will 
 be readily granted by every true Protestant, and also by every 
 true Romanist. 
 
 The Puseyites profess to be lovers of antiquity, they are 
 fond of going back to fifteen hundred years ago. Why not 
 eighteen hundred years ago ? the reason is plain — they like 
 the religion of Constantine, but not the religion of the Bible. 
 But the age of Constantine is the very period from which the 
 genuine Church of England shrinks back. The Bible, as in- 
 terpreted by the Fathers of the three first centuries, is the 
 ground on which the true Churchmen take their stand. Mr. 
 Faber, in his excellent work, " On the Difficulties of Ro- 
 manism," has victoriously proved that the three first centuries 
 are contrary to the peculiar doctrines of Rome. The Church 
 is therefore neither immutable nor infallible, seeing that the 
 three first centuries are opposed to the succeeding ones ; Tradi- 
 tion and the Fathers being witnesses. But Mr. Faber is too 
 acute for himself, the Fathers having routed Rome, like the 
 hosts of Midian, fall upon each other. If we expect a stop and 
 a hitch at the end of the third century, why should we be sur- 
 prised if that century should fall before the superior illumination 
 of the first and second ? and that both the second and the first, 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 17 
 
 in their turn, when weighed, should be found wanting in the 
 balance of the Gospel ? — so fails us, as a broken reed, all human 
 authority ! " The voice said, Cry ; — What shall I cry ? All flesh 
 is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the 
 field : — the grass withereth, the flower fadeth : but the word of 
 our God shall stand for ever." We desire to restrict our remarks 
 to the High Church of England, for there are two hostile bodies 
 that march alike under her banners, according to the oracle 
 given to Eebecca — 'Two nations are within thee, and two manner 
 of people shall be separated from thee. Would that in this case 
 also the elder might serve the younger ! The Puseyites desire 
 to return to the Church of Constantine ; but the Church of Con- 
 stantine was big with the Church of Eome ! Without, however, 
 waiting till opinions had ripened into their ultimate results, the 
 Puseyites have found a shorter path of returning to the modern 
 Babylon ; and Puseyism does more for Eome than Eome can do 
 for herself; Oxford is a better nurse of Popery, than Sala- 
 manca. 
 
 The same evil star of error, and its consequent punishment, 
 seems to arise in successive periods over the nations — '' And the 
 name of the star is called Wormwood ; and the third part of the 
 waters became wormwood ; and many men died of the waters, 
 because they were made bitter." That baleful planet, which 
 shed its disastrous light over the latter part of the Eoman Em- 
 pire, reappeared in the days of Laud, and is again ascending 
 above the horizon. Like effects will follow like causes. The 
 same errors in Theology will be attended with the same perver- 
 sions in morals ; and, unless the good providence of God interfere, 
 with equally disastrous political results. 
 
 To resume what has been said : the all-sufficiency of the Bible, 
 excluding all additions, of itself excludes both Puseyism and 
 Popery. Both of these receive a double refutation from examin- 
 ing the supports on which they lean — Tradition — Succession — 
 and the unscriptural Church. But Popery receives a third re- 
 futation in the monstrosity of its dogmas, alike contrary to reason, 
 and unsupported by evidence. It is in vain that Popery, like 
 
18 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 Puseyism, appeals to antiquity, " from the beginning it was not 
 so." There were the seeds of error early in the Church, but not 
 its full development. The testimony of the earlier ages is 
 against Popery — though there are indirect indications of the 
 commencement of Popish errors ; chiefly, however, among the 
 ruder multitude. At the martyrdom of Polycarp the Jews 
 warned the Eoman magistrate to withdraw the relics of the 
 deceased, lest the Christians should forsake " the crucified," and 
 adopt a newer Patron. An advice which moved the wonder 
 and scorn of the intelligent Christians, but which yet had some- 
 thing prophetic in it — the Romanists have realized the taunts of 
 these Jews, having substituted the worship of the Martyr's 
 relics, for the worship of the Saviour. At first the error was but 
 a seminal speck, a minute aberration, which the keen malice of 
 an enemy's eye could alone detect. 
 
 About the commencement of the third century the heathens 
 accused the Christians of worshipping the cross. Minucius Felix, 
 for himself and for his enlightened brethren, boldly, and justly, 
 we believe, denies it in the well known sentence, " Cruces nee 
 colimus, nee optamus;" but, again, there was something pro- 
 phetic in the accusation, founded on the growing belief of the 
 supposed influence of the cross, to avert the powers of evil. 
 
 The Papist pleads the antiquity of his opinions — so may the 
 Socinian — as we have shewn in " The Errors regarding Religion." 
 So may the antisupernatnralist. Error is as old as Truth. In 
 the fallen mind of man it is even antecedent to revealed truth — 
 and Christianity and Antichristianity are connate : springing up 
 together at the first publication of the Gospel, from the sudden 
 mixture of new created light, with ancient darkness which it 
 disturbed, not destroyed. It would have been easy to have 
 found patrons for error, even in the Apostolical Churches. What 
 weight with the lovers of antiquity more than of truth, would 
 not a perverted Gospel have possessed, dating from St. Paul's 
 earlier ministry, and denying, with Rome, (as she now is,) justi- 
 fication by faith alone ? But what was the exclamation of the 
 Apostle Paul, on witnessing so ancient a dogma, "0 foolish 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 19 
 
 Galatians, who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the 
 Truth?" 
 
 Christianity, gradually corrupted, " by the perpetual canker- 
 worm of Tradition," as Milton well terms it, changed from bad 
 to worse, till it ended by becoming in all respects Antichristi- 
 anity : at once the opposite, and the counterfeit, of true Eeligion. 
 Then, in opposition to the spiritual body of true Believers, with 
 Christ, their Heavenly King for their living Head, appeared a 
 noisome and putrefying carcase, composed of an unregenerate mass 
 of the multitude of nations, with the false prophet of the Bevela- 
 tion, the Papal Antichrist for their head and ruler. Instead of 
 those who had the image of God impressed upon their souls, and 
 were sealed by the Holy Spirit of God unto the day of final re- 
 demption, arose a semi-pagan horde who forbade to live, all 
 those who had not like themselves the mark of the beast on their 
 foreheads, or on their right hand. 
 
 Instead of those who were clothed in the spotless robes of 
 Christ's righteousness, came those who were arrayed in the 
 merits of pretended saints, and were abundantly furnished with 
 the works of supererogation, out of the imaginary storehouse of 
 Popery, warranted by lying legends, and anile fables! — "But 
 this," as Milton says, " shall be our righteousness, our ample 
 warrant, and strong assurance both now, and at the last day, 
 never to be ashamed of, against all the heaped names of angels 
 and martyrs, Councils and Fathers, urged upon us, if we have 
 given ourselves up to be taught by the pure and living precept 
 of God's word only, which without more additions, nay, with a 
 forbidding of them, hath within itself the promise of eternal life, 
 the end of all our wearisome labours, and all our sustaining 
 hopes." 
 
 The true Church is founded in belief on God's testimony — the 
 false Church upon unqualified assent to the dogmas of men. 
 " Come and let us reason together," is the invitation of the infinite 
 Jehovah — "Submit without reasoning," says the prophet of 
 darkness. "To the Catholic," says Wiseman, "there is only 
 that one gate, of absolute and unconditional submission to the 
 
20 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 teaching of the Church." — " A Eomanist inquirer perhaps goes 
 to the Priest, and tells him that he cannot find these doctrines in 
 the Bible, his Priest argues with him, and endeavours to con- 
 vince him that he should shut up the book which is leading him 
 astray — he perseveres ; he abandons the communion of the 
 Church of Rome, or, as it is commonly expressed, the errors of 
 that Church, and becomes a Protestant. Now through all this 
 process the man was a Protestant ; from the beginning he started 
 with the principle that whatsoever is not in that book, cannot 
 be true in religion, or an article of faith ; and that is the prin- 
 ciple of Protestantism. He took Protestantism, therefore, for 
 granted, before he began to examine the Catholic doctrine." It 
 is more amusing than it ought, perhaps, to be on so serious a 
 subject, to observe the opposite advice which Dr. Wiseman gives 
 to Catholics and Protestants. Of the Protestant in the most 
 winning tones he asks, Does any doubt arise in your mind, 
 cherish it — it may be to you the beginning of eternal life. On 
 the other hand, to the Catholic, with a warning voice he ex- 
 claims, Does any doubt arise in your' mind, stifle it at once, 
 otherwise it may lead you to everlasting destruction. While 
 Dr. Wiseman lauds or condemns the same state of mind accord- 
 ing as he expects it will issue in accordance or not with his own 
 opinions, the Scriptures encourage and command us to terminate 
 all our doubts by a full inquiry into the Truth. How easy is 
 the mild yoke of Jesus, how heavy the unreasonable tyranny of 
 the Pope — commanding men, like Pharaoh, to make bricks with- 
 out straw — to believe without evidence, and to obey without 
 any motive, but the base one of fear. 
 
 The tenor of the Gospel is " Hear, and understand, every one 
 of you." Believe, and be saved. These are the four steps by 
 which we rise into eternal life. The Papacy commands us to 
 believe without understanding, and even without hearing; for 
 submission to what the Church teaches, or to what she will 
 teach, is sufficient to secure our admittance into the fool's para- 
 dise which she promises to her proselytes after death. Millions 
 upon millions in the Church of Rome live and die uninstructed 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 21 
 
 in the tenets of Eome, and their submission to the Church 
 merely amounts to a promise to believe whenever they shall be 
 required to do so. They submit to the unknown dogmas of 
 their priests, but their priests are in a like condition with them- 
 selves. They also have submitted their reason, their senses, 
 their conscience to the Church. But what is the Church in the 
 Eoman sense ? Simply the priesthood ; therefore, one genera- 
 tion of priests, as well as people, submit to a former generation 
 — each consenting to be blindfolded, and to give up the exercise 
 of their mental powers ! The reductio ad absurdum, proposed to 
 the Atheists, is realized in the Church of Eome. Here is an 
 endless file of blind men, if not in an infinite, in an indefinite 
 series, all trusting themselves to the guidance of each other, 
 and approaching the brink of a precipice, without' the least 
 distrust of their safety ! 
 
