liliif [Iil2u2'"**^'* •*'^*^ mss^m^ R^J -o4ii Cornell University Library BX1765 .W58 1826 Practical and internal evidence against olin 3 1924 029 407 024 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029407024 April, 1827. C. & J. RIVINGTON HAVE THE FOLLOWING WORKS PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION. The LIFE of the Eight Hon. WILLIAM PITT, Earl of CHATHAM ; containing his Speeches in Parliament, and his Correspondence when Secretary of State upon Foreign Affairs. With an Account of the principal Events con- nected with his Life and Administration. By the Rev. FRANCIS THACKERAY, A.M. In 2 vols. 4to. With a Portrait engraved by Finden. 3l. 3s. (just ready.) ir. The CONNECTION of SACRED and PROFANE HISTORY, from the Death of Joshua until the Decline of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Intended to complete the Works of SHUCKFORD and PRIDEAUX. 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" The History of Niebuhr lias thrown new light on our knowledge of Boman affairs, to a d'egr^e, of which those, who are unacquainted -with it, can scarcely form an adequate id'ea. We shall consider outselves to have devoted some Of our pages to an useful purpose if we m'ak^ them instrumental in in^rodtici'ng the work before us to the fenowledge of the British pufolib, aieight that sunk it." AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 21 of what had driven me from Catholicism, and the existence of all the other parts of that system, made me feel as if I were returning to the repaired home of my youth. Upon receiving the sacrament for the first time according to the form of the English church, my early feelings of devotion revived ; yet by no means, as it might be feared in a common case, with some secret leaning to what I had left ; for Catholicism was thoroughly blended with my bitterest recol- lections. It was a devotion more calm and more rational ; if not quite strong in faith, yet decided as to practice. The religious act I performed I considered as a most solemn engagement to obey the laws of the Gospel ; and I thank God, that, since that period, whatever clouds have obscured my religious views, no deliberate breach of the sacred law has increased the sting of remorse which the unbelieving part of my life left in my breast. The renovated influence of religion, cherished by meditation and study, induced me, after a period of a year and a half, to resume my priestly cha- racter ; a «tep without which I thought I had not 22 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE completed the re-acknowledgini2nt I owed to the truth of Christianity. If any one unacquainted with my circumstances should be inclined to sus- pect my motives, he may easily ascertain his mis- take, by inquiring into the uniform tenonr of my conduct, since, in 1814, 1 subscribed the articles of the church of England. Having now done what I conceived to be a public duty, I retired to Oxford, not to procure admission into the university, which my age would have rendered preposterous; but to live privately in that great seat of learning, devoting my time exclusively to the study of the Scriptures. I had resided a year in that place, when an En- glish nobleman, who since he knew me in Spain has ever honoured me with his friendship, gave me the highest proof of esteem by inviting me to become tutor to his son. I accepted the charge, though with fears that the declining state of my health would greatly disqualify me for the im- portant duties to which I was called : and which I discharged for two years to the best of my power, till my growing infirmities compelled me to resign. Neither the duties of the tutorship, nor the con- AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 2S tinual sufferings which I have endured ever since, could damp my eagerness in the search of religious truth. Shall I be suspected of cant in this de- claration ? Alas ! let the confession which I am going to make, be the unquestionable, though melancholy proof of my sincerity. For more thain three years my studies in divinity wete to me a source of increasing attachment to Christian faith and practice. When I quitted my charge as tutor, I had begun a series of short lectures on religion, the first part of which I de- livered to the young members of the family where I lived in that character *. Having retired to private lodgings in London, it was my intention to prosecute that work, for the benefit of young persons ; but there was by this time a mental phenomenon ready to appear in me, to which I cannot now look back without a strong sense of my own weakness. My vehement desire of knowledge did not allow me to neglect any opportunity of reading whatever books on divinity came to my * These Lectures were published at Oxford, in 1817, with the title of Pbeparatoric Observations on the Study OP Religion, by a Clergyman of the Church op Eng- land. 24 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE hands. In this way I studied the small -work on the Atonement, by Taylor of Norwich, and the confirmed habits of my mind being then too much in accordance with every thing that promised to remove mystery from Christianity, I adopted that author's views without in the least suspecting the consequences. It was not long, however, before I found myself beset with great doubts on the divinity of Christ. My state became now exceed- ingly painful ; for, though greatly wanting religious comfort in the solitude of a sick room, where I was a prey to pain and extreme weakness, I perceived that religious practices had lost their power of soothing me. But no danger or suffering has, in the course of my life, deterred me from the pursuit of truth.; Having now suspected that it might be found in the Unitarian system, I boldly set out upon the search ; but there I did not find it. Whatever industry and attention could do, all was performed with candour and earnestness ; but, in length of time, Christianity, in the light of Unita- rianism, appeared to me a mighty work to little purpose ; and I lost all hope of quieting my mind. With doubts unsatisfied wherever I turned], I found AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 25 myself rapidly sliding into the gulf of scepticism : but it pleased God to prevent my complete relapse. I knew too well the map of infidelity to be deluded a second time by the hope of finding a resting- place to the sole of my foot, throughout its wide domains : and now I took and kept a determination to give my mind some rest from the studies, which, owing to my peculiar circumstances, had evidently occasioned the moral fever under which I laboured. What was the real state of my faith in this period of darkness, God alone can judge. This only can I state with confidence, — ^that I prayed daily for light ; that I invariably considered myself bound to obey the precepts of the Gospel ; and that, when harassed with fresh doubts, and tempted to turn away from Christ, I often repeated from my heart the affecting exclamation of the apostle Peter — " to whom shall I go? thou hast the words of eternal life." For some time I thought it an act of criminal insincerity to approach, with these doubts, the sacramental table; but the consciousness that it was not in my power to alter my state of mind, and that if death, as it appeared very probable. 26 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE should overtake me as I was, I could only throw myself with all my doubts upon the mercy of my Maker ; induced me to do the same in the per- formance of the most solemn act of religion. But I had not often to undergo this awful trial. Ob- jections which, during this struggle, had appeared to me unanswerable, began gradually to lose their weight on my mind. The Christian Evidences which, at the period of my change from infidelity, struck me as powerful in detail, now presenting themselves collectively, acquired a strength which no detached difficulties (and all the arguments of infidelity are so) could shake *. My mind, in fact, found rest in that kind of conviction which belongs peculiarly to moral subjects, and seems to depend on an intuitive perception of the truth through broken clouds of doubt, which it is not in the power of mortal man completely to dispel. * I believe it a duty to mention a work which, under Pro- vidence, contributed to put an end to my trial ; I mean the Internal Evidences of Christianity, by the Rev. John Bird Sumner : — a book which I would strongly recommend to every candid inquirer into religious truth, as containing one of the most luminous views, not only of the proofs, but the doctrines of the Gospel, which it was ever my good fortune to peruse. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 27 Let no one suppose that I allude to either mys- terious or enthusiastic feelings; I speak of con- eviction prepared by examination. But any man accustomed to observe the workings of the mind, v>rill agree, that conviction, in intricate nioral questions, comes finally in the shape of internal feeling. — a perception^ perfectly distinct from syllo- gistic reasoning, but which exerts the strongest power over our moral nature. Such perception of the truth is, indeed, the spring of our most im- portant actions, the common bond of social life, the ground of retributive justice, the parent of all human laws. Yet, it is inseparable from more or less doubt ; for doubtless conviction is only to be found about objects of sense, or those abstract creations of the mind, pure number and dimension, which employ the ' ingenuity of mathematicians. That assurance respecting things not seen, which the Scriptures call Faith, is a supernatural gift which reasoning can never jwroduce. This difference between the conviction, resulting from the exa- mination of the Christian Evidences, and Faith, in the Scriptural sense of the word, appears to me of vital importance, and much to be attended to by 28 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE such as, having renounced the Gospel, are yet disposed to give a candid hearing to its advocates. The power of the Christian Evidences is that of leading any considerate mind, unobstructed by pre- judice, to the records of Revelation, and making it ready to derive instruction from that source of super- natural truth ; but it is the Spirit of truth alone, that can impart the internal conviction of Faith. I have now gone through the religious history of my mind, in which I request you to notice the result of my various situations. Under the in- fluence of that mental despotism, which would prevent investigation by the fear of eternal ruin, or which mocks reason by granting the examina- tion of premises, while it reserves to itself the right of drawing conclusions, I was irresistibly urged into a denial of Revelation ; but no sooner did I obtain freedom, than, instead of my mind running riot in the enjoyment of the long-delayed boon, it opened to conviction, and acknowledged the truth of Christianity. The temper of that mind shows, I believe, the general character of the age to which it belongs. I have been enabled to make an estimate of the moral and intellectual state of AGAINST CATHOLICISM. -29 Spain, which few who know me and that country will, I trust, be inclined to discredit. Upon the strength of this knowledge, I declare again and again that very few among my own class (I com- prehend clergy and laity) think otherwise than I did before my removal to England. The testimony of all who frequent the Continent— ^a testimony which every one'5" knowledge of foreigners sup- ports — represents all Catholic countries in a similar condition. Will it, then, be unreasonable to sup- pose, that if a fair choice was given between the religion of Rome and other forms of Christianity, many would, like myself, embrace the Gospel which they have rejected ? Is there not some presumption of error against a system which every where re- volts an improving age from Christianity ? Let us examine that system itself 30 . PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE LETTER II. Real and practical extent of the authority of the Pope, according to the Roman Catholic Faith, Intolerance its natural consequence. , Were I addressing Catholics, who live under the full and unchecked influence of the church of Rome, it would he unnecessary to come to a pre- vious understanding of the true nature of their tenets; for even persons who have never looked into a theological treatise, are fully aware, in such countries, of the difference between some disputed points, and the doctrines which their church holds as immutable articles of faith. The case is, I per- ceive, much otherwise in England. From the at- tention which I have of late given to the books which issue out of the English Roman Catholic press, I am convinced that there exist two kinds of writers of your persuasion ; one, who write for the Protestant public, and for such among your- selves as cannot well digest the real unsophisticated AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 31 system of their Roman head ; the other, for the mass of their British and Irish church, who still adhere to the Roman Catholic system, such as it is professed in countries where all other religions are condemned by law. In y«^r devotional books, and in such works as are intended to keep up the warmth of attachment to your teligious party, I recognise every feature of the religion in which I was ediicated ; in those intended for the public at large, I only find a flattered and almost ideal por- trait of those to me well-known features, which, unchanged and unsoftened by age, the writers are conscious, cannot be seen without disgust by any to whom custom has not made them familiar. The most artful picture of this kind which has come to my hands is the Book of the Raman Ca- tholic Church, by Charles Butler, Esquire, of Lin- coln's Inn. The high characteir which the author bears for learning and probity makes me desirous to avoid even the shadow of a charge implying any thing derogatory to those qualities ; but I cannot hesitate to declare that his statement of the Roman Catholic doctrines, since it must be believed to have been drawn with sincerity, pre- 32 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE sents a strange instance of the power of prejudice in distorting the clearest objects. In another part of this book* you will find a striking proof that the vehemence of his party spirit goes even to impair his knowle*^. of the Latin language ; and makes a man, whom report classes among your best scholars, render a passage into English, in a manner so far from giving the meaning of the original, that it contradicts itself in the trajis- lation. Had such inaccuracies affected only points of secondary iniportance, or related exclusively to the many historical facts to which Mr. Butler's book refers, I would leave them to more learned and experienced critics ; but as he has, besides, given an incorrect view of your most essential duties as Catholics, I must beg your attention to some remarks on that part of his book, which treats of the authority of the Pope. He that, fully aware of the nature of his engagements to the Church of Rome, is still determined to obey her, should not be disturbed in the use of his * See note B. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 33 discretion; but famished accounts of religious systems must not be allowed to rivet religious prejudice, or stand as a lure to the unwary. The Booh of the Roman Catholic Church la- bours to persuade the world that the authority of the Pope over the Catholics is of so spiritual a nature, as, if strictly reduced to what the creed of that church requires, can never interfere with the civil duties of those who bwn that authority. That the supreme head of the Catholics has, for a long series of centuries, actually claimed a para- mount obedience, and thus actually interfered with the civil allegiance of his spiritual subjects, is as notorious as the existence of the Roman see. The question, then, is whether this was a mere abuse, the effect of human passions encouraged by the ignorance of those ages, or a fair consequence of doctrines held by the Roman ' church as of divine origin, and consequently immutable. I will pro- ceed in this inquiry upon Mr. Butler's own state- ment of the Roman Catholic articles of faith, which is found p. 118 of the first edition of his work. " A chain of Roman Catholic writers on papal D 31^ PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE power might be supposed : on the first linlc we might place the Roman Catholic writers who have immoderately exalted the prerogative of the Pope ; on the last we might place the Roman Catholic writers who have unduly depressed it; and the centre link might be considered to represent the canon of the 10th session of the council of Florence, which defined that ' full power was delegated to the bishop of Rome in the person of St. Peter, to feed, regulate, and govern the universal church, as expressed in the general councils and holy canons.' This (adds the author, in capitals) is the doctrine OF THE Roman Catholic Church on the AUTHORITY OF THE PoPE, and beyond it no Roman Catholic is required to believe *." * The entire canon of the council of Florence is as follows : " Moreover we define that the holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff have a primacy over the whole world, and that the Roman pontiff himself is the successor of St. Peter, the chief of the Apostles, and true Vicar (or Representative, Totfoi'ijfryrijf ) of Christ, and that he is Head of the whole Church, and the Father and Teacher of all Christians ; and that to him in St. Peter was delegated by our Lord Jesus Christ full power to feed, rule (regere), and govern the uni- versal church ; as also is contained in the acts of geneial councils, and in the holy canons." Concil. Labbe, t. xiii. p. 516. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 35 When I examine the vague comprehensiveness of this decree, I can hardly conceive what else the Roman Catholics could be required to believe. Full power to feed, regulate, and govern the uni- versal church, can convey to the mind of the sincere Catholic no idea of limitation. Whatever be the extent of the chain imagined by our author, the decree appears to have been framed wide enough not to exclude the link containing the writers who have most exalted the papal power. The task of those on the other extremity of the chain, is certainly more difficult ; for it cannot well be 1 have taken this translation from Dr. Phillpott's ad- mirable answer to Mr. Butler, to which I am also indebted for this fresh proof of Mr. B.'s ingenious sparingness of quota- tion, when authorities run against him. I will not, how- ever, alter one word in my argument. It is true he beguiled me to fight with weapons he had previously blunted ; but it makes no otlier difference than that I should have had less trouble if the whole passage had been before me. Having however, I hope, fully made out my case under a disadvantage contrived by the adversary, the discovery of this circum- stance shows with increased evidence the reality and force of the objections which are usually made to the Roman Ca- tholics on account of their doctrines relating to the Pope. As some readers may wish to see the original decree of the council, it will be found, both in Greek and Latin, in Note C. D 2 36 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE conceived why mere human rights should be allowed to limit 2i,full power to govern the minds of men, derived from the authority of Christ him- self. Let this be, however, as it may, one thing is icertain, that a true Catholic may understand the full power of feeding, regulating and govern- ing the universal church according to either of the explanations of the doctrine declared by the council of Florence, which Mr. Butler calls Trans- alpine, and Cisalpine. He may consequently be- lieve, that the Pope has, " at the least, an indirect temporal power for eflfecting a spiritual good in any kingdom to which the universal church extends ;" and " that every state is so far subject to the Pope, that when he deems that the bad conduct of the sovereign renders it essential to the good of the church that he shall reign no longer, the Pope is authorised by his divine com- mission to deprive him of his sovereignty, and absolve his subjects from their obligation of allegiance *." A Catholic may, on the other hand, with the old divines of the Galilean church t, * Book of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 121. t The French divines of the present day show themselves far from friendly to the ancient liberties defended by Bossuet. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 37 deny to the Pope this power of deposing princes. Of these two explanations of the infalllhle doc- trine on the Pope's supremacy, Mr. Butler says, that " neither speaks the church's faith." This is, indeed, a remarkable fact. It is a fact from which we may infer, either that the Pope and his church do not understand the nature of the in- spiration on which they build the claim to in- fallibility, or that they receive that inspiration under a kind of political cipher, which, though laid before the eyes of the world, still leaves us in perfect obscurity as to its meaning. Can any one doubt that the Pope, in the face of Christendom, issued a sentence of deposition against Queen Elizabeth ? Had ^ot a similar practice prevailed for many centuries before ? Was this not done by virtue of what the Popes conceived to be their divine prerogative, declared in the council of Florence? Did not the greatest part of the Catholic bishops allow, by their tacit or express consent, that the head of their church was acting in conformity with the inspired definition of his power? Were I not too well acquainted with the extreme flexihility, the deluding slipperiness 38 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE of Roman Catholic theology, I should contend that the sense of the council of Florence had, on these occasions, been fixed by infallible authority ; for the Pope " may promulgate definitions and formularies of faith to the universal church, and when the general body, or a great majority of her prelates have assented to them, either by formal consent or tacit consent, all are bound to acquiesce in them *." But alas for those who will not be convinced ! The bulls of deposition, though always prefaced by a declaration of doctrine concerning the power of the Roman see ; though issued with all possible solemnity ; though assented to by all the bishops, except, perhaps, a few among the subjects of the monarch so deposed and con- demned — these bulls wiU be found not to be de- finitions and formularies of faith. They express a doctrine tolerated in the church of Rome, but not her faith : " this (says Mr. Butler) is con- tained in the canon of the council of Florence. All the doctrine of that canon on the point in question, and nothing but that] doctrine, is pro- ■" Book of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 120, 1st ed. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 39 pounded by the Koman Catholic church to be be- lieved by the faithful *." But will Mr. Butler tell us how the faithful are to ascertain what it is this ALL contains ? No, he certainly cannot. His church tolerates the opinion which in this all, compre- hends the authority to depose princes; nay, the Popes have acted according to that opinion, till the consolidation of the European powers tied their hands ; but she also tolerates (the word is here in its place) the opinion of those who strike off from that ALL, no less a part than the Pope's supremacy over the sovereigns of the earth. Little indeed has the inspiration of the Floren- tine fathers done for you, who, sincerely attached to the Roman Catholic church, are desirous to perform all your duty to its head. You might, indeed, have expected that, former Popes having unfortunately increased the obscurity of this im- portant point of your faith by their political claims, those who have filled the Roman see in later times, ' would have put an end to these doubts, by tolerating no longer, but publicly and positively disclaiming, the doctrines of supremacy embraced by their pre- * Book of the Roman Catholic Churchy p. \2A, 1st ed. 40 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE decessors. Instead of allowing the English and Irish Catholics to apply to Catholic universities for declarations, which these bodies are not authorised to give, the Pope himself might at once have re- moved the doubt, as to the obedience which he claims from you. Why, then, this silence ? why this toleration of an opinion which casts a sus- picion upon your loyalty; which, if adopted, as you certainly may a;dopt it so long as it is tolerated, must more than divide your allegiance ? I think I can explain the cause of this conduct. If either of the two systems concerning the au- thority of the Pope were considered by the Roman Catholic church as absolutely false, she could not tolerate it consistently with her claims to infalli- bility : she must therefore believe them both par- tially true. This, however, could not take place if she understood the council of Florence (as Mr. Butler contends) in a sense equally distant from the two extreme theological opinions. If both ex- press partially her own sense, that sense must be broad enough to embrace a substantial part of the two ; and such is really the case. The Transalpine* * Transalpine and Cisalpine are used here in a very unclas- AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 41 divines regard the grant supposed to have been made by Christ to the Pope, abstractedly from the external circumstances of the Roman church ; and, considering that he who has J^ull authority to feed the flock, must also have it to preserve the pas- turage safe and unobstructed, assert that the de- position of a heretical prince falls within the divine prerogative of the head of the Roman Catholics. The Cisalpine writers, on the other hand, per- ceiving that the assertion of this doctrine, and any attempt to put it into practice, would defeat the object of the Pope's authority, by raising political opposition to the church ; deny that such a specific power against secular princes was ever intended by Christ. The Roman see allows these two opinions to be held, because, as it believes that the Pope's power, to be full, must extend to every act which sical sense ; but as these denominations, or rather Ultramontane and Gallkan, prevail among Roman Catholic divines, I am in a certain degree compelled to use them. If the reader imagines himself in France, where they were first employed, the mistake into which they are apt to lead, will easily be avoided. Transalpine writers are those who scarcely set any bounds to the authority of the Pope ; Cisalpine those who, with Bossuet, contend for the privileges of the Gallican church. 42 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE circumstances may make advantageous to the church ; it will not restrain his hands, in any pos- sible emergency, from checking political opposition to the prosperity of the Roman Catholic religion. But as it may be true that under the circum- stances of the civilized world, it will never be expedient to call upon Catholics to refuse their allegiance to an enemy of the Roman Catholic church, the Cisalpine opinions, which at first were strongly opposed by Rome, are at present tolerated. I have hitherto examined the Roman Catholic doctrine concerning the Pope's supremacy, not be- cause I conceive it to have any practical effect in this country, but in order to expose the vagueness, obscurity, and doubt in which the declaration of one of your infallible councils — a declaration, too, relating to so important a subject as the divine power of your spiritual head — is involved. The days, however, are no more when the Pope, in virtue of his full power to feed, regulate, and govern you, might endeavour to remove a Protest- ant king from the throne. The trial to which, as British subjects and Roman Catholics, you are still AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 43 exposed, is perfectly unconnected with the temporal claims of your ecclesiastical head ; it flows directly from the spiritual. Hence the constant efforts of your political advocates to fix the attention of the public on the question of temporal supremacy, in which they may make a show of independence. Hence the irrelevant questions proposed to the Catholic universities, which, as their object was known, gave ample scope to the versatile casuistry of those bodies. Their task, in assisting their brethren of England and Ireland, would have cer- tainly required a greater degree of ingenuity, had the following question been substituted for the three which were actually proposed : — Can the Pope, in virtue of what Roman Catholics believe his divine authority, command the assistance of the faithful in checking the progress of heresy, hy any means not Uheby to produce loss or danger to the JRoman Catholic church; and can that church acknow- ledge the validity of any engagement to disobey the Pope in such cases f This is a question of great practical importance to all sincere Catholics in these kingdoms. Allow me, therefore, to can- vass it according to the settled principles of your 44 PUACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDiENCJE faith and practice, since political views prevent your own writers from placing it in its true light. At the time when I am writing this, one branch of the legislature has declared itself favourable to what is called Catholic em'ancipation ; and, for any thing I can conjecture, Roman Catholics may be allowed to. sit in parliament before these Letters appear in public. A Roman Catholic legislator of Protestant England would, indeed, feel the weight of the difficulty to which my suggested question alludes, provided his attach- ment to the Roman Catholic faith were sincere. A real Roman Catholic once filled the throne of these realms, under similar circumstances; and neither the strong bias which a crown at stake must have given to his mind, nor all the in- genious