 Eome occupies a position altogether untenable, she can neither 
 do with the Scriptures, nor without them. She is without proofs, 
 and powerless when opposed to a decided infidel ; for the proofs 
 of Eome, such as they are, are drawn directly or indirectly from 
 the Bible ; the infidel denies the authority of the Bible, or, if he 
 admit it for argument's sake, intimates that the authority of 
 the Bible opposes the claims of Eome. The Church of Eome 
 professes to work miracles ; let, therefore, a miracle be wrought 
 — most requisite, where other proof is wanting — but, the miracles 
 of Eome are reserved for those who need them least, the ignorant 
 and the credulous, who are already submitted to her authority ! 
 To the Bible, therefore, Eome has recourse, in the first instance, 
 to convince the gainsayers ; though, as soon as this is effected, 
 the book is withdrawn, lest Eome herself should be convicted. 
 The Eomish doctors are not only aware, but avow, that the 
 reading of the Bible is not favourable to Eome. " How unjust," 
 says Dr. Wiseman, " how unjust it is to say, that the Church 
 has withheld the Bible from the people. But mark the change. 
 The Scriptures have been diffused amongst the faithful, and 
 would have so continued, had not dangerous doctrines sprung 
 up, which taught, that men should throw aside all authority, 
 
22 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 and each one judge for himself in religion." This is a fair test ; 
 " by their fruits ye shall know them." The result of reading 
 the Bible is fatal to the authority of Eome ; the people of the 
 Pope, by its effect upon themselves, being witnesses. The 
 priests, who withdrew the Bible from the people because of 
 those effects, also give their testimony to the consequences of 
 reading the Scriptures. We, the Protestants, also, fully assent, 
 and heartily agree that Popery and the reading of the Scrip- 
 tures are incompatible. 
 
 Under such circumstances, can an appeal be legitimately 
 made to the Scriptures, by those who not only confess, but act 
 upon the confession, that the general tenor of the Scriptures is 
 against them? Can they who withdraw the Scriptures' as a 
 whole, plead as their only support a very few detached passages ? 
 When the accumulated mass of evidence is against a prisoner, 
 would the jury lay much stress on the attempt to interpret two 
 or three slight incidents in his favour ? The Bible, self-inter- 
 preted, is against the Romanists, by their own showing; will 
 half-a-dozen of texts, however ingeniously tortured, be ever 
 made, by the most able pleading, a support for so sinking a 
 cause ? 
 
 The Bomanists are in a dilemma which will prove fatal to 
 them whenever the world begins seriously to think upon the 
 subject of religion. Their only escape from infidelity is pleading 
 a few passages of Scripture ; and again, their only escape from 
 Protestantism, is employing similar arguments to those of the 
 infidel, and endeavouring to impair the Divine authority and the 
 all-sufficiency of the Scriptures. Of many of the infidels about 
 the time of the Beformation, it would be difficult to say whether 
 they had fabricated their arguments themselves, or had borrowed 
 them from the Papists. The infidels have the less disingenuous 
 task to perform ; true to their own principles, or want of prin- 
 ciple, they advance by an open path, whereas the Papists must 
 have recourse to the same vicious circle, in which they are per- 
 petually running round, of proving their pretended Church from 
 the Scriptures, and then, of asserting the authority of the Scrip- 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 23 
 
 tures, from the sanction of their Church. They cannot sup- 
 port their Church but by the misinterpretation of Scripture ; 
 for, did they venture to maintain the authority of the Scriptures, 
 without reference to their Church, then, an independent autho- 
 rity would subordinate a derived authority ; and the Papal pre- 
 tensions of balancing the Scriptures by tradition would be at 
 an end. 
 
 Two of the cardinal doctrines of Rome, are the Supremacy of 
 the Pope, and Transubstantiation. The claim of the Pope to 
 supremacy rests upon a wide extended chain of sophisms ; which 
 however may be gathered up into three heads. First, Peter 
 was supreme over the other Apostles. Secondly, Churches in- 
 herited precedency from their founders ; and thirdly, Eome was 
 Peter's bishopric. The Eomanist writers, with much judg- 
 ment, dwell greatly on the first head, thus turning the battle 
 from their own gates for a season. "We naturally would begin 
 with the third ; because, whatever Peter's supremacy might be, 
 were it bestowed upon any other Church, we should have all 
 the acuteness and authority of Eome on our side, and not against 
 us, in reducing that supremacy within scriptural and reasonable 
 limits. Eome may delight in her own fancied supremacy, but 
 would have little pleasure in recognising the ecclesiastical autho- 
 rity which the course of argument might transfer to Antioch or 
 Jerusalem. Neither would the Pope, though styling himself 
 " the servant of servants," greatly rejoice to find himself pros- 
 trate at the feet of some obscure patriarch of the East ; though 
 with evidently higher title to the successorship of Peter. 
 
 To begin, then, with one short sentence, that overthrows, how- 
 ever, all the arrogant claims of Popery. It is not proved that 
 St. Peter was ever at Eome. The path of the Eoman apologists 
 here reminds one of the termination of the bridge of Mirza; 
 where the passenger hobbled on for a time from one broken arch 
 to another, but at last met with an unexpected pit-fall, and dis- 
 appeared. "We have only to repeat the sentence — It is not 
 proved that St. Peter was ever at Eome : and the controversy 
 virtually ends. All the gorgeous fabrics of superstition — all the 
 
24 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 dreams of universal empire — as far as evidence is concerned, 
 vanish into thin air. 
 
 But if there is no proof, may there not he a probability that 
 St. Peter was at Borne ; might the Bomanists respond, when 
 pleading, " in forma pauperis t" The answer obviously is, — In 
 such a momentous case, it is not probabilities, but proof that is 
 required. Still, though not obliged to do so, we may examine 
 the probabilities for a moment. Cardinal Bellarmine pleads that 
 Peter was at Borne, because that nobody doubted his having 
 been there, during fourteen centuries. This is not very power- 
 ful logic. Would it have been safe to have doubted it ? For 
 how many centuries was there no doubt entertained that the 
 sun moved around the earth ? But, it was doubted, by Bellar- 
 mine's own showing, for he says it was proved ; and we do not 
 prove that of which no doubt is entertained. "What are the 
 proofs? Because Peter dates from Babylon, says the credu- 
 lous Papias ; and Borne, by the early Christians, was under- 
 stood to be the Babylon of the Eevelation. This argument 
 cuts both ways, and makes more against Borne than for it. But 
 it is also absurd ; for though, in Papias's days, Borne and Baby- 
 lon were identified, by the Eevelation of St. John ; yet the 
 greatest students of prophecy do not date from Apocalyptic, but 
 from real cities ; and Peter's date, from. Babylon, if Borne were 
 meant, would not be a fact, but a prophecy, and a prophecy of 
 a prophecy — and a reference to a work which was not yet 
 divulged ! 
 
 " If Peter were not at Borne, who brought his dead body 
 there ?" exclaim both Eusebius and Bellarmine. Certainly not 
 he himself. " I think it superfluous," says Eusebius, " to seek 
 for testimony that the two Apostles were martyred at Borne, 
 since their monuments are there to testify." But who will 
 testify to the veracity of the monuments ? 
 
 Bellarmine adds, " Peter was Bishop of Borne, because Borne 
 is the greatest of bishoprics." This is mistaking 'the effect for 
 the cause. Borne was the greatest bishopric, because Peter was 
 supposed to have been its Bishop. 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 25 
 
 The ultimatum of Bellarmine's questions may be placed last. 
 " If he was not bishop of Rome, of what was he Bishop ?" If 
 we may trust his own account, he was one of the many Bishop- 
 Elders of Jerusalem. This, however, is trifling with the triflers, 
 but what misery have these learned trifles not caused to the 
 world ! 
 
 But suppose Peter to have been at Rome ; it would show 
 great ignorance of antiquity to imagine that he would become 
 Bishop of Rome. The Apostles were Bishops and Elders at 
 Jerusalem ; elsewhere, they were Apostles alone. They ap- 
 pointed Bishops in all other cities, chosen by, and out of, the 
 Churches in these cities. The Apostles derive their name from 
 being missionaries ; and, as has often been observed, had the.y 
 constituted themselves Bishops, would have given the world the 
 first examples of non-residence. 
 
 A second series of fallacies is summed up in the second head 
 we have mentioned — that Churches inherited precedency from 
 their founders. " In the first place," says Dr. Wiseman, " it 
 has been always understood, from the beginning, that whatever 
 prerogatives, though personal, of jurisdiction were brought to a 
 See, by its first Bishop, were continued to his successors." For 
 this we have no proof, merely assertion. The founders of 
 Churches, in general, are not ascertained — their precedency, 
 therefore, if depending upon their founders, would still be in 
 dispute. But the precedency of Churches depended upon a far 
 different principle, their political importance. Rome, Antioch, 
 Alexandria, were determined in the scale of precedency, not by 
 their unknown, or disputed founders, but by their rank in the 
 Roman Empire. Afterwards, they borrowed additional illustra- 
 tion from their supposed founders, and their original foundation. 
 " Peter," continues Dr. Wiseman, " first sat in the chair of 
 Antioch, and that chair has ever retained its dominion over a 
 large portion of the East. In like manner, therefore, if to the 
 See of Rome he brought, not merely the Patriarchate of the 
 West, but the Primacy over the whole world, this accidental 
 jurisdiction became inherent in the See, and heritable, by entail, 
 
26 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 to his successors." — Dr. Wiseman's opinion may be couched in 
 legal terms, but the decision in favour of Rome is far from being 
 equitable, or rational. Peter sat first, in the council of Apostles 
 at Jerusalem — whether upon a chair or not, is more than doubt- 
 ful. On Dr. Wiseman's own principles, all his prerogatives 
 were transferred to the mother Church at Jerusalem. 
 
 Antioch could only be the successor of Jerusalem, and Rome, 
 according to Dr. Wiseman's own account, could only have the 
 lowest claim — and posterior to them both. Therefore let the 
 Pope, his own Cardinal being the judge, despoil himself of his 
 usurped authority, and, on the principles of Rome herself, seek 
 for his legitimate superior in some unknown region of the East. 
 
 The Pope is therefore denuded of all advantages from Peter's 
 pretended Primacy over the other Apostles. He must be a loser 
 instead of a gainer, if Peter's lineal descendant could be dis- 
 covered. If argument might prevail, the Pope upon one point 
 might entertain Protestant feelings. Peter however, as is evident 
 from his Epistles, had no knowledge of his own supremacy ; and 
 exacts obedience, not to himself, but to the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 He fully understood that Christ, and not Peter, was the rock on 
 which the Church was founded. " To whom coming, as unto a 
 living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and 
 precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, 
 an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to 
 God by Jesus Christ." Peter was the first of those living stones, 
 that were built upon the Rook, Christ. He first, fully confessed 
 Him, among the disciples — he, first, proclaimed Him among the 
 Gentiles ; and though especially the Apostle of the circumcision, 
 (by his reception of the Centurion,) he, with his ,own hands, 
 broke down the wall of partition, which separated the Gentile 
 from the Jew. But what absurdity, as well as what blasphemy, 
 to interpret literally Peter's being the Rock on which the Church 
 is built — for if so, we must be consistent in our folly, pursue our 
 literal interpretation throughout, and view him as the Christian 
 Janus, in his twofold aspect — first, as the Rock on which the 
 Church is built — and, at the same time, as Satan, the great 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 27 
 
 adversary of that Church ! — " Get thee behind me, Satan ; thou 
 art an offence unto me, for thou savourest not the things of God, 
 but those that be of men." 
 