evasions proposed to him by the ablest divine of the court of Louis XIV. could remove or disguise the obstacles which \yis, faith opposed to his political duties. The source of the religious scruples which deprived James II. of his regal dignity, is expressed in one of the questions which he proposed to several divines of his persuasion. It comprises, in a few words, what every candid mind AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 45 must perceive to be the true and only difficulty in the admission of Roman Catholics to the parlia- ment of these kingdoms. What James doubted respecting the regal sanction, a member of either house may apply to the more limited influence of his vote. He asked " Whether the king could pro- mise to give his assent to all the laws which might be proposed for the greater security of the church of England ?" Four English divines, who attended James in his exile, answered without hesitation in the negative. The casuistry of the French court was certainly less abrupt. Louis XIV. observed to James, that " as the exercise of the Catholic religion could not he re-established in England, save hy removing from the people the impression that the king was resohed to make it triumph, he must dissuade him from saying or doing any thing which might authorise or aug- ment this fear." The powerful talents of Bossuet were engaged to support the political views of the French monarch. His answer is a striking speci- men of casuistic subtlety. He begins by establish- ing a distinction between adhering to the erroneous principles professed by a church, and the protection 46 PKACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE given to it " ostensibly, to preserve public tran- quillily." He calls the Edict of Nantes, by which the Huguenots were, for a time, tolerated, " a hind of protection to the reformed, shielding them from the insults of those who would trouble them in the exercise of their religion. It never was thought (adds Bossuet) that the conscience of the monarch was interested in these concessions, except so far as they were judged necessary for public tran- quillity. The same may be said of the king of England; and if he grant greater advantages to his Protestant subjects, it is because the state in which they are in his kingdoms, and the object of public repose, require it." Speaking of the Articles, the Liturgy, and the Homilies, " it is not asked (he says) that the king should become the pro- moter of these three things, but only that he shall OSTENSIBLY leave them a free course, for the peace of his subjects." " The Catholics (he con- cludes) ought to consider the state in which they are, and the small portion they form of the popula- tion of England ; which obliges them not to ask what is impossible of their king, but on the con- trary, to sacrifice all the advantages with which AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 47 they might idly flatter themselvesf, to the real and solid good of having a king of their religion, and securing his family on the throne, though Catholic ; which may lead them naturally to expect in time, the entire establishment of their church and faith*." Such is the utmost stretch which can be given to the Roman Catholic principles in the toleration of a church which dissents from the Roman faith. A conscientious Roman Catholic may, for the sake of public peace, and in the hope of finally serving the cause of his church, ostensibly giv.e a free course to heresy. But, if it may be done without such dan- gers, it is his unquestionable duty to undermine a system of which the direct tendency is, in his opi- nion, the spiritual and final ruin of men. Is there B, Catholic divine who can dispute this doctrine ? Is there a learned and conscientious priest among you, who would give absolution to such a person as, having it in his power so to direct his votes and conduct in parliament as to diminish the in- fluence of Protestant principles, without disturb- ing or alarming the country, would still heartily * See the whole of Bossuet's answer in note D. 48 PKACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE and stedfastly join in promoting the interest of the English church? Let the question be pro- posed to any Catholic university ; and, though I am fully aware of the inexhaustible resources of casuistry, I should not fear to stake the force of my argument upon its honest and conscientious answer. The author of the Sooh of the Roman Catholic Church rejects as a gratuitous imputation what- ever is attributed to that church, without the ex- press authority of one of her definitions of faith. I will only remind those who are well acquainted with the Roman Catholic system of divinity, that, in what relates to moral and practical principles, such references cannot fairly be demanded. The definitions of your church upon such points are very few. Some moral doctrines have been cen- sured as lax, some as being of a depraving tejid- ency ; but the consciences of Catholics are guided by the broad rules of action acknowledged by all Christians. In the application of these rules there is, indeed, some variety of opinion among your moralists ; for as they often dwell upon imaginary cases, an ample field is left to ingenuity for all the AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 49 shifts and turns of expediency. The doctrine, however, that he, Who being able to prevent a sin allows its commission, is guilty of that sin and its consequences; requires no sanction from Pope or council. No Christian will ever deny this position ; and even a deist, if he is to presefve consistency, will be obliged to admit its justnesg. This being so, it follows with unquestionable cer-" tainty that a. Roman Catholic cannot, Without guilt, lend his support to a Protestant establishment, but is bound, as he wishes to save his soul, to miss no opportunity of checking the progress of heresy : the most grievous of all moral offences, according to the doctrines of the* lloman Catholic church* Murder itself is less sinful, in the judgment of the Roman see, than a deliberate separation from her communion and creed. I need not prove this to those who are disposed to recognize the Roman Catholic doctrines in the face of the world ; but if any one still doubts the place which heresy holds in the Roman Catholic scale of criminal guilt, let him explain away, if he can, the follow- ing passage of the papal bull which is every year published in the Spanish dominions, under the 50 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE title of The Crusade. By that bull, every person who pays a small sum towards an imaginary war against infidels, is privileged to be released from all ecclesiastical censures, and receive absolution at the hands of any priest, of all, whatever sins, he may have committed, " even of those censures and sins which are reserved to the apostolic see, the crime of heresy excepted * ." Is it then to cherish, foment, and defend this heinous crime — the crime which the Pope exempts from the easy and plenary re- mission granted to the long list of abominations left for the ear of a common priest — is it this crime, as established, honoured, and endowed by the law of England, that you are anxious to sanction with your votes in parliament ? Suppose, for a moment, that it were possible for such a state as that of the Old Man of the Moun- tain or Prince of the Assassins, to have grown into a powerful nation, and reduced a Christian people under its domihion, without extinguish- * " Que puedan elegir Confesor Secular o Regular, de los aprobados por el ordinario, y obtener de 61 plenaria indul- gencia, y remision de qualquiera pecados y censuras, aun de los reservados, y reservadas a la Silla Apostolica, ecepto el crimen de heregia." Bula de la Cruzada. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 51 ing their faith : the condition of these Christians would have greatly differed at two different periods. Before a sad experience had convinced them of the inadequacy of their power to overcome those enemies of God and man, they would naturally have fought openly and manfully against the assassin establishment, or died martyrs in passive resistance. When finally subdued, two courses alone would be left open : either to keep their hands clean from blood, by declining all participa- tion in the acts of the government, or join it with the intention of checking, by indirect means, the commission of an interminable series of crimes, secured by the constitutional laws of the state. Is there, I ask, any difference between this case and that of real Roman Catholics under a Protestant government, whose very essence is to maintain a separation from the communion of Rome, thereby placing millions of souls in a state which, you are bound to believe, cancels their title to salvation as Christians ? I am aware that a practical sense of the ab- surdity of this tenet of your church, has forced many of you to avert their eyes from it, and e2 52 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE persuade themselves that it is possible to be a Roman Catholic without holding the absolute ex- clusion of heretics from the benefits of Christ's redemption. This, believe me, is an error. Ex- amine that professimi of faith in which your church has set forth her fundamental doctrines, and you will find that she positively confines salvation to her miembers, and makes this very article a necessary condition for reception within her pale*. Your English catechisms endeavour to throw a sort of veil on this doctrine, by stating that Protestants may be saved if they labour under invincible ignorance of the true Roman Catholic faith ; leaving such as are unacquainted with their theological language to understand, that by in- vincible ignorance, is nieant unconquerable con- viction. But has the church of Rome ever mo- dified her declarations against heretics, even with that poor and degrading exemption of ignorance ? Will the learned conviction of a Melancthon, a * " This true Catholic faithj out of which none can be SAVBB, which I now freely profess and truly hold, I, N. promise, vow, and swear, most constantly to hold," &c. &c. Creed of Vms IV. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 53 Calvin, a Grotius, an Usher, and the innumerable host of Protestant luminaries, pass under the humble denomination of that ignorance, on which Catholic divines allovsr a chance of eternal hap- piness to pagans and savages? If sincere con- viction is a valid plea with the Roman Catholic church, why has she scattered to the winds the ashes of those who allowed that conviction to be tried in her inquisitorial fires ? I rejoice to find the dogma of intolerance branded in the 3ooh of the Roman Catholic Church with the epithet of detestable * ; but cannot help wondering that a man who thus openly expresses his detestation of that doctrine should still profess obedience to a see, under whose authority the inquisition of Spain was re- established in 1814. If Catholics are so far im- proved under the Protestant government of Eng- land as to be able to detest persecution, by what intelligible distinction do they still find it con-- sistent to cling to the source of the intolerance which has inundated Europe with blood, and still shows its old disposition unchanged, wherever it * Book of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 303, 1st ed. 54 PllACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE preserves aii exclusive influenee ? In what church did Spain learn the necessity of forbidding her subjects, for ever, the right of choosing the^r re- ligious tenets, and that at the very moment when she was proclaiming a free constitution? Who has induced the republican governttients of Spanish America to copy the same odious law in their new codes ? — That church, no doubt, who looks com- placently on such acts and declarations, in countrieis where even her silence stamps public doctrines with the character of truth. Yes ; the " detestable dogma of religious intolerance' is publicly and -solemnly proclaimed in the bosom of the Roman Ca- tholic Church, without a single observation against it from the Pope or the bishops of that church; nay, the legislators themselves are forced to pro- claim and sanction it against their own conviction, because the mass of the people are allowed by the church to understand that such are their duty, and her belief. If the Roman Catholic Church can thus allow detestable dogmas to act in full force within the ^ inmost recesses of her bosom, those Catholics who differ from her notions, so far as her apologist AGAINST CATHOLICISM- 55 Mr. Butler, might guide themselves . in religious ; matters without the assistance of her infallibility. That able writer allows himself to be blinded by the spirit of party, when he labours to prove that intolerance does not belong exclusively to his Church; and charges Protestants with persecu- tion. That Protestants did not at once perceive the fuU extent of the fundamental principle of the. Reformation^-5the inherent right of every man to judge for himself on matters of faith — can neither invalidate the truth of that luminous principle, nor bind subsequent Protestants to limit its ap- plication. It is a melancholy truth, that Pro- testants did persecute at one time; but it is a truth which rivets the accusation of inherent and essential intolerance upon that Church, whose erroneous doctrines the patriarchs of the reforma- tion could not cast off at once. Thanks be to the protecting care of that Providence, which, through them, prepared the complete emancipation from religious tyranny which Protestants enjoy at this moment ; the infallibility of their churches made no part of the common belief on which they agreed from the beginning, or the spirit of intolerance would only have changed its name among us. 56 PEACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE The dogma of an infallible judge of religious sub- jects is the true source of bigotry ; and whoever believes it in his heart, is necessarily and con- scientiously a persecutor. A fallible Church can use no compulsion. If she claim " authority on matters of faith," it is to declare her own creed to those who are willing to be her members. The infallible judge, on the contrary, looks on his pre- tended gift as a miraculous divine commission, to stop the progress of what he condemns as an error. He persecutes and punishes dissenters, not because they cannot be convinced by his rea- sons, but for obstinate resistance to his super- natural authority. Rome never doomed her op- ponents to the flames for their errors, but their contumacy. It is by this means that she has been able so often to extinguish sympathy in the breast of her followers ; for error excites compassion, while rebellion never fails to kindle indignation *. The Roman Catholics have been accused of hold- ing a doctrine which justifies them in not keeping faith with heretics; This charge is false as it stands : but it has a foundation in truth which I will * Note E. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 57 lay before you, as an important consequence of the claims of your church to infallibility. The con- stant intercourse with those whom you call heretics, has blunted the feeling of horror which the Ro- man Church has assiduously fomented against Christians who dissent from her. It is, indeed, a happy result of the Reformation, that some of the strongest prejudices of the Roman Catholics have been softened wherever the Protestant re- ligion has obtained a footing. Where this mix- ture has never taken place, true Roman Catholics remain nearly what they were in the time when Christendom rejoiced at the breach of faith, which committed Huss to the flames by the sentence of a general council. In England, however, far from pretending to such unfair advantages, the Roman Catholics resent the suspicion that their oaths, not to interfere with the Protestant establishment, may be annulled by the Pope. The settled and sin- cere determination to keep such oaths, in those who appear ready to take them, I will not ques- tion for a moment ; but I cannot conceal my per- suasion, that it is the duty of every Roman Ca- tholic pastor to dissuade the members of their 58 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE flocks from taking oaths which^ if not allowed in a spirit of the most treacherous policy, would imply a separation from the communion of the Church of Rome. Let me lay down the doctrine of that Church on this important point. I will assume the most liberal opinion of the Cotholic divines, and grant that the Pope cannot annul an oath in virtue of his dispensing power*. But this can only be said of a lawful oath; a quality which no human law can confer upon an engagepient to perform a sinful act. A promise imder oath, to execute an immoral deed, is in itself a monstrous offence against the divine law ; and the performance of such a promise would only aggravate the crime of having made it. There are, however, cases where the lawfulness of the engagement is doubtful, and the obligation bur- * Thomas Aquinas, whose authority is most highly re- verenced in these matter^j maintains, however, that there exists a power in the church to dispense both with a vow, which, according to him, is the most sacred of all engagements, ' and, consequently, with an oath. Sicut in voto aliqua neces- sitatis seu honestatis causa potest fieri dispensatio, ita et in juramenlo. Secunda Secundae Quest. Ixxxix. Art, ix. The popes, in fact, have frequently exercised this dispensing power with the tacit consent of the church. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 59 densome, or, by a change of circumstances, inex- pedient and preposterous. The interference of the Pope, in such cases, is, according to the liberal opinion which I am stating, improperly called dispensation. The Pope only declares that the original oath, or vow, was null and void, either from the nature of the thing promised, or from some circumstances in the manner and form of the promise; when, by virtue of his authority, the head of the church removes all spiritual responsi- bility from the* person who submits himself to his decision. I do not consider myself bound to con- firm the accuracy of this statement by written authorities, as I do not conceive the possibility of any Roman Catholic divine bringing it into question. The Roman Catholic doctrine on the obligation of oaths being clearly understood, sincere members of that church can find no difficulty in applying, it to any existing test, or to any oath which may be tendered, in future, with a view to define the limits of their opposition to doctrines and practices condemned by Rome. In the first place, they can- not but see that an oath binding them to lend a 60 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE direct support to any Protestant establishment, or to omit such measures as may, without finally in- juring the cause of Catholicism, check and disturb the spread and ascendancy of error; is in itself sinful, and cannot, therefore, be obligatory. In the second place, it must be evident, that if, for the advantage of the Catholic religion suffering under a heterodox ascendancy, some oaths of this kind may be tolerated by Catholic divines, the head of that church will find it his duty to declare their nullity upon any change of circumstances. The persevering silence of the Papal see in regard to this point, notwithstanding the advantages which an authorized declaration would give to the Roman Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland, is an in- dubitable proof that the Pope cannot give his sanc- tion to engagements made in favour of a Protestant establishment. Of this, Bossuet himself was aware, when to his guarded opinion upon the scruples of James II. against the coronation oath, he subjoined the salvo : — " I nevertheless submit with all my heart to the supreme decision of his Holiness." If that decision, however, was then, and is now, with- held, notwithstanding the disadvantages to which AGAINST eATHOLICISM. 61 the silence of Rome subjects the Roman Catholics, it cannot be supposed that it would at all tend to remove them. To such as are intimately acquainted with the Catholic doctrines, which I have just laid before you, the conduct of the Roman see is in no way mysterious. It would be much more difficult to explain upon what creditable principle of their church, the Ca- tholic divines of these kingdoms can give their approbation to oaths tendered for the security of the Protestant establishment. The clergy of the church of England have been involved in a ge- neral and indiscriminate charge of hypocrisy and simulation, upon religious matters. It would ill become one in my peculiar circumstances to take up the defence of that venerable body * ; yet I cannot dismiss this subject without most solemnly attesting, that the strongest impressions which enliven and support my Christian faith, are de- rived from my friendly intercourse with members of that insulted clergy; while, on the contrary, * Since writing this passage^ a inost spirited and modest defence of the church of England clergy has been published by Dr. Blomfield, Lord Bishop of Chester. 62 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE I knew but very few Spanish priests whose talents or acquirements were above contempt, who had not secretly renounced their religion. Whether something similar to the state of the Spanish clergy may not explain the support which the Catholic priesthood of these king- doms seem to give to oaths so abhorrent from the belief of their church, as those which must precede the admission of members of that church into parliament ; I will not undertake to say. If there be conscientious believers among them, which I will not doubt for a moment, and they are not forced into silence, as I suspect it is done in similar cases*, I feel assured that they will earnestly deprecate, and condemn all engagements on the part of the Roman Catholics, to support and * I recollect something about the persecution of one Mr. Gandolphy, a London priest, who was obliged to appeal per- sonally to Rome against the persecution of his brethren^ for exposing too freely the doctrines which might increase the difficulties of Catholic emancipation. The Pope did not con- demn him. Since writing this note I have seen the case of Mr. Gandolphy stated in an able publication of the Rev. George Croly, entitled Popery and the Popish Question. Mr. G.'s doctrines were highly approved at Rome. — This statement, which is literally that of the first edition, requires an explanation. The reader will find it in Note F. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 63 defend the church of England. Such an engage- ment implies either a renunciation of the tenet excluding Protestants from the benefits of the Gospel promises, or a shocking indifference to the eternal welfare of men. If your leaders, whom it would be uncha- ritable to suspect of the latter feeling, have so far receded from the Roman creed as to allow us the common privileges of Christianity, and can con- scientiously swear to protect and encourage the interests of the church of England; let them, in the name of truth, speak openly before the world, "and be the first to remove that obstacle to mutual benevolence, and perfect community of political privileges— the doctrine of exclusive salva- tion in your church. Cancel but that one article from your creed, and all liberal men in Europe will offer you the right hand of fellowship. Your other doctrines concern but yourselves ; this en- dangers the peace and freedom of every man living, and that in proportion to your goodness ; it makes your very benevolence a curse. Believe a man who has spent the best years of his life where Catholicism is professed without the check G'i PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE of dissenting opinions ; where it luxuriates on the soil, which fire and sword have cleared of what- ever might stunt its natural and genuine growth ; a growth incessantly watched over by the head of your church, and his authorized representatives' the Inquisitors. Alas ! " / have a mother" out- weighed all other reasons for a change, in a man of genius*, who yet cared not to show his indifference to the religious system under which he was born. I, too, " had a mother," and such a mother as, did I possess the talents of your great poet, tenfold, they would have been honoured in doing homage to the powers of her mind and the goodness of her heart. No woman could love her children more ardently, and none of those children was more vehemently loved than myself. But the Roman Catholic creed had poisoned in her the purest source of affection. I saw her, during a long period, unable to restrain her tears in my presence. I perceived that she shunned my conversation, especially when my university friends drew me into topics above those of domestic talk. I loved her ; and this behaviour * Pope : see his letter to Atterbury on this subject. AGAINST CATHOLICIS^Sr. 65 cut me to the heart. In my distress I applied to a friend to whom she used to communicate all her sorrows : and, to my utter horror, I learnt that, su- specting me of anti-catholic principles, my mother was distracted by the fear that she might be obliged to accuse me to the Inquisition, if I incautiously uttered somie condemned proposition in her pre- sence. To avoid the barbarous necessity of being the instrument of my ruin, she could find no other means but that of shunning my presence. Did this unfortunate mother overrate or mistake the nature of her Roman Catholic duties ? . By no means. The Inquisition was established by the supreme authority of her church ; and, under that au- thority, she was enjoined to accuse any person whatever, whom she might overhear uttering he- retical opinions. No exception was made in fa- vour of fathers, children, husbands, wives : to conceal was to abet their errors, and doom two souls to eternal perdition. A sentence of excom- munication, to be incurred in the fact, was an- nually published against all persons, who haviug heard a proposition directly or indirectly contrstry to the Romanist Faith, omitted to inform the in- 66 PRACTICAL AND INTEB.NAL EVIDENCE quisitors upon it. Could any sincere Catholic slight such a command ? Such is the spirit of the ecclesiastical power to which you submit. The monstrous laws of which I speak do not belong to a remote period : they existed in full force fifteen years ago ; they were republished under the authority of the Pope, at a later period. If some of your writers assume the tone of freedom which belongs to this age and country ; if you profess your Faith without compulsion ; you may thank the Protestant laws which protect you. Is there a spot in the uni- verse where a Roman Catholic may throw off his mental allegiance, except where Protestants have contended for that right, and sealed it with their blood ? I know that your church modifies her in- tolerance according to circumstances, and that she tolerates in France, after the revolution, the Hugonots, whom she would have burnt in Spain a few years ago, and whom she would doom to some indefinite punishment, little Short of the stake, at this present moment. Such conduct is imworthy of the claims which Rome contends for, and would disgrace the most obscure leader of a AGAtNST CATHOLICISM. &t paltry sect. If she still claims the right of wield- ing " the sword of Peter," why does she conceal it under her mantle ? If not, why does she not put an end to nlore than half the miseries and degradation of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Spanish America, by at once declaring that JM^ra are account- able only to God fot their religious belief, and that sincere and conscientious persuASion must^ both in this and the next world, be a valid plea Jbr the pardon of error ? Does the Church of Rome really profess this doctrine ? It is then a sacred duty for her to remove at oftCe that scandal of Christianity, that intolerance which the con- duct of Popes and councils has invariably up- held*.. But if, as I am persuaded, Rome still thinks in conformity with her former conduct, land yet the Roman Catholics of these king- doms dissent from her on this point, they have already begun to use the Protestant right of pri- vate Judgment upon ONE of the articles of their faith ; and I may hope that they will follow me in the examination of that alleged divine authority * Note G. 68 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE by which they are prevented from extending "It to ALL. POSTSCRIPT. Want of books, or rather want of sufficient health to undergo the fatigue and discomfort of consulting them in public libraries, had made me proceed in the composition of these Letters, de- riving the materials from my own stores, and from the book itself against the general tendency of which I was induced to take up the pen. My knowledge of the Roman Catholic doctrines led me soon to conclude that Mr. Butler was a writer who, on the fairest construction, knew how to divert his adversaries from all the weak points of his cause. Yet I trusted that the accuracy of his quotations . might be depended upon, especially when he gave us authorised statements of the Roman Catholic tenets. The translation of the creed of Pius I Y., which Mr. Butler inserted in his Book of the Roman Catholic Church, was, therefore, the only document of that kind from which I deduced my arguments to prove the duty incumbent on Roman Catholics to propagate their AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 69 religion by every means in their power. Whether I have succeeded or failed in proving that fact by inference, my readers will decide. But upon a revision of my arguments, I do not regret that an omission which I subsequently discovered in Mr. Butler's translation of that Creed, deprived me, at first, of the easiest and most direct proof which I could wish to support my assertion. For had I consulted the original at once, the positive confirmation which that document gives it, and my own familiar conviction of its truth, would have induced me to save myself the exertion of fully developing my argument. As it now hap- pens, I flatter myself that my readers will give me some credit for accuracy in the knowledge of the Roman Catholic doctrines, when they shall see that a theoretical reasoning from her established general principles, fully and accurately agrees with a positive injunction of the church of Rome, of which lapse of time had made me forget the existence. Let us, then, compare the last article in Mr. Butler's translation of the Creed, with the original. Mr. Butler's translation: — " This true catholic 70 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE faith, out of which none can be saved, which I now freely profess, and truly hold, I, N., promise, vow, and swear most constantly to hold and pro- fess the same whole and entire, with God's as- sistance, to the end of my life. Amen." The Latin original.