 The second great doctrine of the Romish Church is Transub- 
 stantiation. The whole of Catholicity, according to Dr. Wise- 
 man, is founded on and interwoven with Transuhstantiation. 
 " The Sacrament of the Eucharist forms the very soul and 
 essence of all practical religion among Catholics." 
 
 Here, as in other Eoman Catholic tenets, where the evidence 
 should be strong, in proportion to their incredibility, there is 
 properly speaking no argument at all. The proof rests on 
 Christ's saying of the bread, " This is my body ;" but Christ, by 
 the allowance of the Catholics themselves, spoke figuratively as 
 well as literally. We may add, our Saviour generally spoke figu- 
 ratively, so that when he spoke without a figure, his disciples 
 were surprised : — " Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest 
 no proverb." The disciples must have understood Christ figura- 
 tively — his body and the bread were both, visibly, and separately, 
 before them — not only must they have understood the bread as the 
 sign of his body ; but as the sign not of his present body, but of his 
 body to be broken upon the cross. His body was unbroken when 
 he gave them the bread. " This is my body which is broken 
 for you." But, not only was the Saviour's discourse figurative, 
 but that figure was determined by a previous conversation. In 
 the sixth chapter of John we have the origin of that conversa- 
 tion — it sprung out of the miracle of the loaves and fishes — and 
 from the Jews seeking a continuance of the same miraculous 
 supplyi Our Saviour announces to them, " I am the bread of 
 life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that 
 believeth on me shall never thirst." And then, in the 51st 
 verse, " I am the living bread which came down from heaven : 
 if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever : and the bread 
 that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the 
 world." 
 
 All, even the Eomanists, allow that the bread is figurative — 
 but, it follows demonstratively, that if the bread be understood 
 
28 FOPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 spiritually, the flesh must be understood spiritually also. Here 
 then the whole pile of superstition is falling to the ground ; the 
 Romanists are sensible of it, but have not one buttress to prevent 
 the threatening ruin. — " As a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a 
 tottering fence ;" — and " there shall not be found in the bursting 
 thereof a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water 
 withal from the pit." 
 
 Dr. Wiseman and the Catholics, reduced to the last extremity, 
 place all their hopes in punctuation. Dr. Wiseman says, " All 
 are agreed as to the next portion of the chapter ; that is, from 
 the 26th, so far as about the 50th verse, that in it our Saviour's 
 discourse is about faith. But at this point enters the material 
 difference of opinion among us. We say that at that verse, or 
 somewhere about it, a change takes place in our Saviour's dis- 
 course." It is melancholy to see Dr. Wiseman, like the sorcerer 
 Elymas, groping about in darkness, hoping against hope, to find 
 something, somewhere, that will serve his purpose of perverting 
 the Scriptures. It is not wonderful that Dr. Wiseman differs 
 from the Protestants ; the Catholics cannot agree among them- 
 selves. Dr. Wiseman says, " I feel myself strongly led to suppose 
 that the transition takes place in the 48th verse instead of the 
 51st verse, where it is commonly pit." The whole edifice of 
 superstition is crumbling into ruins, and the only hope of safety 
 depends upon placing a point ! And, infallibility itself, though 
 its all is at stake, has not yet determined where that point should 
 be placed — whether after the 48th, or after .the 51st verse ! 
 
 There is evidently no transition — no break in the discourse. 
 The same terms are continued, in the same sense, and with the 
 same co-relation. In the 51st verse, after the disputed stop, 
 Jesus says, " I am the living bread which came down from 
 heaven : if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever : and 
 the bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for 
 the life of the world." It is remarkable that the Jews fell into 
 the same error with the Catholics, and understood the Saviour 
 literally. — " How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" The 
 Jews, however, shewed more acuteness than the Catholics in 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 29 
 
 perceiving the absurdity of the words, when taken literally ; but 
 the remarks of our Saviour are applicable to both, — 63d verse, 
 " It is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing : the 
 words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." 
 
 As Archbishop Tillotson has shewn long ago, the arguments 
 against Transiibstantiation are stronger than the arguments for 
 believing the Scriptures. We have but the testimony of the 
 Apostles for the Christian miracles, and they had the testimony 
 of their senses, — but we have the testimony of our own senses 
 against Transubstantiation, — therefore to prove that Transub- 
 stantiation was contained in the Scriptures, would be to prove, 
 not the reality of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, but to dis- 
 prove the Scriptures. No wonder that Popery leads so directly 
 — so generally — to Infidelity. 
 
 But the Komanists are not satisfied with the native absurdity 
 of Transubstantiation — they have added blasphemy to absurdity. 
 " This doctrine of the Catholic Church," to use the words of Dr. 
 Wiseman, " which perhaps of all other dogmas has been most 
 exposed to misrepresentation, or, at least, certainly to scorn and 
 obloquy, is clearly defined in the words of the Council of Trent, 
 where we are told, that the Catholic Church teaches, and always 
 has taught, that in the Blessed Eucharist, that which was ori- 
 ginally bread and wine, is, by the consecration, changed into 
 the substance of the Body and Blood of our Lord, together with 
 His soul and divinity, in other words, His complete and entire 
 person ; which change the Catholic Church has properly called 
 Transubstantiation." Be it noted, in passing, for it is charac- 
 teristic, the Body and the Blood are honoured with large letters 
 in Dr. Wiseman's work, while soul and divinity are without 
 them — and are thus, discreetly, put into the background. 
 
 To what depths of absurdity is the fallen mind of man capable 
 of descending ! An abused revelation is worse than no revela- 
 tion at all. The heathen have no such monster creed as this. 
 To believe that bread is flesh and wine blood, contrary to the 
 evidence of our senses, is almost a miracle of folly, and the 
 having ever obtained converts to it seems the nearest approach 
 
30 POPEEY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 to a miracle which Eome could produce. Yet this is not enough 
 for the Papist, he must solace himself with the idea that he is 
 swallowing the flesh of his crucified Saviour, and not only His 
 flesh but His soul — and not only His soul but His divinity! 
 Here indeed we may see the hand of God — they are stricken 
 with judicial blindness, that they should believe a lie more 
 revolting than all the other figments of the human race put 
 together ! And what hope can there be (without the most 
 evident Divine interference) that reason will make any impres- 
 sion upon men who adopt the greatest " reductio ad absurdum" 
 that ever was, as the leading article of their creed, and the chief 
 corner-stone of their religious system ? Around this portent of 
 incredibility all the other Eoman Catholic dogmas cluster. 
 " This influence," says Wiseman, " of our belief in the real 
 presence, upon every part of our practical religion, is too manifest 
 to need any illustration. Why do we, when it is in our power, 
 and why did our forefathers before us, erect sumptuous churches, 
 and lavish on them all the riches of the earth, but that we 
 believe them to be the real tabernacles wherein the Emanuel, 
 the " God with us," really dwells? Why is our worship con- 
 ducted with such pomp and solemnity, save that we perform it 
 as a personal service on the incarnate word of God? Why are 
 the gates of our churches, in Catholic countries, open all day, 
 and why do men enter at all hours to whisper a prayer, or pros- 
 trate themselves in adoration, but from the conviction that God 
 is there more intimately present than elsewhere, through this 
 glorious mystery?" " The sacred character which the Catholic 
 Priest possesses in the estimation of his flock, the power of bless- 
 ing with which he seems invested, are both the results of that 
 familiarity with which, in the holy mysteries, he is allowed to 
 approach his Lord. The celibacy to which the clergy bind 
 themselves is but a practical expression of that sentiment which 
 the Church entertains of the unvarying purity of conduct and 
 thought, wherewith the altar should be approached." And all 
 this in the sole honour and worship of a deified wafer ? This 
 surpasses the mysteries of Heathenism ; the gorgeous temples, 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 31 
 
 the clouds of incense, and the crowds of worshippers, all adoring 
 an ox or an ape enshrined in the inmost sanctuary. 
 
 The Eomanists object, and justly, to the position, and founda- 
 tion, which a part of the Church of England has assumed ; as 
 built upon the Bible, and the Fathers of the first three centuries. 
 They have clearly pointed out, in the principle expressed in the 
 maxim, "Nemo repente turpissimus fuit," that the Church could 
 not be pure in the year 299, and exceedingly corrupt in the year 
 301. Such a transformation would almost amount to the Roman 
 doctrine of Transubstantiation — by which process alone a pure 
 community could have become antichristian in so brief a space of 
 time. We agree with the Eomanists, that the law of continuity 
 holds in the Church as well as in nature, and that large bodies 
 do not suddenly change their characters, except when placed 
 under strikingly new circumstances. But we do not hold that 
 the primitive Church was free from error, except in the case of 
 the Apostles, and other inspired persons, themselves. Even in 
 the times of the Apostles there were many antichrists. The 
 Apostles erected the Churches as beacons, blazing over a stormy 
 ocean, holding forth the Light of Life. But of course the light 
 was brightest at its centre, and became shaded towards its cir- 
 cumference. All were not Apostles — all were not Teachers — 
 all were not even taught ! Many mixed the good seed of the 
 word with the weeds which were the previous occupants of the 
 soil. The fallow ground not being thoroughly broken up, the 
 wheat interweaved its spikes, with the thorns and the • thistles 
 that still continued to grow there. From the first, Judaizing 
 tendencies were displayed in the Churches — and, as the. heathen 
 converts became more numerous, there was also a revival of 
 Gentile errors. We have pointed out, in noticing the martyrdom 
 of Polycarp, a tendency to pass from hero-worship to martyr- 
 worship. We also noted, that the early superstitious veneration 
 attached to the Cross, had attracted the criticisms of the more 
 sharp-sighted Pagans. But these evils, and many more, natur- 
 ally increased in the course of time. The Christians, when 
 deprived of the Apostles, their inspired guides, towards the close 
 
32 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 of the first century, laboured under many disadvantages, from 
 which we, at the present times, through the mercy of God, have 
 been delivered. The early Christians had, indeed, the Old Tes- 
 tament ; but, too fancifully interpreted by uninspired commen- 
 tators. They had also the New — first in parts — and then as a 
 whole — and not unperused, for their quotations are early, and 
 numerous. Yet, they were an illiterate people, as we formerly 
 observed, when alluding to their monuments ; and, though 
 warned against the old leaven — and the vain traditions derived 
 from their fathers, they were very apt to mix the workings of 
 their own imperfectly regulated minds, and the recollections of a 
 former religious belief, with the pure oracles of God. 
 