—" Hanc veram catholicam fidera, extra quam nemo salvus esse potest, quam in praesenti sponte profiteer, et veraciter teneo, eandem integram, et inviolatam, usque ad ex- tremum vitse spatium constantissime (Deo adju- vante) retinere et confiteri, atque a meis sub- DITIS, VEL ILLIS QUORUM CURA AD ME IN MUNERE MEO SPECTABIT, TENERI, DOCERI, ET PR^DICARI, QUANTUM IN ME ERIT, CURATU- RUM EGO IDEM N. SPONDEO, VOVEO, AC JURO." Now, the words in small capitals, omitted by Mr. Butler, contain the very pith and marrow of the strongest argument against the admissibility of Roman Catholics to parliament. For if the most solemn profession of their faith lays on every one of her members who enjoys a place of influence, the duty of " procuring, that all under him, hy virtue of his office, shall hold, teach, and preach the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, and AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 71 his under an oath and vow ; how can such men ngage to preserve the ascendancy of the Church •f England in these realms ? When, in the New Times of the 5th of April, [ exposed this important omission before the pub- ic, I thought that Mr. Butler would have ex- plained the origin of it. But I am not aware of his having given any explanation. Neither on that, nor on the present occasion, is it my in- tention to cast a suspicion on that gentleman's good faith. He probably copied from some gar- bled translation, prepared by less scrupulous mem- bers of his communion, who wished to conceal the real tenets of their church from a Prot«stant public. At all events, this fresh instance of inac- curacy on a most important point, gives additional propriety to caution in reading Mr. Butler's de-^ fences of Catholicism. 73 niACTICAL AND INTEllNAL EVIDENCE LETTER III. Examination of the title to infallibility, spiritual supremacy, and exclusive salvation, claimed by the Roman Catholic Church. Internal evidence against Rome, in the use she has made of her assumed prerogative. Short method of , determining the question. At the conclusion of my preceding Letter, I entreated you to examine the title by which your church deprives her members of the right of private judgment on religious matters, and denies salvation to those who venture to think for them- selves. In making this request I may appear to have overlooked the very essence of your religious allegiance, and to demand a concession which would at once put you out of the pale of the Roman church. But I beg you to observe, that whatever be the extent of the authority of that church over you, there is one point which it can- not withhold from the judgment and verdict of your reason. The reality of her title to be the guide and rule of your faith, must be a matter, not of authority, but of proof. He that claims AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 73 obedience in virtue of delegated power, is bound to prove his appointment. Any attempt to de- prive those who without that appointment would be his equals, of the liberty to examine the au- thority, nature, and extent of the decree which constitutes the delegate above them ; is an in- vasion of men's natural liberty, as well as a strong indication of imposture. If before we come to God we must, through nature, believe that he is ; surely before we yield our reason to one who calls himself God's Vicar, our reason should be satisfied that God has truly appointed him to that supereminent post. How then stands the case between the church of Rome and the world ? The church of Rome proclaims that Jesus Christ, both God and man, having appeared on earth for the salvation of mankind, appointed the apostle Peter to be his representative ; made him the head of all the members of his church then existing ; and granted a similar privilege to Peter's successors, without limitation of time. To this she adds, that, to the church, united under Peter and his, successors, Christ ensured an infallible 74 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE knowledge of the sense of the Scriptures, and an equally infallible knowledge of certain traditions, and their true meaning. On the strength of this divine appointment, the church of Rome demands the same faith in the decisions of her head, when approved " by the tacit assent or open consent of the greatest part of her bishops," as if they pro- ceeded from the mouth of Christ himself. The divine commission, on which she grounds these claims, runs in these words of Christ to the chief of his apostles : " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it : And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; and what- soever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." It will not be denied that between this vm- questionable authority and the statement which precedes it, there is no verbal agreement. A man unacquainted with the system of divinity sup- ported by the church of Rome, would, probably, perceive no connexion between the alleged passage and the commentary. But let us suppose that AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 75 these words of our Saviour contain the meaning in question : yet no man will deny, that if they do contain it, it is in an indirect and obscure manner. The fact then is, that even if the church of Rome should be really endowed with the supernatural assistance which she asserts, the divine Founder of Christianity was pleased to make the existence of that extraordinary gift one of the least obvious truths contained in the Gospels. It might have been expected, however, that Peter, in his Epistles, or in the addresses to the first Christians which the Acts record, would have removed the ob- scurity ; and that, since the grant of infallibility to him, to his peculiar church, and to his suc- cessors in the see~ of that church (either inde- pendently of the infallibility of others, or in com- bination with other privileged persons, — for this is also left in great obscurity) was made the only se- curity against the attacks of hell ; he would have taken care to explain the secret sense of Christ's address to him. Peter, however, does not make the slightest allusion to his privileges. His suc- cessors being not named in the supposed original 76 phactical and internal evidenck grant of supremacy, it was in course that, by an express declaration, Peter would obviate the na- tural inference, that they were excluded from his own personal prerogatives. But Peter is equally silent about his successors ; and to add to the ori- ginal mysteriousness of the subject, he never men- tions Rome, and dates his epistles from Babylon. Babylon may figuratively mean Rome ; the silence of both our Saviour and his apostle may, by some strange rule of interpretation, be proved to denote those successors ; the whole system, in fine, of the Roman Catholic church may be contained in the alleged passage ; but, if so, it is contained like a diamond in a mountain. The plainest sense of any one passage of the Scriptures cannot be so palpable as the obscurity of the present. It fol- lows, therefore, with all the force of demonstra- tion, that the divine right claimed by the Pope and his church to be the infallible rule of faith, having no other than an obsciu'e and doubtful foundation, the belief in it cannot be obligatory on all Christians ; who are left to follow the sug- gestions of their individual judgment as to the AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 77 obscure meaning of the Scriptures, till the Scrip- tures themselves shall be found to demand the resignation of that' judgment. I request you to observe, that the force of my argument does not depend upon the erroneous- ness of the Roman interpretation of the passages alleged for the spiritual supremacy; all I contend for is the douhtfulness of their meaning : for to suppose that the divine founder of Christianity, while providing against doubt in his future fol- lowers, would miss his aim by overlooking the obscurity in which he left the remedy he wished to appoint ; is a notion from which Christians must shrink. It follows, therefore, either that Christ did not intend what the Romanists believe about Peter, and his church ; or that, since he concealed his meaning, an obedience to the Ro- man church cannot "be a necessary condition in his disciples. The liberty which, upon the supposition most favourable to Rome, Christ has granted to be- lievers in his , Gospel, the Pope and his church most positively deny them. Placing themselves between mankind and the Redeemer, they allow 78 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE " those only to approach him, who first make a full surrender of their judgment to Popes and councils* A belief in Christ and his work of redemption, grounded on the Scriptures and their evidences, is thus made useless, ^unless it is preceded by a belief in Roman supremacy, grounded on mere surmises. Christianity is removed friJm its broad foundation, to place the mighty fabric upon the moveable sand of a conjectural meaning. This looks more like love of self than of Christ ; more like ambition than charity. The title to in- fallibility and supremacy being at the best doubt- ful, the benefit of the doubt should have been left to Christian liberty. — But may not the opposite conduct of the Roman church have arisen from sincere zeal for what she conceived to be the true intention of Christ ? Christian candour would de- mand this construction, were it not for the use she has made of the assumed privilege : yet if we find that, having erected herself into an organ of Heaven, all her oracular decisions have invari^ly tended towards the increase of her own power ; it will be difficult to admit the purity of her inten- tions. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 7^ By comparing the articles of the church of Rome with those of the church of England, we shall find that the points of difference are chiefly these : tradition, transubstantiation, the number of sacraments, purgatory, indulgences, and the invo- cation of saints. Such are the more prominent questions on doctrine, at issue between the two churches ; for the differences about free-will and justification might, I believe, be settled with less difficulty *, by accurately defining the language on * I said in the first edition, without much difficulty^ This was one of those incorrect assertions, which are apt to drop in- advertently, upon collateral points, when the mind is in full pursuit of some main object. Some difficulties might, indeed, he removed by accurately defining the terras in the vital ques- tion of Justification ; but the Scriptural doctrine on that sub- ject stands so boldly and decidedly opposed to the Romish tenets on the merit of works and indulgences ; and these again have been so deeply ingrafted by the Roman Catholic, on the doctrine of Justification, that no agreement between the churches of England and Rome, on that point, appears pro- bable. As far, however, as Justification is connected, in Ro- manist Theology, with good works and indulgences, it cornea within the description of doctrines, whose tendency is to in- crease ecclesiastical power, and consequently within the scope of my argument. — I have, besides, made another alteration in the text, in order to avoid being misunderstood, by calling the points mentioned therein, the main questions between the Pro- testants and Rome. By main questions I did not mean, in the 80 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDEXCE both sides. Now, I will not assume the truth of the Protestant tenets on these points, nor enter into arguments against those of the Roman church ; my present concern is with their tendency. To begin with tradition : let us observe how broad a field i^ opened to the exercise of infalli- bility, by the supposition that an indefinite number of revealed truths, were floating down the stream of ages, unconsigned to the inspired records of Christianity. The power of interpreting the word of God by a continual light from above, might be confined by the Scriptures themselves, as it would be difficult to force doctrines on the belief of Christians, of which the very name and subject seem to have been unknown to the inspired writers. Divine tradition, the first-born of infallihility, re- moves this obstacle ; and, so doing, increases the influence of Rome to an indefinite extent. I do not here contend that to place tradition upon the same footing with the Scriptures, is an error ; but first edition, the most important in religion, but such as, in my opinion, opposed the greatest bar to re-union. As a Christian doctrine, however, I hold that oi justification by faith alone as one of the essentials of true religion, AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 81 whether error or truth, it is certainly power in the hands of the Roman church. By the combined influence of tradition and in- faUihility, the church of Rome established the doc- trine of Transubstantiation. From the moment that people are made to believe that a man has the power of working, at all times, the stupendous miracle of converting bread and wine into the" body and blood of Christ, that man is raised to a dignity above all which kings are able to confer. What, then, must be the honour due to a bishop, who can bestow the power of performing the miracle of transubstantiation ? What the rank of the Pope, who is the head of the bishops themselves ? The world beheld for centuries, the natural consequences of the surprising belief in the power of priests to convert bread and wine into the incarnate Deity *. Kings and emperors were forced to kiss the Pope's foot, because their subjects were in the daily habit of kissing the hands of priests — those hands which were believed to come in frequent contact with the body of Christ. The abundance of ceremonies supposed to pro- * Note H. G 82 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE duce supernatural effects, must magnify the cha- racter of the privileged ministers of those ceremo- nies. Hence a church possessing seven sacraments, is far superior in influence, to one who acknow- ledges but two. Add to this the nature of four out of the five Romanist sacraments — penance, ex- treme unction, ordination, and matrimony — and the extent of power which she thereby obtains, will appear. Penance, i. e. auricular confession, puts the consciences of the laity under the direc- tion of the priesthood. Extreme unction is one of her means to allay fear and remorse. Ordination is intimately connected with the influence which the Roman church derives from transubstantiation, and its being made a sacrament adds probability to the miraculous powers which it is supposed to confer. Finally, by giving the sacramental character to matrimony, the source and bond of civil society is directly and primarily subjected to the church. There still remain three exclusive offsprings of tradition, explained and defined by infallibility, which yield to none in happy consequences to the Roman church, — indulgences, purgatory, and the worship of saints, relics, and images. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 83 The wealth which has flowed into the lap of Rome, in exchange for indulgences, is incalculable- Even in the decline of her influence, she still looks for a considerable part of her revenues from this source : to which also she owes the degree of sub- jection in which she keeps the Roman Catholic governments. My unfortunate native country shows the nature and extent of this influence in a striking light. I have already mentioned the Bull of the Crusade, through which the barter ef indulgences and dispensations for money, is car- ried on, in a manner worthy of the darkei^t ages. The Spanish government has two or three paltry fortresses on the coast of Africa, which are em- ployed as places of punishment for criminals. The existence of a few soldiers in these garrisons is construed into a perpetual war against the Infidels, with whom, in the mean time, the King of Spain is mostly at peace,- from inability to oppose to them an effectual rqjsistance. The see of Rome, which wants but a slight pretext to ' spiritualize whatever may open a market for its wares, calls this state of things between the Spaniards and the Africans a perpetual war against infidels ; which G 2 84 PUACTICAL AND INTHUNAL EVIDENCE being, according to the principles of that see, a meritorious Christian act, deserves its pastora;! encouragement. For this purpose every year are printed summaries of a Papal bull, which the Spaniards purchase at different prices, according to their rank and wealth, in order to enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted by the Pope in exchange for their alms. The benefits to be de- rived from the possession of one of these bulls are several plenary indulgences, and leave to eat, during Lent, milk, eggs, and butter, which are otherwise forbid'den, under pa^n of mortal sin, at that season. The sale of these privileges having been found most valuable and extensive, a second, third, and even a fourth bull, of a similar kind, were devised. The flesh bull, as it is called in Spain, allows the purchasers to eat meat during Lent, every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, except in Passion Week. The third bull is called the compounding hull. By possessing one of these documents, and giving a certain sum, at the discretion of any priest authorized to hear confessions, to the fund of the holy crusade ; any property may be kept, which, having been obtained by robbery and extortion. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 85 tannot be traced to its right owners for restitution. This composition with the Pope and the King, is made by depositing the sum appointed by the con- fessor in an iron chest fixed outside the doors of churches : a comfortable resource indeed for the tender consciences of peculators and extortioners, two very numerous classes in Spain. The fourth bull is to be purchased for the benefit of the de.- ceased, and is called the defunct hull. The name of any dead person being entered on the bull, a plenary indulgence is, by this means, believed to be conveyed to his soul, if suflfering in purgatory. To secure, however, a double sale, the three latter bulls are made of no effect, unless the original summary of the crusade be possessed by the per- son who wishes to enjoy the dispensations and . privileges therein set forth. It is also a very com- mon practice to bury these bulls with the corpses of those whom they are intended to benefit. The tax thus levied upon the people of Spain is divided between the King and the Pope : yet it is not the money which, in this and similar transactions, proves most beneficial to Rome ; the habit of spi- ritual dependence which it supports among the 86 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE Spaniards is, no doubt, its most valuable result to that see. The Spanish Cortes, who were bold enough to reduce the tithes by one half; when struggling hard to shake off the silent yet for- midable influence of the Pope, found their power inadequate to the task ; well knowing, that were he to withdraw one of these bulls, the mass of the people would instantly rise against them. I have selected this fact among thousands, that prove the accession of power which the doctrine of indul- gences produces to the see of Rome *. The belief in purgatory is so inseparable from the former tenet, that I need not enlarge on the pe- culiar advg,ntages which Rome has derived from it. I will only observe how fortunately for the interests of the church of Rome, not only the existence, but even the mutual help and connexion, of her pecu- liar doctrines, have happened. The power of re- mitting canonical penance would have been useless on the cessation of penitential discipline ; but tra- dition having about the same time brought pur- gatory to light, offered an ample scope to the power of the Roman keys. Transubstantiation now pre- * Note I. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 87 sented the means of repeating the sacrifice of the cross for those who were supposed to be undergoing the purification by fire. The whole systenx, indeed, is surprisingly linked together ; and the very con- nexion of its parts, tending to secure the influence and power of the source from whence it flows, gives it the appearance of an original invention, en- larged from the gradual suggestions of previous advantages. The worship of saints, relics, and images, might, when tradition beggjj to spread it, have appeared less connected with the wealth and power of the church of Rome ; yet none of its spiritual re- sources has proved more productive of both. Europe is covered with sanctuaries and churches, which owe their existence and revenues to some reported miraculous appearance of an image, or the presence, real or pretended, of some relic. To form a correct notion of the influence which such places have upon the people, it is necessary to have lived where they exist. But the house of Loretto alone would be suflicient to give some idea of the power and wealth which the church must have derived from similar sources, when the whole 88 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE of Christendom was more ignorant and supersti- tious than the most degraded portions of it are at present. Of this fact, however, I am perfectly convinced by long observation, that were it possible to abolish sanctuaries, properly so called, and leave the same number of churches without the favourite virgins and saints which give them both that pe- culiar denomination and their popular charm ; more than half the blind deference which the multitude pay to the clergy, and through the clergy to Rome, would quickly disappear. The advantages resulting to Rome from the combined effect of indulgences, relics, saints and their images, are not, however, derived only in- directly through the deference enjoyed by her clergy. The bond thereby created between the Pope and the most distant regions which acknow- ledge his spiritual dominion, is direct. The Mexican a,nd the Peruvian expects the publication of the annual bull, which allows him to eat eggs and milk in Lent, enables him to liberate, by name, a certain number of his relations from pur- gatory, and enlarges the power of his confessor, for the absolution of the most hideous crimes. Where- AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 89 ever he turns, he sees a protecting saint, whose power and willingness to defend him, could not be ascertained without the supernatural and unques- tionable authority of the Pope. It is the Holy Father who, by a solemn declaration, allots every district to the peculiar patronage of a saint ; it is he who, by grants of indulgences, encourages the worship of those miraculousimages which form cen- tral points of devotion over all the Roman Catholic world: it is he who warrants the supernatural state of incorruption of the body of one saint, and traces, with unerring certainty, some strag- gling limb to another. It is, finally, he who alone has the undoubted power of mrtually furnishing ;the faithful with the relics of the most ancient or unknown patriarchs and martyrs, by bidding the fragment of any skeleton in the catacombs be part of the body in request *. I do not intend, to cast any part of your re- ligious system into ridicule ; though, I confess, it * This is called christening relics. The persuasion that bones so christened are as good as those of the favourite saint to whom they, are attributed, is certainly general in my coun- try. I have no doubt that it is common to all Catholics. 90 PUACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE is difficult to mention facts like these, without some danger of exciting a smile. These and similar practices you will, perhaps, construe into innocent means of keeping up a sense of religion among the lower classes ; but without insisting, at present, upon their demoralizing and degrading tendency, I only present them in conjunction with all the other means of power and influence which the church of Rome has drawn from the, at least, doubtful title, on which she grounds her spiritual supremacy. It is, indeed, of great importance in the question between Rome and the Protestants, to observe the consequences of their respective interpretation of scripture, in regard to their own interests. The mass of Christians who, unable to weigh the theological arguments urged by the controversialists of both parties, content them- selves with an implicit, and often an indifferent, acquiescence in the tenets which education chanced to impress on their minds ; might form a pretty accurate notion of the whole case by the following easy and compendious method. They should, in the first place, endeavour to become familiar with AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 91 the reasoning which shows .the absurdity of settling the question of papal supremacy on other tliah Scriptural grounds. Let 'them remember, what cannot be too much repeated, the necessity of de* riving the knowledge of any infallible expounder of the Scriptures from the teistimony of those Scriptures, perused and understood without the aid of that expounder. To appeal to divine tra- dition as a rule for the interpretation of Scripture in this state of the question, is equally unreason- able and preposterous ; since, from the nature of the case, there is, as yet, no infallible rule to di- stinguish divine tradition from human and fallible report. The next step in this momentous in- quiry, is to ascertain, by human means, the true sense of such passages of the Scriptures as are said to contain the appointment of a living su- preme authority in matters of faith. Here, two sets of men, deeply learned in air the branches of divinity, present themselves as interpreters. These affirm that the passages in question contain the rights and privileges which the church of Rome and her head claim for themselves : those posi- tively deny that the passages can bear such mean- 92 PUACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE ing. Remember again, I request you, that the decision must depend exclusively on the reasoning faculties of mankind. Which, now, of these two opposed masses of intellect, is most likely to catch the true meaning of the texts ? Which of the two interpretations have we most reason to suppose free from the distortions of prejudice ? Common sense answers, that which is directly against the interests of the interpreters, Europe lay prostrate at the feet of the Pope, and every member of his clergy was raised by the common opinion, to a rank and dignity to which even kings bowed their head. The meanest priest claimed and enjoyed exemptions which were often denied to the first nobles of the land. Wealth and honours were theirs ; the law shrunk before them when guilty, and piety was ready to throw a cloak on their vices. The church had, for many ages, been in possession of unrivalled power on ■ earth, when, at the rousing voice of a few obscure men, who questioned the foundation of that mighty structure, a large portion of those that might have continued under its shelter, unani- • mously declared that the whole was a work of AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 93 delusion, which had sprung from an original, un- examined error. Such was the unanimous con- viction of all the Protestants, when no bias but that of a contrary tendency could exist in their minds. If common sense, therefore, must be the interpreter of divine authority, conveyed to us in human language ; this fact alone suffices to point the side -to which that plain and faithful guide gives its sanction. The Reformed churches are taxed with their variations, as if, like Rome, they had pledged their existence upon infallibility. They have, itadeed, varied and dissented from each other ; with this difference from the oracular church of the Vatican, that they have not disguised their proceedings, nor set up an inquisition as the guard of their unity. But while the love of truth com- pelled the Reformers to expose themselves to the insults and raillery of their mortal enemies, by breaking into parties upon the more abstruse points of divinity ; not even a doubt has disturbed their unanimity as to the insufficiency of the title to divine supremacy, by which Rome commands intellectual homage. That, indeed, was the only 94 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE point of controversy which common sense could decide ; and the renunciation of all the worldly advantages to which the Roman church invited the Reformers, had left their judgment unbiassed. Other disputes in divinity must be settled by a long, difficult, and laborious process of inquiry ; but a privilege is a matter of fact, which, if not - evidently proved, becomes a nonentity. Now, the peculiar privilege claimed by Rome, essentially precludes doubtful proofs of its existence. A doubtful gift from God, with a view to remove doubt, is a mockery of his wisdom. If the common sense of many learned and unbiassed minds is found to agree in denying that the Scripture pas- sages alleged by Rome, in favour of her mira- culous infallibility, contain a clear promise of that gift, or describe in whom, and how it was to exist after the decease of the apostles ; the pretensions of the Pope and his church must be visionary. The negative proof, in such cases,— the absence of a clear title — ^has the strength of demonstra- tion. Nothing can weaken its force upon a candid mind, but the very common habit of start- ing away from newly discovered truth in fear of AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 95 its consequences, which we have previously con- demned. , I am aware that, unable as you must be to find a direct and sufficient answer to this argument, and inclined to admit its truth, as an honest mind will make you ; yet a crowd of such consequences will deter you from the path into which reason is ready to lead you. — ^A church subject to error and division ! — ^You shrink from such an inference, without remarking that the preconceived and un- proved necessity of having an infallible church, is the true and only source of that illogical process, by which you have endeavoured to establish the certain existence of infallibility, upon the uncer- tain sense of a few words of the Gospel. 96 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE LETTER IV. Specimen of the unity exhibited by Rome. Roman Catholic distinction between infallihility in doctrinej and liability io misconduct. Consequences of this distinction. Roman Catholic unity and iflvariableness of Faith, a delusion. Scriptural unity of Faith. " So long since as the council of Vienne (I quote the words of your great champion Bossuet, trans- lated hy your apologist Mr. Butler*) a great pre- late commissioned by the Pope to prepare matters to be treated upon, laid it down for a ground- work to the whole assembly, that they ought to reform the church in the head and members. The great schism which happened soon after, made this saying current, not among particular doctors only, as Gersen, Peter d'Ailly, and other great men of those tiines, but in councils too; and nothing was more frequently repeated in those of Pisa and Constance. What happened in the council of Basil, where a reformation was unfor- * Book of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 156, 1st ed. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. &7 tunately eluded, and the church re-involved in new divisions, is well known." Such is the pic- ture of the Roman Catholic church at the be- ginning of the fifteenth century, drawn by the most able as well as cautious of her divines. The distinct mention of the unfortunate cause which prevented the proposed Reformation, would have given more colour and individuality to the picture. It was, in fact, a revival of the great schism, which for fifty years had lately kept the Roman Catholic church divided betv^een two or three Pojpes, who at one and the same time claimed the prerogative of vicars of Christ : it was a fierce contest between the council of Constance and Eu- genius IV. the Pope who had convened it, and whom the assembled bishops wished to reform: it was a sentence of excommunication issued by the council against Eugenius : it was a rival council convoked at Ferrara by the excommuni- cated Pope, where he employed the same arms against the fathers assembled at Basil: it was the deposition of Eugenius and the installation of Felix V. by the offended council: it was, in fine, the triumph of Rome against the spirit which H 98 FRACTldAI. AND INTEUNAl, EVIDENCE had attempted to execute the work, of which " great prelates," " particular doctors," and " coun- cils too," spoke so frequently, as to establish it into a " current saying," that the church needed reform in head and memhers. The head, un- willing to be reformed, imprecated the curse of Heaven upon the members ; and the memhers find- ing that head, incurable, chose for themselves another, when they had duly devoted the refractory one to the unquenchable fire. Such are the " well- known" events which took place in " the council of Basil, where a reformation was unfortunately eluded, and the church re-involved in new di- visions." And now, I will ask, is this the unity, the harmony, without which your Writers contend that the church of Christ cannot exist? Is it thus that the necessity of your interpretation of the Scrijpture passages, on which the systeni of infallibility has been erected, is sanctioned by ex- perience ? Can you still close your eyes against the demonstration contained in my preceding letter, because variations and dissent are in the train of its consequences ? AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 99 " Our troubles and dissensions, however (you are taught to answer) are limited to externals ; those of the Protestants affect the unity of the faith." Such is the last shelter, the citadel, of your infallible-church theory. See, then, the series of assumptions, doubts, and eva,sions, of which that theory consists, and observe its in- evitable consequences. 1st, You assume that which is in question, the neeSssity of an infallible judge of faith. 2dly, Upon the strength of that assumption, you interpret certain passages of Scripture, so that they are made to prove the existence of such a judge. Sdly, You are then in doubt as to the identity of the judge himself, without being able to determine by any fixed rule, whether the supernatural gift of infallibility belqilgs to the Pope alone, or to the Pope and the general council *. 4thly, When, to evade this difficulty, you avail yourselves of the term church, as embracing the privileges of the Pope and council ; you are still obliged to contrive another method, which may meet the objections arising * Note K. 100 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE from such dissensions between the assembled bishops and their head, as took place in the in- stances above mentioned. This you do by allow- ing no council to be infallible till it has been approved by the Pope, and thus resolve church infallibility into the opinion of the Roman See. 5thly, and finally, You intrench yourselves within the distinction of infallibility on abstract doctrines of faith, and liability to practical error. Now, observe, I entreat you, the consequences to which the whole system leads. The only sensible mark of a legitimate council, being the approbation of the Pope ; and the only sensible mark of a legiti- mate Pope, being his undisputed possession of the see of Rome ; you have, in the first place, entailed the gift of infallibility upon the strongest of the rival candidates for that see ; and, as moral worth is, by the last distinction, denied to be a necessary characteristic of the vicar and representative of Christ, you have added, in the second place, ones chance more of having for your living rule of faith that candidate who shall contend for the visible badge of his spiritual and supernatural office, under the least restraint of moral obliga- AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 101 tion. If we find, therefore, upon consulting the history of the Popes, that no episcopal see has oftener been polluted- by wickedness and profligacy, the fact is explained by the preceding statement. What chance of success to be head of the Christian church could attend a true disciple of Jesus, when a Borgia was bent upon filling that post ? Gold, steel, and poison, were the familiar instruments of his wishes ; whilst the belief that faith was still safe in the custody of such a monster, prevented opposition from the force of public opinion. The faithful still revered in Alexander VI. (be the blasphemy far from me !J the true representative of Christ on earth. The strength of mind which enabled the re- formers to disregard the generally received di- stinction beween exemption from doctrinal errors, and liability to misconduct, cannot be adequately valued by those who have never imbibed that scholastic prejudice. When a distinction of this kind has once become incorporated with common language, men seem to be placed out of the reach of conviction on the points it affects. If my obser^ 102 PRACTICAL AND INTEllNAL EVIDENCE vations of intellectual phenomena do not deceive me, the mass of those who may be said to think at all can go no farther in a reasoning process, than just to perceive one difficulty against their settled notions, and to catch some verbal quibble which removes the difficulty from their sight. The pro- cess of examining the usual fallacies of such an- swers is, to most men, so painful, that any serious attempt to urge them upon it, seldom fails to rouse their anger. There are, indeed, but few who can take a true second step in reasoning. The stancl which is generally made at the first stage of an argument, is more resolutely taken when arguments are brought against a system which is itself a palliative of some previous ob- jection. The case now before us is perhaps the best illustration of my view of popular intellect. Christianity was at an early period systematized according to the notions and habits which some of its learned converts had acquired in the phi- losophical schools. It was soon presented to the world in the shape of a new theory, where the links which appeared to be wanting between the, AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 103 clearly revealed doctriaes, were supplied by the ingenuity of inference. Nothing, we know, is so opposed to this vulgar systeina,tic jspirit, as taking facts as they are. The chasm between what is, and an assumed standard of what should he, must be filled up. Few men refuse to grant what is demanded with this object ; for fragments of real knowledge are not to the taste of the multitude. Having agreed that the Gospel was a reyel9,tion from God, they could not conceive the possibility of doubt affecting it directly or indirectly. Opr timism is the system of the many : a revelation which could not remove every doubt, and silence every objection, must certainly fail to suit their previous notions. Had these Christians, however, studied thg Scriptures without the bias of such notions, they would have found that the divine author of Christianity has nowhere provided a remedy against doubt and dissent. There were heretics when the church was still under the persona,l guidance of the Apostles; yet the New Testa- ment mentions them without allusion to any in*- fallible methods of ending these first disputes on 104 PllACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE doctrines. On a practical question, indeed, we find that St. Paul was sent to ask the opinion of the church of Jerusalem ; yet, that very opinion was, in part, set aside and neglected, soon after, by the tacit consent of most other churches *. The natural inference from such facts is, that the analogy of God's moral government was not broken in the direct revelation which he made to the world through his own Son ; but having granted us convincing proofs that the Scriptures contain the knowledge supernaturally vouchsafed to man, he has left the search thereof to human industry. Industry supposes difficulty, and difficulty implies danger. The field of moral discipline does not appear to have been changed by Christianity : the light, indeed, thrown upon it is clearer, and " the high prize of our calling" is made fully to shine in our eyes ; but it nowhere appears that we are therefore to close them, and run blindly after certain men endowed with supernatural vision, * The injunction against eating blood and suffocated ani- mals, though given as from the Holy Ghostj was considered as of mere temporary expediency, and set aside as soon as heathen converts formed the majority of Christians. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 105 Such sober reasoning upon fmts, could not be popular in the Christian church. An infallible judge of abstract questions was wanting, and one was soon found ; for St. Peter was the chief of the apostles, and Rome the chief of cities. Nothing, therefore, appeared more natural, than that Peter should be bishop of Rome ; and little proof of this fact was demanded : tradition, a mere report, was sufficient for those who wished it to be so. Yet something more was necessary to fulfil the object of the first theory or supposition ; for Peter could not live for ever, and the judge of faith was to exist till the end of the world. But what could be more natural, than that Peter's successors should inherit his supernatural gifts ? In popular logic, what is natural, i. e. what agrees with some ori- ginal supposition, is certain. Subsequent doubts arising from a system so natur'al, must be settled any way, or left unsettled. Whether infallibility belonged to the Pope alone, or to the Pope and the church, and who was to be considered the church — these minutiae were left for the ingenuity of divines. The Pope and Rome were all in all for the mass of Christians. The effects of un- 106 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE controlled power, however, soon became visible in the monstrous corruptions of Rome hefself. Here the second step of popular intellect was re- quired, viz. to seize the happy distinction of in- fallihility in doctrine, and profligacy in morals. This was a most welcome discovery for the Popes ; for who that loves wealth, power, and pleasure, would wish to be a sinless oracle ? No : the system of spiritual supremacy was now complete : the ori- ginal supposition, that the church could not resist the attacks of hell without an imerring judge of abstract questions, had been followed to its re- motest consequences ; he that ventured to doubt the accuracy of the whole theory was declared a heretic. The Pope might be, in his conduct, an enemy of Christ and his gospel, and nevertheless succeed in the enjoyment of whatever privileges were granted to Peter, in consequence of the love which, above the other apostles, he bore to his divine master *. He might be a monster of vice, yet he did not cease to be vicar of him who did no * Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these ? He saith unto him. Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee, He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. John, xxi. 15, vt seq. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 107 sin. The church, under his guidance, might be corrupt in " head and members ;" but still she must be infallible in matters of faith. To the solidity of this structure have your divines committed the stability of the church of Christ : unless all this be true, the gates of hell have actually prevailed against her, A moral corruption in head and members ; a system which ensured the continuance of this corruption, by repeatedly defeating the efforts of those who wished for a reformation, were, if we believe them, no subject of triumph to the enemy of God and man. As long as the authority of Rome was safe, the gates of hell had still the worst of the contest : let the Pope possess the heads of Christians, and Satan was welcome to their hearts. " The fol- lowers of Luther," says Bossuet *, " assuming the title of reformers, gloried that they had fulfilled all Christendom's desires, inasmuch as a reformation had been long the desire of Catholics, people, doctors, and prelates. In order, therefore, to au- thorize this pretended reformation, whatsoever church-writers had said against the disorders, both * Ubi supra. 