 We ourselves, who have the Bible by our side, have continual 
 need of reviving its impressions on our hearts, by opening and 
 re-opening its sacred pages, and inquiring of every new religious 
 notion that springs up in the mind, from whence it proceeds — 
 whether from the word of God, and then we gladly receive 
 it ; or whether merely from the workings of our own mind, and 
 then we would as gladly discard it, as part of that lumber of 
 human inventions, and will-worship, which in past times has so 
 often encumbered the truth. 
 
 In the first ages little of this caution was used. The test of 
 truth — the Bible — was not so ready at hand, to be applied to 
 every notion that demanded admittance. As in the parable of 
 the sower, and as in the case of the thorny ground hearers, the 
 crop was too motley and diversified for profitable use. Half 
 understood tenets, imperfectly recollected traditions — arguments 
 that ended in fancies, and similitudes that were mistaken for 
 arguments, filled the mind with a variegated cloud-scenery that 
 obscured the brightness of the Sun of Bighteousness. 
 
 Then the doors of the metaphoric Church were flung wider 
 and wider open. A camel with a whole load of antiquated rub- 
 bish might enter fearlessly in. Converts were succeeded by 
 half-converts, and these in their turn were succeeded by a multi- 
 tude, Christian in name, but Pagan at heart ; who, though 
 exorcised by holy water, introduced their own lying spirits into 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 33 
 
 the desecrated churches, instead of the spirit of the truth. The 
 Church was changed without any sudden change on the part of 
 the disciples who composed it — it was the want of change of its 
 votaries which produced an apparent change, but a real perma- 
 nence. Christians and Pagans joining together in an outward 
 union, Christianity and Paganism, in the too natural course of 
 events, coalesced. Eomanism then appeared in its full develop- 
 ment (with respect to the mass) as Paganism baptized ; with 
 respect to the more thoughtful, displaying the combining ele- 
 ments in ,every varying proportion — as it does down to the 
 present hour, some being almost entirely Christian — and others 
 almost entirely Pagan, with every intermediate shade of grada- 
 tion. 
 
 One tenet alone was absolutely required — submission to the 
 Church ; and but one rite of initiation — baptism ; which was 
 supposed to confer regeneration. As transubstantiation is de- 
 monstrated at once to be false, by the evidence of the senses ; 
 so, baptismal regeneration is perpetually confuted by universal 
 experience. The Apostle could say to the primitive converts, 
 enumerating the classes of the greatest sinners among the Gen- 
 tiles, with the peculiar enormities of their sin, " Such were some 
 of you ;" but, to the baptismally regenerated of Spain and Italy, 
 we may say, and from their own authorities — Such are many of 
 you — with, perhaps, sins of yet deeper turpitude than prevailed 
 in the heathen times of these respective countries. 
 
 Baptism is connected in the Scriptures with regeneration — 
 but not as the Eomanists connect them. They are guilty of the 
 fallacy of the "terigm wgingov — in plain English, of putting 
 the cart before the horse. In ancient times the regenerated 
 were invited to be baptized — believe and be baptized — belief 
 being the first act of the regenerated mind. With the Eomanists 
 persons are baptized in order to be regenerated, but with a woful 
 want of the expected result. 
 
 It is wonderful how scriptural Dr. Wiseman is on the subject 
 of baptism, when he hopes in this way to perplex Protestants. 
 " The Apostles were simply told to baptize all nations ; but how 
 
34 FOPEEY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 do you prove from this that baptism is to be administered to 
 infants ? Yet the English Church Articles prescribe infant bap- 
 tism. Or whence comes the warrant for departing from the 
 literal meaning of the word, which means immersion, and the 
 adoption of mere affusion, or sprinkling of the water? There 
 may have been infants in the families or houses spoken of as 
 baptized — probably so ; but this is only conjecture, and not 
 proof; surely not enough to base an important practice on, 
 which, without better authority, should seem to contradict our 
 Saviour's command, that faith should precede or accompany 
 baptism. ' He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved.' 
 For in a positive institution, wholly depending on the will of the 
 legislator, positive authority is requisite for any modification of 
 the prescribed act. Where is the security for these modifications, 
 if not in the explanation of the Church, conveyed to us by her 
 ancient practices? And thus in like manner, if there be not 
 clearly mentioned in Scripture a place of purgation, but still if 
 we find forgiveness of sins in the next world spoken of, — if we 
 find that prayers are beneficial for those that have died, — that 
 nothing defiled can enter the kingdom of heaven, — and that it is 
 incompatible with God's justice that every sin should consign 
 the offender to eternal punishment, — we have the germs of a 
 doctrine which only require to be unfolded ; we have the mem- 
 bers and component parts of a complete system, which, as in 
 baptism, require only further explanation and combination from 
 the Church of God." 
 
 The allusion to Penance and Purgatory in the above quotation 
 from Dr. Wiseman, reminds us of the gradual change which took 
 place from truth to error. The Gospel proclaims repentance to- 
 wards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. In the word 
 of our translation, repentance, there is the beginning of an obscura- 
 tion of the meaning of the original. We are called to (fttravoia) a 
 change of mind towards God — to think of Him, not as such an one 
 as ourselves, but as a God of infinite holiness ; and His law, as a 
 law of infinite purity : and to regard ourselves as in an utterly lost 
 condition ; undone, and unclean, in His sight — deprived of all hope 
 
POPEKY AND INFIDELITY. df> 
 
 from ourselves, having no health in us, or power to restore our- 
 selves, and shut up to the Divine and complete salvation, that is to 
 he found in the Lord Jesus Christ. In our language we have many 
 excellent treatises, both in Essays (as in the Kambler,) and in 
 Sermons, upon repentance — excellent, in all but this, that theirs 
 is not the exact repentance (or, iiitummo) of the Scriptures. 
 How secret and almost imperceptible at the first are the aberra- 
 tions of the mind, from the truth of the Gospel, as it reverts 
 from the light of Heaven to the light of nature — from revealed 
 religion to imperfect natural religion — and from obscured natural 
 religion, to the shades of superstition. 
 
 First, Mirdvoia passes gently into our modern repentance, 
 then repentance into remorse, where there is more of the feelings, 
 and less of the intellect ; and where the pain of remorse is more 
 valued than the change of views — and pain, being considered as 
 meritorious, easily passes from the pangs which rend the mind, 
 to the penance which tortures the body. But, after all, the 
 self-inflicted austerities of Eomanism, and all the acts of its 
 saints, as has often been observed, fade away before the astound- 
 ing penances of the ancient Hindoos, and other Eastern nations. 
 
 With Penance, another fountain of error combined its bitter 
 waters. Prayers for the dead — followed by a Purgatory, borrowed 
 from the ancient heathens. The change also in this case was 
 very gentle, as may be deciphered from the ancient monuments. 
 First arose a wish, rather than a prayer — breathed after the 
 departing soul, and the Pagan expression, " may the earth lie 
 light upon you," was changed into the Christian valediction, 
 "may you find rest with Jesus,'' thus exchanging the "sit tibi 
 terra levis," for " sit tibi requies cum Jesu." But it is difficult, 
 even for a true Christian, earnestly engaged in prayer for a 
 dying friend, to observe that solemn and eternal silence before 
 God, when the tree once,falls to the ground : and soon prayer, not 
 only before, but after death, was offered up for the welfare of 
 those who had left this mortal life ; and (with the approbation 
 of Tertullian, and the usage of many of the Church at the com- 
 mencement of the third century) supplication continued to be 
 
36 POPEKY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 renewed on each aniversary day of his death, for the welfare of 
 the deceased. With this was combined the doctrine of penance 
 — one error readily joining hand with another. The penance 
 might have been imperfect on earth, but there was time to com- 
 plete it between the day of death, and the day of judgment; and 
 prayer for the dead was supposed at once to accelerate the opera- 
 tion of penance in another world, and to afford to the sufferer, 
 under this imaginary discipline, intervals of repose and refresh- 
 ment — " refrigerium " — a term which we may well blush to find 
 in the earliest, but ill-judging Latin Father, Tertullian — a term, 
 which gives us a pre-intimation of the future purgatorial fires. 
 We take some pains in noticing the gradual increments of super- 
 stition, because, while we concede the Bomish argument of con- 
 tinuity, we can shew a series of gradual, but not sudden changes, 
 in the slow, but perpetual evolution of the transformation of 
 opinions ; and prove that " the Infallible Church" is both very 
 mutable, and very fallible. 
 
 Another instance of the gradual rise of error may be taken 
 from what has been called Mariolatry, or the worship of the 
 deified Virgin. In the catacombs, the earliest rude attempts 
 at depicting figures on the wall consist in representations by 
 the Christians, of the prophet Jonas ; a similarity being felt 
 between their situation and his, when the earth, with its bars, 
 seemed about him for ever. The next is Adam and Eve, 
 with the tree of knowledge and its forbidden fruit, " whose mortal 
 taste" had introduced so much wo and suffering into the world; 
 and of which, those who took refuge in these excavations were 
 so largely partakers. The third is the figure of Mary, with the 
 infant Saviour ; at a time so early, when, perhaps, images served 
 rather for remembrance than worship. Again the same object 
 may be brought more prominently forward, and in this instance 
 for a commencement of image worship ; but, where the mother 
 of the Saviour only shared indistinctly in the veneration paid to 
 her Son. In the latest representation there appears to be the 
 beginning of the Virgin's supposed intercession — she seems 
 to turn her ear to the worshipper, and her eyes to God, as if in 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. ?>i 
 
 part the mediator, or at least the medium, of presenting the sup- 
 plications. After the period of the catacombs, the Virgin is 
 identified with the woman of the Eevelation, clothed with the 
 sun, crowned with the stars — and in a form and position equi- 
 valent to the ancient Apotheosis. Lastly, as in the picture of 
 Rubens, (noticed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and which we have 
 cited in " The Errors regarding Religion,") the Virgin takes the 
 place of the Saviour, not only as the Queen of Heaven, but as 
 the great intercessor and mediator — which office be has resigned 
 to her — himself to take the place of the stern Judge — the 
 Christian Jupiter with the thunderbolts of vengeance " in his 
 red right hand." 
 
 We have thus pointed out four refutations of Romanism. 
 First, in the Bible itself, and its all-sufficiency. Secondly, in 
 the failure of Tradition, and of an authenticated Succession. 
 Thirdly, in the utter want of proof for the Pope's Supremacy — 
 for Transubstantiation, and Baptismal Regeneration. A fourth 
 series of refutations we are now pointing out in the origin and 
 genesis of Romish rites and tenets, which might be fully ex- 
 hibited by the two works we so greatly desire — a genuine 
 history of the Church, and a succinct account of the Christian 
 Fathers. A fifth refutation of Popery would arise from the 
 Pagan origin of the Romish worship, as we have briefly, but we 
 think conclusively pointed out by short extracts from Middleton. 
 Middleton's admirable letter from Rome, admirable, notwith- 
 standing some slight taint of infidelity, appears to us an un- 
 answerable demonstration of the heathenish nature of the Romish 
 worship, and it remains without an answer worth noticing, to 
 the present day. Might it not be advantageously circulated, 
 leaving out one or two objectionable passages ? Excellent as it 
 is, it would not exclude a larger work upon the subject, pointing 
 out, on a wider scale, all the sources, or most of them, from 
 which Rome has borrowed her far-derived opinions. 
 
 We shall merely indicate several other topics, which might 
 either be treated in one large work, or discussed in separate 
 tracts ; and the discussion of each of which might be more or 
 
38 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 less subversive of Romish superstition : such as the Romish 
 altar and the Romish sacrifice — Nuns and Nunneries, Monks 
 and Monasteries — Confession to the Priest, as compared with 
 confession to God — and, above all, the venality of modern even 
 more than ancient Rome, " Omnia venalia Roma?," and the 
 demoralizing influence of Romanism, wherever it has prevailed. 
 Three subjects might require a more extended notice ; the pre- 
 tence to miracles — the spirit of persecution, whether openly 
 exhibited in holy wars, or secretly exercised in the Inquisition — 
 and lastly, and most important of all, the character branded 
 upon Popery by prophecy — the divine point of view in which 
 the mystery of iniquity is regarded, the coming of approaching 
 judgments, and the final and irreversible doom. 
 
 With regard to Miracles, we may observe Rome pretends to 
 no new revelation — the Pope, or the Pope in council, or the 
 whole Church, are infallible, it is not known which, nor has 
 Infallibility herself finally determined where is her proper 
 abode. But Infallibility utters no new oracles — the Pope, when 
 properly advised, only picks out from the past, that which is 
 infallibly applicable to the present. The Church of Rome, 
 being immutable, as well as infallible, is confined, in appear- 
 ance at least, ever to maintain the same tenets. But a pretence 
 to miracles, without the pretence to a new revelation, carries 
 with it its own confutation. Every true miracle supposes a 
 divine revelation, and every true revelation proceeds upon 
 miracles. The laws of nature are the language of God to man- 
 kind — they proclaim the divine existence and attributes — and 
 are also the guides of man, in this, his mortal life. On the 
 uniformity of these laws, and of this divine language, all our 
 knowledge, and even our existence depends. Any stop— any 
 change in the order of nature, and in the system of signals 
 placed before our view, imports immediately a new communica- 
 tion from the Author of Nature. Miracles are the strongest of 
 all calls on the attention of mankind ; nothing could be more 
 absurd than the supposition of a miracle without a message. A 
 miracle by itself, could only perplex and astound. It is the 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 39 
 
 message which accompanies it, that gives it intelligible import, 
 and fixes its real signification. 
 
 But what do the Eomish miracles import, or what message 
 do they bring ? — the latest news of a winking Madonna, or the 
 introduction of some new saint into a calendar, already over- 
 crowded with impostors. 
 
 The subject of Persecution might demand a separate treatise 
 for itself. This is one of Eome's most vulnerable points, and she 
 is perfectly sensible of it. Dr. Wiseman gives his reasons for 
 declining to enter upon the subject of Prophecy. " I must 
 avoid touching upon that view, however popular it may be, 
 which pretends to see in the Catholic Church the foul charac- 
 teristics attributed to the enemies of Christ in the Apocalypse" 
 — " because I would not profane the holiness of this place with 
 the blasphemous calumnies which I should have to repeat," &c. 
 A very easy way of getting rid of an overwhelming weight of 
 accusations and arguments. But what excuse had he for passing 
 over in deep silence the subject of persecution ? — he could neither 
 deny the rivers of blood which the Church of Eome had shed, 
 in what she profanely called Holy Wars ; nor the unspeakable 
 tortures more secretly practised in .the Inquisition. Nor yet 
 could he boldly avow them, with any hope of reconciling them 
 with the spirit of an age, which, at least, is comparatively 
 humane. His only refuge, therefore, is silence ; and that silence 
 is the most profound confession of guilt. There are some things 
 which it is easier to do than to say ; and Eome is not ashamed 
 to act that which her advocate is reluctant to apologize for ! Un- 
 changed in heart, and untaught by experience, Eome is shewing 
 the same fiendish temper as ever, in the persecution of the Madiai. 
 
 We have need of writings to bring to remembrance both the 
 elder and more modern atrocities of Papal Eome — to reanimate 
 and raise from their tombs the victims of the crusade against 
 the Albigenses — that early reform which was extinguished in 
 blood ! And to recall to mind the immense loss of life occa- 
 sioned by the cruelties of Eome and of the Spaniards in the 
 Netherlands. Not only should the victims of Eome but her in- 
 
40 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 struments be brought before the view — those armies gathered 
 under the standard of the Cross, from the dregs of every nation ; 
 and who, under the pretence of fighting for the purity of reli- 
 gion, were indulging in cruelties which make the blood run 
 cold, and in vices whose turpitude forbids them to be named. 
 The massacre of St. Bartholomew has had an answer and a 
 recompense in the French Eevolution ; but the blood which was 
 shed throughout Europe, has never yet been fully avenged. Let 
 the cry of injured humanity again awake, from pages that would 
 render justice, alike, to the oppressed and the oppressor. Let 
 us not be unmindful, for God is mindful of his people — and " the 
 day of vengeance is in his heart." 
 
 In " The Errors regarding Eeligion," we pointed out a com- 
 plete demonstration, from the great Dr. Clarke, that Papal 
 Rome is identical with Apocalyptic Babylon. So strong was 
 this identity in the minds of the early Christians, after the pub- 
 lication of the Apocalypse, that (as we have seen) Papias 
 contended that Peter must mean Rome, when he dated from 
 Babylon ! Apart from general commentaries upon prophecy, 
 we should be benefited by a short manual, or tractate, condens- 
 ing the prophetic views respecting the apostasy, and final deso- 
 lation of Rome. Placing Rome, and all her abominations, in 
 the light of Scripture, we have the point of view in which 
 Jehovah himself regards the great corruptress of the nations ; 
 and the retributive doom which He is preparing for all her 
 spiritual sorceries, and all her accumulated crimes. The Divine 
 words which we shall cite, do not need any human comment, 
 and we shall select a few verses without any addition of our 
 own. " I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet- coloured beast, full 
 of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And 
 the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked 
 with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup 
 in her hand full of abominations," &c. " And upon her forehead 
 was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great," &c. " And 
 I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and 
 with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus : and when I saw her, I 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 41 
 
 wondered with great admiration." " The woman which thou 
 sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the 
 earth." " And, after these things, I saw another angel come 
 down from heaven, having great power ; and the earth was 
 lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong 
 voice, saying, Babylon the Great is fallen, is fallen, and is be- 
 come the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, 
 and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." " And I heard 
 another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, 
 that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of 
 her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God 
 hath remembered her iniquities." 
 
 Eome does not stand alone — there is entwined with her being 
 the existence of another foul spirit — that of Infidelity. We 
 cannot fully understand the action of each without taking into 
 view the counteraction of the other. But first, we premise a 
 few words on the present state and statistics of the Bomanist 
 religion. The numbers of the Papists are variously given, by 
 different authorities, and in general the amount assigned is a 
 mere guess ; but they may be computed to be somewhat below 
 a hundred and fifty millions. All these are supposed to exhibit 
 the uniformity, or, as they term it, the unity of their religion. 
 No supposition could be more contrary to the real state of facts. 
 They possess the same name, but not the same creed. One that 
 was fond of paradoxes might maintain, that instead of the 
 Bomanists being numerous, there is no real Bomanist in exist- 
 ence. Dr. Wiseman, as we saw before, gives truly, according 
 to his own principles, the rule, that for Catholics there is " but 
 one gate, of absolute, unconditional submission to the teaching 
 of the Church." He that doubts is condemned — he that modi- 
 fies is condemned. But doubts have entered into all minds ; 
 and the tenets of Borne are modified, at least in appearance, to 
 suit the taste of the times. There are many days, and many 
 occasions, in which the strictest Catholic is holding loosely by 
 his Church, though prepared fully to re-enter it, at the approach 
 of sickness and death. But, omitting such considerations, we 
 
42 POPBKT AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 may observe, that the larger number of Catholics are excluded, 
 by the rules of the Catholic Church itself, from the number of 
 its true adherents. That Church (as we observed, in " The 
 Errors regarding Eeligion") has laid down regulations, for ex- 
 ample, which separate Catholic image-worshippers from idolaters. 
 These rules are not observed by the illiterate and uninstructed 
 majority of the Catholics, who, in consequence, by the voice of the 
 decrees of their own Church, should be assigned to the denomina- 
 tion of Pagans. This would deprive Popery of three-fifths of 
 its imaginary numbers. " Pour les Images," says Bossuet, " le 
 Concile de Trente defend expressement de croire aucune divinite, 
 ou vertu, pour laquelle on les doive reverer ; de leur demander 
 aucune grace et d'y attacher sa confiance, et veut que tout 
 l'honneur se rapporte aux originaux qu'elles representent ;" and 
 with respect to these " originaux," the Saints themselves, he 
 adds, " au reste, jamais aucun catholique n'a pense que les 
 Saints connussent, par eux-memes, nos besoins ; ni mime les de- 
 sirs pour lesquels nous leur faisons de secrettes prieres. L'Eglise 
 se contente d'enseigner, avec toute 1' Antiquite, que ces prieres sont 
 tres profitables a ceux qui les font, soit que les Saints les appren- 
 nent par le ministere et le commerce des anges," &c. 
 
 Will it be believed for a moment, that a simple, illiterate 
 man, goes through such a mental process, when prostrating him- 
 self before an image, as that which Bossuet indicates ? " Judg- 
 ing himself," says Bossuet, " not sufficiently ' agreable' to God 
 to present his requests immediately to Him, he makes a pre- 
 tence of addressing them to the saints, though he well knows 
 that the saints cannot hear him, that it is God alone who is 
 listening to him, and, who by an immediate ' revelation,' or 
 by ' the ministry of an angel,' must first make known these 
 prayers to the saints, in order that he may receive their petitions 
 again presented to him, in a more agreeable, and roundabout 
 way." But it is abundantly evident that Eomanists in general 
 have no such subterfuges, but address the saints in the full 
 belief that they are continually present, and ever listening to 
 their petitions. And, that the images are worshipped, fully as 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 43 
 
 much as the originals they represent, is manifest from a glance 
 into any Eomish Cathedral, both by the way in which the 
 images are worshipped, and by the manner in which they are 
 spoken of. If it was the saint and not the image that was 
 worshipped, it would matter little which of these images was 
 resorted to, but some of them are much more highly esteemed 
 than others. And that a virtue is believed to reside in these 
 images, in spite of the Council of Trent, the miraculous stories 
 that are attached to many of them sufficiently prove — if any 
 proof were necessary. 
 
 A second great class of the Komanists, who are not really 
 Romanists, may be termed the Latitudinarians. From personal 
 and confidential communication with some who are considered 
 to belong to the priestly party, we were enabled to say to them, 
 that in many respects, we were more Eomanists than themselves; 
 to which they also assented. They do not believe in the Atone- 
 ment, though it is a doctrine of the Church of Rome — they 
 scarcely believe in the absolute Deity of Christ. They believe 
 that both heretics and Romanists will be saved by good works — 
 and they believe that good works are of more importance than 
 creeds. In one thing they do believe, in the advantage of the 
 unity of the Church, and they conform to this, and act and live 
 accordingly. We have but one unity left, say the Italians, 
 when urged to confess their real opinions, Ecclesiastical Unity, 
 and would you deprive us of this ? 
 
 To the Latitudinarians must be added the Infidels of every 
 shape and hue, who are still professing Catholics. A wounded 
 Italian student, nursed by some Christians, confessed that he 
 had no religious principles, and that all the numerous professors 
 of the university to which he belonged were Atheists, except 
 two. An Italian Ecclesiastical paper said that Italy was un- 
 favourable to the growth of Pantheism — Alas ! for their igno- 
 rance ! Italy at the revival of letters was the nurse of Pantheism 
 — and at the present moment, among the patriots of Italy, 
 Pantheistic notions prevail, which, however, they are willing to 
 reserve as an inner creed — and, maintaining the Unity of the 
 
44 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 Church, (a favourite idol with all,) they propose to reduce 
 Catholicism to what it was in earlier and simpler times ; re- 
 straining all persecution, with regard either to civil or religious 
 freedom of opinion. 
 
 There remains only the third class, who may strictly be con- 
 sidered as Catholics, including the priesthood, of course — " Sirs, 
 ye know that by this craft we have our wealth," &c. Add to 
 these, those that are led by the priesthood — the aged devout 
 men, and " honourable women not a few" — enthusiastic con- 
 verts — and fanatical monks — those that are terrified on account 
 of their great sins, and those who are attracted on account of 
 their great gains. All these, and a motley crowd accompanying 
 them, are a great host when viewed alone ; but are much out- 
 numbered by the mixed multitude, who follow the camp for a 
 while, but whose allegiance is doubtful and precarious. 
 
 Thus the forces of the Papal army form an immense, but as 
 we see an incongruous assemblage. They are like the armies 
 of the Persian kings of old, collected from many distant pro- 
 vinces, but many of whom serve fsom compulsion, not choice. 
 They occupy a weak and indefensible position that to the eye of 
 an experienced antagonist almost insures defeat — part are well 
 trained, and obedient to the word of command, and truly formid- 
 able both from their numbers and their discipline — the Priest- 
 hood. But there is one remarkable and encouraging fact, though 
 Rome, in her trained Priesthood, has good and experienced vete- 
 rans, she is deficient in generals. The very principle of blind 
 submission, and implicit obedience, which is favourable to pro- 
 ducing good troops, takes away the chance of raising eminent 
 commanders. Even the Jesuits produce no distinguished auxili- 
 aries to Rome — and the whole body of the Romanists are crafty 
 but not wise. Skilful to avail themselves of the blunders of 
 others, but very prone to make still greater blunders of their 
 own. " Our Cardinals," said an acute Roman Catholic to us, 
 " are mere old women, they know nothing of the real state of 
 the world they live in ; your silliest politicians are wiser — they 
 at least read the newspapers." There are exceptions — and 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 45 
 
 Cardinal Wiseman is one — would we were as sure of his honesty 
 as of his ability ! 
 
 Popery and Infidelity have always led to each other. The 
 Papists at one time encouraged Infidelity, fearing men should 
 embrace Protestantism, and trusting thatwearied out with the con- 
 flicting opinions and prolonged uncertainty of infidel speculations 
 most would again return for repose into the bosom of an infallible 
 Church ; nor were they disappointed. Numbers, after the time 
 of the Eeformation, noted for their free-thinking and free- sayings, 
 thought it safest to sink into their last sleep, drugged with the 
 opiates which Rome prepares for her votaries. But the oracle 
 of Wolsey became more and more manifestly true — Kome must 
 destroy the press, or the press will destroy Kome, The numbers 
 of free-thinkers increased. Infidelity became a permanent power, 
 and its disciples began to reject, with scorn, both the fears and 
 the hopes presented to a death-bed. 
 
 In all human affairs there is action and reaction, and there is 
 a continued war between the past and the future. Kome has 
 her roots in the past alone. If once the edifice of superstition 
 were overthrown, it could never be reconstructed on the same 
 foundations. Infidelity, and its ally the extreme democracy, 
 have their roots, and derive their chief nourishment, from a state 
 of things which is not yet fully developed. As Rome leans to 
 the past, so Infidelity rests upon the future — and the future must 
 prove the conqueror in the strife. The lapse of time, of itself, 
 adds to the strength of the one, and diminishes the resources of 
 the other. That the recent revival of the Church of Kome is not 
 action but re-action, is evidenced by considering the countries 
 where Komanism is stationary and where it is progressive. In 
 countries where Rome has prospered long, she prospers no more 
 — the apparent success of Romanism in these, is a political, not 
 a religious triumph. Where it has long been planted it has 
 exhausted the soil and shews symptoms of decay. It is not 
 prospering in Spain or in Italy. It is progressive in .France, 
 where the mind, wearied out with fantastic systems, seeks a 
 brief repose in an assumed credulity ; and where the politician, 
 
46 POPEKY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 finding no base for his operations amid the endless shiftings of 
 Infidelity, seeks to erect his renovated structures on the massive, 
 though unsound foundations of superstition. There is growth, 
 there is greenness, in the Upas tree of Popery, but at the centre 
 it is dead — rotten at the core. Its new life is confined to the 
 rind, and it wants internal vigour to resist the storms that are 
 ready to assail it. Popery has exhausted the religious feelings 
 in the countries where it has long prevailed ; but, entering a 
 fresh soil, it still finds the materials upon which superstition, as 
 well as religion, can work — moral principles not altogether dis- 
 carded ; and a conscience, though darkened, still in some measure 
 alive to the importance of eternity. But, as the materials which 
 are thrown up from the depth of the sea to form new islands are 
 immediately subjected, as they emerge, to the erosion of the 
 waves, so the recent acquisitions of superstition, whether in 
 France, in England, or in America, have but a brief period of 
 existence assigned them, and will be again swept off and carried 
 away by the waves of doubt, and the conflicting currents of 
 opinion. 
 
 Popery, encouraging an abject blindfold submission, and blend- 
 ing the sublimest truths with the most pitiful fables, produces, 
 by a necessary revulsion, a disbelief of every principle. When 
 doubt begins, there is no limit to its progress in minds from 
 which every rational principle has been removed, and where 
 reason, by disuse, has lost its legitimate exercise : and nations, 
 deprived of moderate liberty, and of the temperate use of their 
 rational faculties, violently vibrate, with scarce a pause, between 
 despotism and democracy, superstition and Infidelity. 
 
 Thus Infidelity and superstition have at once a joint and 
 conflicting existence, each springing out of the other, and each 
 endeavouring to destroy the other, like the spectre fiends in 
 Dante. 
 
 " Ivy ne'er clasp'd 
 A dodder'd oak, as round the other's limbs 
 The hideous monster intcrtwin'd his own. 
 Then, as they both had been of burning wax, 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 47 
 
 Each melted into other, mingling hues, 
 
 That which was either, now, was seen no more."* 
 
 For the mind, in the revolutions of states and of opinions, 
 rapidly passes from believing all, to believing nothing; and 
 again, worn out by a> contest that has no end, and finding 
 nothing stable to rest upon, either in institutions or principles, 
 makes a sudden transition, back to its ancient creed. But though 
 individual combatants may change from side to side, the conflict 
 of opinions continues ; success, by the re-action it occasions, lead- 
 ing to defeat, and defeat, from rallied forces, changed into 
 victory. Popery and Infidelity are carrying on an internecine 
 contest. Like the two serpents in the ancient romance of 
 Merlin — 
 
 " The red dragon and the white 
 Hard together gan they smite, 
 With mouth, paw, and with tail : 
 Between hem was full hard batail ; 
 That the earth dinned tho, 
 And loathly weather wax thereto. 
 So strong fire they casten anon, 
 That the plains thereof shone, 
 And sparkled about, so bright 
 As doth the fire from thunder-light 
 So they fought, for sooth to say 
 All the long summer's day." 
 
 We have much to regret that true Christianity is not yet on 
 the field, with all her collected forces, to profit by the strokes 
 which her mutual enemies are dealing to each other. But so it 
 has ever been — the good cause is the last to raise its banner, 
 and advance its lances, that the glory of the victory might 
 belong to God, and no part of it to man. 
 
 Both Popery and Infidelity have their strong points, which 
 render the decision delayed, and the battle prolonged. Popery 
 has very deep roots, alike in the past, and in our fallen nature. 
 When Christianity was said to have ascended the throne of Con- 
 stantine, the fate of Paganism seemed to be decided ; but Pagan- 
 
 * Cary's Dante. 
 
48 POPEKY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 ism was only displaced, not banished — and, under a Christian 
 disguise, resumed her ancient supremacy. The Idolatry of Eome, 
 which has thus survived a former moral world, and with such 
 tenacity has asserted its place in the human mind, when thrones 
 and sceptres have crumbled away, will not yield to an ordinary 
 onset, and will only perish amid the ruins of modern institu- 
 tions. Infidelity must call another Titan with a hundred arms 
 to her aid — the all up-heaving-democracy, before the death 
 struggle is ended. What Infidelity at present wants, and Eome 
 possesses, is organization. Eomish superstition and European 
 monarchies have seemed to yield at the first onset of Infidelity 
 and democracy — they have appeared struck with sudden bewil- 
 derment, desiring to fly, but not knowing whither, while shock 
 after shock from the revolutionary volcano was making the earth 
 reel under their feet, and all the ancient fabrics of despotism and 
 superstition — Temples and Palaces seemed ready to topple to the 
 ground. But the moment of victory was also the moment of 
 defeat. To the insurgent powers of unorganized democracy, a 
 battle gained is equivalent to a battle lost, for it is unimproved. 
 They are like the servant enriched by Law's Mississippi Scheme, 
 and the fortunate purchaser of a carriage, but who, instead of 
 entering it, in the hurry and exultation of the moment, mounted 
 behind it. Caught up by the whirlwind of revolutionary events, 
 they seem never at home in the uneasy and uncertain elevation 
 of their new position ; and, even when freed from their former 
 rulers, seem searching for something they have lost, and set 
 out, like Diogenes, in quest of a master ! 
 
 Kings and Priests have, in our days, and especially since 
 1848, been suddenly displaced, and as marvellously re-placed — 
 God, as it were, looking down from heaven to see if any would 
 learn wisdom, in a world which is so quickly shifting its scenes, 
 and changing its actors. All had an opportunity of beginning 
 a course of constitutional freedom and consequent security ; 
 legally restrained from doing evil, but with ample powers of 
 doing good — all might have had the word of God peacefully cir- 
 culating throughout their dominions ; entering quietly as the 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 49 
 
 morning light into the midst of the darkness, and without 
 noise or disturbance restoring anew the face of the moral world. 
 The mass of the people, and even " a great company of the 
 Priests," seemed disposed, at one time, to welcome with grati- 
 tude the boon of moderate civil and religious freedom. The 
 kings have conspired against their own concessions, and broken 
 every pledge, and every oath solemnly sanctioned before heaven 
 and before men. They are preparing a dreadful retribution. 
 
 Wherever Infidelity and Democracy have been skilfully or- 
 ganized, the results have shewn, that the combinations of power 
 and Popery were unable to withstand them. Protestantism had 
 failed, when it seemed about to cover France with its doctrine, 
 from the want of combined and sustained effort ; and the Jesuits 
 had shewn that error, with union, is more powerful than truth 
 without it. Any ground gained by the individual efforts of 
 Infidelity, would probably, in the same manner, have been re- 
 gained by the Church of Rome, but the combination of infidel 
 talent connected with the French Enq/clopedie, proved too hard 
 for the decrepitude of Rome, and the Bourbon dynasty ; and the 
 various clubs, first irreligious, then political, scattered their 
 publications with a system and an energy unknown before, and 
 sowed the whole soil of France with the 'teeth of the dragon. 
 Infidelity then had leaders such as it cannot boast at presents- 
 Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, and Gibbon ; what Bacon says of 
 the Jesuits, we would rather say of such men, " Would they 
 had been ours, would they had been Christians 1" Protestant- 
 ism, failing 'in its vital powers, had ceased to contend with 
 Rome ; Voltaire, Rousseau, and other infidels, have given it, at 
 .least, a wound, the scar of which it will carry to its grave. Had 
 that wound been dealt by the hand of Protestantism, it would 
 probably have proved mortal, but Infidelity cannot retain the 
 ground it has gained, it conquers but cannot permanently subju- 
 gate, and unless true principles are supplied, superstition quickly 
 recovers the dominion it has lost. The grandchildren of " the 
 philosophers" have many of them returned to the confessional; 
 whereas, if Voltaire had pointed out the truths of the Gospel 
 
50 POPERY ANH INFIDELITY. 
 
 with the same force with which he exposed the errors of Popery, 
 and done so in the spirit of the Gospel, he might probably have 
 been the author of a lasting reformation through the south of 
 Europe. 
 
 Infidelity has no distinguished leaders at the present moment, 
 and yet its opinions are rapidly spreading. What greater proof 
 can be given of its force and vitality ? and what an influence 
 would it exert did God, in His just indignation, permit that 
 some great minds should arise who could avail themselves to 
 the uttermost of the great and growing resources of scepticism 
 and anti-religion, and should summon to their aid all the spirits 
 of destruction, who are looking upon Europe, already, as their 
 future field of battle and carnage ! 
 
 The Pantheistic infidels, now the prevailing portion of the 
 tribe, were supposed to have had a common leader, for a brief 
 period, during the eminence of Hegel, but this was rather coin- 
 cidence than cause and effect — like the pre-established harmony 
 of Leibnitz, where the thoughts of the soul, and the movements 
 of the body correspond, without each having any direct influence 
 on the other. 
 
 There is much of the spirit of the serf in the soul of the free- 
 thinker. Leibnitz in deducing mental philosophy too closely 
 from the mere expansion of the intellect, in opposition to the 
 over-sensible and over-material theories which prevailed around 
 him, fell, as usual, into the opposite extreme. From the acti- 
 vity of the intellect alone, we cannot deduce the reality of 
 nature, or of the Deity. Hence, when the system is pushed to 
 its utmost extent, the human mind swells beyond its due 
 dimensions ; and, instead of being a part of creation, and under 
 the Creator, becomes a centre of existence to itself — the subjec- 
 tive displaces the objective, and the dreamer and his dreams 
 become the sole tenants of an unreal and godless world. There 
 was the germ of this error in Leibnitz himself — it was more 
 developed in Kant, and it fully expanded in Fichte — where I, 
 the creator and the created, predominated in the infinite void — 
 nor could Schelling return to any but a shadowy and pantheistic 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 51 
 
 nature — and Hegel's Logos, or rather deified logic, a process 
 of thought, (and thought with him is existence,) never ending 
 as never beginning, carries the original defects of Leibnitz to 
 that degree of absurdity and profanity which might seem to 
 augur that the extreme of darkness and distance had been 
 reached, and that the erratic understanding was on its return 
 towards the Sun of Truth. How few are original and inde- 
 pendent thinkers! and how pitiful is it that philosophers are 
 unable to diverge into a new track, but that the error of the 
 first must be pursued and exaggerated by the followers as long 
 as space remains for deviation ! 
 
 There was no community between the mind of Hegel, and 
 the mind of many of his followers, yet he seemed a common 
 centre which for a time connected them all ; nor is the blind 
 submission of Eome without its parallel in the servile admission 
 of principles by the mass of the incredulous, and in the implicit 
 assent yielded to the leaders they have assumed. 
 
 Pantheism, or the belief in the deified universe, stretching 
 through all the wide void which separates Atheism from Theism, 
 assumes as many forms as the one imaginary substance which 
 it worships. It is thus well calculated to rally under its stand- 
 ard all the scattered forces of Infidelity, and to give one master- 
 key to the interpretation of its Babel variety of dialects. The 
 system is prepared — the intellect may be at hand that will fully 
 actuate it ; and, though Hegel was little able to avail himself, 
 from his want of popular talents, of the proud pre-eminence to 
 which he was rather fortuitously raised, some mightier, and 
 more versatile mind may soon occupy the vacant throne, and 
 shew how great a power of darkness has entered this lower 
 world, and is ready to expel the other lying spirits from their 
 ancient seats, in order to reign in their stead. 
 
 Philosophy itself, at times, wears, unconsciously, an adverse 
 aspect towards Christianity. It is too apt to regard God as the 
 creator only, and not also as the preserver of the universe — 
 whose power and presence are as much required to maintain 
 the laws of nature, as originally to impose them. Hence God 
 
52 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 seems chiefly to reign beyond the bounds of nature and of time. 
 As progressive discoveries enlarge the boundaries of the world, 
 and augment its duration, the Deity appears to recede farther 
 and farther into the profundities of space, and towards the 
 confines of eternity. 
 
 But Christianity, on the other hand, while proclaiming " Glory 
 to God in the highest," brings Him exceedingly nigh to us ; 
 and while it displays the perfections of the Deity, draws us to 
 Him in the most intimate union. Christianity and philosophy, 
 in regard to the Deity, have therefore an inverse action, and 
 breathe an opposite spirit, unless they be duly blended together. 
 We do not speak of genuine philosophy, but of that ordinary 
 science, which investigates only the origin of things, and then 
 accepts the laws of Nature, as a substitute for its Author. But 
 in addition to that mistaken spirit of philosophy, which rears no 
 altars, or raises them only " to the unknown God," there are 
 the surges of conflicting and opposing opinions rising higher, 
 and breaking in with more force upon the received boundaries 
 of established creeds. Most thinking men may recollect the 
 shock which their minds sustained when endeavouring to recon- 
 cile the account of Moses with the true astronomy of the heavens 
 — and, as a second shock of an earthquake is always more dreaded 
 than the first, so many Christians will remember the, perhaps, 
 still deeper mental agitation which they felt, in reconciling 
 Genesis with the discoveries of Geology. But these are not the 
 only sources from which unbelief, in the future, will derive its 
 armory of weapons. There are days coming which will try 
 every opinion — whether it be of God, or whether it be of man ; 
 and these days are close at hand. God appoints us trials in our 
 minds, as well as in our outward affairs. There will be a great 
 shaking in the theories of philosophy, as well as in the constitu- 
 tion of kingdoms. All these trials will serve a good purpose. 
 They will destroy superstition, and they will establish religion, 
 by purifying it, and causing it to pass through the fires. The 
 mortal will perish, the immortal will remain. 
 
 Old worlds subside beneath the waves, in order that newer 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. r >3 
 
 formations may more than supply their place — old things in the 
 moral world pass away in order that all things may become new- 
 An age of revolutions often crosses the path of human society, 
 by the appointment of God, but tempered, with respect to the 
 believer, by the promise, " As thy day is, so shall thy strength 
 be." The source of our trial exists in the rapidity of. our pro- 
 gress. New sciences are bursting into birth upon every side. 
 Can we be surprised that they are contrary to religion, in their 
 first aspect, in as far as they often are contrary to truth ? 
 
 Youthful productions are not seldom out of proportion — like 
 the cubs of the bear, they require time and care to fashion them 
 into shape. But like all the violent energies of Nature, Infi- 
 delity, with its giant brother Democracy, possesses the towering 
 structure, but not the enduring life, which characterized the 
 men of violence before the Flood — they are destroyers, but also 
 self-destructive ; and, like Marius drooping over the ruins of 
 Carthage, or perishing in the marshes of Minturnae, they also 
 will fall and perish upon the ruins of a desolated world. While 
 Infidelity is destroying not only Popery but itself, there is room 
 for the renovating action of Christianity to repair the breaches 
 of former desolations, and to give lasting repose to the world, 
 after the storms that have swept over it — carrying whatever is 
 noxious into the regions of destruction, as the chaff is driven 
 away, and disappears before the whirlwind. 
 
 That visionary state of wellbeing which a vain philosophy 
 and a revolutionary frenzy had promised mankind, in the break- 
 ing of every yoke, and in the chasing away of every error ; will 
 give place to realities more beautiful than the wildest dreams of 
 a perfectibility to which the world, while the human mind con- 
 tinues at enmity with God, must still remain a stranger. Were 
 that one obstacle removed, then liberty, equality, and fraternity, 
 no longer the watchwords of civil war, and the tocsin of insur- 
 rection, would be superseded by the glorious freedom with which 
 Christ has made us free — by our recognised equality as sinners, 
 and by an equal need of, and participation in a Divine redemp- 
 tion — and, lastly, by our renovated fraternity — born anew of 
 
54 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 the Word and of the Spirit — children of the same Father — 
 younger brethren of the same Saviour, and co-heirs of the same 
 eternal glory. 
 
 To sum up the various classes of Infidels, we must begin with 
 an order that we can scarcely term either friends or foes — the phi- 
 losophic Theists — reverencing God in His works, beholding the 
 glory and vastness of the visible frame of creation, they worship, 
 as appears to them, in a more spacious temple ; and though not 
 adverse to the views of rational divines, the peculiar doctrines of 
 Christianity occupy little of their attention ; and might seem not 
 only distasteful, but adverse to their intellectual Theism. Mis- 
 sionaries are now found adapted to most classes of the community, 
 but where shall we find a suitable apostle for the Keligionists 
 of Nature, except God should raise up a second Sir Isaac 
 Newton, uniting a Christian lowliness of heart, with the loftiest 
 views of the universe ? 
 
 Such men are not at our disposal, but we may dispose our- 
 selves to prayer. God, who can raise up fitting instruments, 
 can also work without instruments, and can give the mind which 
 is most elated with its own acquisitions, the deepest sense of its 
 own unworthiness before His holiness, in whose sight the heavens 
 are not clean, and before whose glory the Seraphim veil their 
 faces. 
 
 Next to the philosophic Theists, similar in name but different 
 in spirit, might be placed the philosophic Deists. Some of our 
 elder writers wisely distinguished between Theism and Deism — 
 between those who neglected Eevealed Religion, but did not 
 oppose it — holding much, perhaps, in common with it ; and those 
 who not only neglected but rejected Revelation with hostility — 
 and, sometimes, not without opprobrium and contumely. Such, 
 in the downward course of departure from God, often resign 
 their belief in the more prominent tenets of Natural Religion 
 also. "We deeply regret that Christians so little cultivate science. 
 Occupied often in an endeavour to remove the evils of society, 
 and that in its lowest and most repelling walks ; the excellent 
 of the earth pursue their humble and unseen path of doing good, 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 55 
 
 and the urgency of present duty, and incessant calls upon their 
 attention, leave them too little leisure for the culture of their 
 own mental powers, the pursuit of science, and the intelligent 
 contemplation of the glories of God in creation. But there is 
 a time for everything ; and were opportunities duly improved, 
 for the acquirement of knowledge, it would be found that 
 far from impeding their efforts to do good, they had enlarged 
 their power of benefiting their fellow-creatures by improving 
 their acquaintance with God, in His works, as well as in His 
 word. May the rising generation be, in this respect, wise* 
 than their fathers, and having, to a certain extent, common 
 pursuits with men of science, openings might then be expected 
 to present themselves of offering the Truths of Eeligion, as well 
 as the discoveries of science, in a form that might gain admission 
 where an entrance is denied at present. 
 
 After the Theists and the Deists, may be ranked the Pan- 
 theists, who in our days have suddenly risen to " an exceeding 
 great army." We remember being asked why we had used so 
 cramp a term as Pantheism in " The Errors regarding Eeligion." 
 A few years have found a fitting answer — and all know too well, 
 and have too often occasion to use the term Pantheism now, in 
 opposing a system proclaimed not only from the chairs of univer- 
 sities, but by Swiss and other peasants guiding the plough. 
 The immense range of Pantheistic opinions, which stretch from 
 Atheism to Theism, might seem to require some classification 
 and sub-division. Philosophers have given a classification and 
 nomenclature to the clouds, but none have attempted to discri- 
 minate mists — except as a Scotch mist — a German mist — taking 
 their names from the regions where they most prevail. But our 
 Pantheistic mists are all of German origin, whether they have 
 spread out into the sunny plains of France, or enveloped the 
 shores of England, which little required their additional haze. 
 Pantheism, as we have said, consists in the worship of the 
 Deified Universe — but, as no two spectators contemplate the 
 same rainbow, so each Pantheist worships a universe of his own. 
 The Pantheists are ultra- Unitarians, they believe not only in 
 
5G POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 the Unity of God, but in the Unity of existence. Like the tra- 
 veller who took off his hat to the Spectre of the Bracken, the 
 Pantheist has not only the privilege of worshipping his own 
 image, but of having the salutation most graciously returned ; 
 for the worshipper and his Deity are one. 
 
 Tiberius was supposed, probably without any grounds, to 
 have intended the introduction of the Saviour into the midst of 
 the Pagan Pantheon. What Tiberius might have proposed, 
 Mr. Carlyle has effected ; in his private oratory supporting the 
 Saviour on one side by Odin, and on the other by Mahomet ; 
 while the number of his Penates is completed, by the introduc- 
 tion of Dr. Johnson and Burns t This hero-worshipper has a 
 singular taste in his odd selection of heroes, yet has a precedent 
 in the Chinese, who united the worship of Fo and Napoleon 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 The same accommodating religion prevails in France. Quinet 
 in many respects so deservedly admired, and who, we are assured, 
 pronounced a funeral address over his mother's grave, as orthodox 
 as any Christian divine could have spoken ; yet, in his ultra- 
 Catholicity, sees a coincidence, if not an absolute identity between 
 the Hindoo deity Indra and the thrice holy Jehovah. Michelet, 
 with many of whose political sentiments we can sympathize, re- 
 places the worship of the Virgin Mary by the worship of France 
 — a new and revolutionary deity — and the many advantages are 
 enumerated of substituting for Ave Marias a daily ascription of 
 praise and glory to this guardian power. God, Michelet inti- 
 mates, was manifested in Christ Jesus, but appeared with an 
 equal if not more glorious display of His attributes, in revolu- 
 tionary France. Victor Hugo chants in the same strain, and 
 draws a parallel between the miracles of the Saviour and the 
 marvels which France revolutionized has operated. The resur- 
 rection of Lazarus, for example, is paralleled with the resuscita- 
 tion of Poland. — " Un jour il s'approcha de la Pologne morte, 
 il leva le doigt et lui cria : Leve-toi ! la Pologne morte se leva." 
 
 To the ordinary Pantheists may be joined those more vulgar 
 but practical philosophers the Communists — and these seem to 
 
POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 57 
 
 bring the system of unity and community to perfection, asserting 
 a common property in nature as well as in the deity. The deity 
 of Hegel, as we have observed, is the process of thought unfolding 
 itself without end — manifesting itself in each individual, having 
 no separate existence from the worshipper, and being thus the 
 soul of each and sum of all — the common property of the human 
 race, to whose joint-stock existence they all contribute their mite 
 of syllogisms. Such a joint property is not very profitable, and 
 the Communists have wisely thrown in, to balance the deficiency, 
 the material world, and all that it inherits. Thus they them- 
 selves become the rightful possessors of creation, as well as the in- 
 carnation of their own deity. And, when they have thrown off 
 their superstitious terrors, they purpose to be their own mighty 
 Providence, with the power and the will to provide for the 
 innumerable wants of man through the ages to come. We might 
 hope that such views would speedily work their own cure — and 
 we might not unreasonably conclude that such men should " pro- 
 ceed no further, for that their folly should be manifest to all." 
 
 Pantheism itself is but the transition from ignorance to know- 
 ledge, as we have formerly pointed out. It is the intermediate 
 passage between Polytheism and Theism. True philosophy and 
 true religion alike might be its cure. Such works as the admir- 
 able " Eclipse of Faith," applying not only to English but to 
 foreign infidelity, would be of excellent service. The original 
 and material infidelity of France has been overwhelmed with 
 its own success, and buried under the ruins it has occasioned. 
 The infidelity of Germany still survives, but at perpetual war 
 with itself, tossing to and fro, like unstable billows on a stormy 
 sea. 
 
 We need scarcely notice what may be considered as the remains 
 of French infidelity, such as the positive philosophy of Comte, 
 with his three stages of the theological, metaphysical, and 
 positive periods — dismissing the creation and the Creator, with- 
 drawing even power from nature, and mind from man, and 
 leaving but phenomena — and their classifications, as the sole 
 objects of genuine philosophy. This scarcely deserved notice 
 
58 POPERY AND INFIDELITY. 
 
 did not Humboldt, in his admirable Cosmos, discover somewhat 
 of a similar spirit. Disgusted with the crude theories of his 
 countrymen, he contemplates the beautiful order of the universe 
 without direct reference to its Author ; preferring a statement 
 of facts to the doubtful speculations of his countrymen — but, 
 alas ! also to those certain steps by which in genuine philosophy 
 we rise to the throne of the universe. 
 
 We may leave out of view the Materialist and Atheistic sys- 
 tems which flourished in France, (but which have sunk lower 
 and lower ; descending to Eobert Owen and his Socialists ; and 
 ready, we trust, to re-enter the abyss from which they originally 
 rose,) and content ourselves with indicating the great cure for 
 all — more philosophy and more religion — more of the inductive 
 philosophy of Bacon — more of the religion of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. Popery, it is true, will be destroyed by infidelity, and 
 infidelity will be destroyed by itself. Infidelity may take from 
 men the tenets which they believe, but it cannot deprive them 
 of the tendency to believe ; new systems of opinion will imme- 
 diately flow into the exhausted vacuum. 
 
 But, while Popery is expiring the dying monster may inflict 
 a deadly wound upon us, if we are off our guard ; and, before 
 infidelity has destroyed itself, it may, joined with extreme demo- 
 cracy, destroy the institutions which we so justly value. We have 
 the most urgent reason to guard against both evils — against the 
 crisis of Popery, and the crisis of Infidelity — to watch diligently, 
 and to watch unto prayer. Infidelity exists but in opposition ; 
 when it has overcome the systems it is opposed to, its course is 
 terminated. When it leaves its deadly sting infixed in the 
 wound, it expires. It has no object, no hope, no principle, but 
 that of overturning all hopes and all principles. Christianity 
 is eminently the living power, and motive force, of our human 
 life. Its touch heals the waters of bitterness, and its advent 
 gives life to the dead. Were it less opposed by obstructing 
 influences, did it become more fully the master principle of our 
 being, it would make way at once through the opposing crowd 
 of obstacles, and vindicate its superior origin and heaven-derived 
 
1 J 0PEKY AND INFIDELITY. 59 
 
 authority. We might cite as an undoubted proof of its healing 
 power the effect of " The London City Mission." London, the 
 confluence of all wretchedness and sin, as well as of wealth and 
 of talents, threatened, but a few years ago, to become the plague 
 centre, and Dead Sea, of our native land. Within a very few 
 years the plague has been staid in its progress, and a dawn of 
 better days appears at , hand. Let the same system be applied 
 to the whole of Britain. Let Christianity do the work of history 
 in the words so well applied by Godwin from Burke — " Attend 
 to the neglected, and remember the forgotten" — and a new era 
 is awaiting our country. Let the influence of Christianity be 
 augmented in our own hearts, and the number of Christians will 
 be augmented also. Great is the power of a prevailing principle 
 — mighty the force of prayer. Let us go forward in the Divine 
 strength, the victory will be ours, and the benefit mankind's. 
 
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