108 PKACTICAL AND INTERNAL, EVIDENCE of the people and even of the clergy, was collected with great industry. But in this lay a manifest conceit, there not being so much as one of all the passages alleged, wherein these doctors ever dreamt of altering the church's faith ; of correcting her worship, which chiefly consisted in the sacrifice of the altar; of subverting the authority of her prelates, that of the Pope especially — the very scope which this whole reformation, introduced by Luther, tended to." If there be any conceit in the matter, it is that of admitting the extreme corruption of the Chris- tian church, with the unavailing efforts of the advocates of reform, who preceded Luther; and yet blaming the Protestants, because, by making the Pope's supremacy the " very scope" of their reformation, they took the only effectual method of putting an end to the evil. The absurd notion that the unity of the church of Christ depended on unity with the bishop of Rome, tied the hands of all Christians who wanted either the knowledge or the courage to examine the airy basis of that system. The sword and the faggot, besides, stood in the AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 109 way of approach to that delicate point ; else the invectives so carefully restricted to morals would not have always left the doctrines untouched. Submit your understanding to Rome ; confess that you cannot hope for salvation out of the Pope's communion ; acknowledge that immorality and wickedness do not detract from his supernatural privileges ; and, on these conditions, you are at liberty to oppose the corruptions of the church of Christ. Conceit is hot, indeed, a word which I should apply to such advice : deceit would seem more appropriate. Invariahleness in Doctrine is Bossuet's criterion of the Christian characteristic of unity : but surely any set of men, who agreed on a system similar to that on which Roman unity depends, might equally boast of invariahleness and unity; surely there cannot be, at least there cannot appear, any dif- ference of opinion in a society which excludes every member who does not submit his own views to those of one individual, placed at its head; and which lays down, as an indubitable fact, that that individual, whoever he may happen to be, and whatever he may add to the common 110 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE doctrines of the society, always speaks the mind of his predecessors, and only gives explicitness to things implied in former decisions. Such is the artful contrivance which the author of the Varia- tions of the Protestant Churches disguises into a miraculous unity of doctrine and belief ; the effect, as he pretends, of Christ's promise of -support to his church against the gates of hell. Raking up, besides, all the calumnies and atrocious reports with which the character of the opposers of Rome has been blackened at all times, and setting in the strongest light of mutual opposition the theological disputes which divided the reformers, he gives the whole weight of his authority and talents to a de- lusion, which nothing but an overwhelming com- bination of interest and prejudice could prevent his acute mind from perceiving. Had the Bishop of Meaux bestowed the ten-thousandth part of the perverse industry with which he followed that ar- gument, in examining the gratuitous assumption on which it is founded, we may hope that his honesty would have directed his pen to some other topic. Instead of availing himself of the inveterate notion that Christ had established an infallible AGAINST CATHOLICISM. Ill judge in his church, lest, by the existence of doubt as to the sense of the Scriptures, there should be diversity of opinion among his followers — instead of taking it for granted that the victory of hell depended on the diversity of ahstract doctrines among Christians, and not in the prevalence of dark works of wickedness, provided they were wrought in the unity of Papal faith — he should, in the spirit of philosophical reasoning, have pene- trated to that part of the argument which conceals the gratuitous assumptions, whence the whole Ro- man Catholic theory has sprung. When Catholics have proved, without the aid of church authority, that the church of Christ must be infallible, then, and not before, they may object their variations to the Protestants. The Protestants have varied in search of the divine simplicity of the Gospel, which Rome had buried under a mountain of metaphysical notions. The Protestants have varied, because they could not at once divest themselves of the habits of thinking which they had acquired in the Roman Catholic schools. The Protestants have varied, because they had the honesty not to imitate the 112 PEACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE contrivances by which the Roman church gives to her new decisions the appearance of unity with the preceding. The Protestants have varied, because they would not, upon the fanciful notion of a per- petual miracle, claim for any of their churches the supernatural gift of unerring wisdom, nor coun- terfeit, by obstinacy in error, the conscious cer- tainty of inspiration. The Protestants, in fine, have varied, because, by restoring the Scriptures to their full and unrivalled authority, they per- ceived the intrinsic power of settled, recorded, in- variable revelation ; and were aware that, in spite of doubts and divisions, the light of those divine records needed no help to withstand the attacks of the gates of hell. If mere controversy were my object, I should feel satisfied with having demonstrated that the system of Roman Catholic unity is but an arbi- trary contrivance ; a gratuitous assumption of a supernatural privilege, which is nowhere clearly asserted in the Scriptures; an endeavour to pro- duce certainty by a standard conceived and planned upon conjecture. A more Christian feeling, how- ever, induces me to dwell still on this subject, and AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 113 propose to you what I conceive to be the true scriptural notions on the unity of the church of Christ. In reading the New Testament with a mind carefully freed from the prejudices of school- divinity, it is impossible not to perceive that the assemblies of men who are called to obtain salva- tion through Christ, cannot, either singly or col- lectively, constitute the church, whereof the Ro- man see has tried to appropriate the qualities and privileges to herself. Wherever men assemble in the name of Jesus, there he has promised to be by means of his Spirit ; and certainly the works of that Spirit are more or less visible in the Christian virtues, which never yet failed to spring up in these particular churches, though mixed with the tares, and other evils, which are not separable from " the kingdom of heaven" in this world. But there is a structure of sanctity in perpetual progress, towards the completion of which the Christian churches, on earth, are only made to contribute as different quarries do towards the raising of some glorious building. The churches on earth partake, in various proportions, of the attributes of the I 114 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE great church of Christ, " which is his hody, the FULNESS of him that fiUeth aU in all*." But the church to which the great privileges and graces belong, has characteristic marks which cannot be claimed by any one of the churches on earth ; for it is that church " which Christ loved, and gave himself for it ; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish t." To become members of that church, we should, indeed, " endeavour to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace % ;" but such unity is proposed as the effect of endeavour, and consequently of choice and judgment, not of blind submission to a silencing authority, which is the Roman bond of union. The true unity of Christians must arise from the " one hope of our calling." There is indeed for us " one Lord, one faith, one baptism ;" but that faith is a faith of trust, a " confidence, which hath great recompense of reward §," not an implicit be- * Ephes. i. 23. t Ephes. v. 25—27. X lb. iv. 3. § Heb. x. 35. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 115 lief in the assumed infallihility of men, who make a monopoly of the written word of God, prescribe the sense in which it must be understood, and, with a refined tyranny, which tr9,mples equally upon Christian liberty and the natural rights of the human mind, insult even silent dissent, and threaten bodily punishment to such as, in silence and privacy, may have indulged the freedom of their minds *. Such is the saving faith of the council of Trent ! How diffeirent from that proposed by St. Paul, when he says, " if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved t." "That is the word of * Praeterea ad coercenda^eia/««*za ingenia, decernit (eadem sacrosancta synodus) ut nemo sute prudentiae innixus, in rebus iidei et morum, ad sedificationem doctrinse Christianse pertineni- tium, sacram Scripturam ad suos sensus contorquens, contra eum sensum quern tenuit et tenet sancta mater ecclesia, cujus est judicare de vero sensu et interpretatioiie Scripturarum sanctarum, aut etiam contra unanimem consensum sanctorum patrom, ipsam Scripturam sacram interpretari audeat, eliamsi, htyusmodi interpretationes nulla unquam tempore in lucem edendcB forent. Qui contravenerint per ordinarios declarentur, et posnis a jure statutis puniantur. — Decretum Concilii Tridents de editione et usu sacrorum librorum, Sessione IV. t Rom. X. I 2 116 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE faith which WE preach," says St. Paul ; and well might that faith be made the bond of union be- tween all the churches which the Apostles saluted, without requiring a previous proof of their im- plicit submission. " Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity," is St. Paul's language. Cursed be they who, whatever be their love of Christ and veneration for the Scriptures, yield not obedience to the church of Rome ; is the spirit of every page which has been published by Popes or councils. Whatever might be the effect of the prejudices which the first reformers brought away from their Roman captivity; whatever the necessity which Protestant churches still acknowledge of prevent- ing internal feuds, by proposing formularies of faith to their members, they have never so mis- understood " what spirit they are of " as to deny salvation to those who love their common Lord and Redeemer. Their churches, indeed, may differ on points which the subtilty of metaphysics had unfortunately started long before the reformation, and even before the publication of Christianity : they may observe different ceremonies, and adopt AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 117 different views of church hierarchy and discipline; but their spirit is the only one which deserves the name of Catholic in the genuine sense of that word ; the only spirit, indeed, which can produce, even on earth, an image of the glorious church vdiich will exist for ever in one fold, and under one shepherd. 118 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE LETTER V. Moral character of the Roman Church. Celibacy. Nun- neries. The attempt to describe the moral character of a collective body, which, constantly changing its composition, can seldom consist of the same elements for any considerable portion of time, will probably appear rash and invidious. A long familiarity with the subject which I have in hand, has, however, convinced me, that if there be any truth in the general observation, that men who act under certain laws and interests, in collective bodies, are swayed by a peculiar influence, which, without borrowing a foreign phrase, might be called Corporation Spirit; the church of Rome presents the strongest and most marked instance of that moral phenomenon. Its great antiquity, and the gigantic power which it has enjoyed for ages, are the natural and intelligible causes of those fixed views and purposes which, existing at all times in the mass of its living members, must AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 119 inevitably be imparted to its successive recruits. The character of no one man can be more indelibly stamped by a long life of consistent, systematic conduct, than that of a collective body which, for many centuries, has practically learnt the true source of its power. If, on the other hand, it should appear that, in describing the moral cha- racter of that body which Catholics consider as the only depositary of divine authority on earth, I bring a charge of guilt against the whole suc- cession of men who have composed, and compose it at present ; I must observe, that individual con- duct, modified by corporate influence, cannot be judged by the common rules which guide us in estimating private character. That every true Roman Catholic, every man whose religious tenets are in strict conformity with those of Rome, must partake the spirit of his standard of faith, in proportion to his sincerity ; my own experience would compel me to aver, independently of any theoretical conviction. But the same experience teaches me that the natural disposition of every person has a certain degree of power to modify, though not to neutralize, the Roman Catholic re- 120 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE ligious influence. — This being premised, I will openly, before God and man, declare my con- viction, that the necessity of keeping up the ap- pearance of infallibility, makes the church of Rome, essentially and invariably, tyrannical ; that it leads that church to hazard both the temporal and the eternal happiness of men, rather than alter what has once received the sanction of her authority ; and that, in the prosecution of her object, she overlooks the. rights of truth, and the improve- ment of the human understanding. In the proof and substantiation of these charges, I will strictly observe the conditions proposed for similar cases by the author of the Book of the Roman Catholic Church. " I beg leave to sug- gest," says Mr. Butler, " that in every religious controversy between Protestants and Roman Ca- tholics, the following rule should be observed : That no doctrine should be ascribed to THE Roman Catholics as a body, except SUCH AS IS AN ARTICLE OF THEIR FaITH *." Now, it is agreed on all hands, that a canon of a general council, approved by the Pope — i. e. a rule * Book of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 9. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 121 of belief delivered to the people, under the fearful sanction of an anathema, leaves no other alternative to a Roman Catholic but that of embracing the doc- trine it contains, or being excluded from his church by excommunication. By one, then, of such canons, every member of the church of Rome is bound to believe that all baptized persons are liable to be compelled, hy punishment, to be Christians, or, what is the same in Roman Catholic divinity, spiritual subjects of the Pope. It is, indeed, curious to see the council of Trent, who passed that law, prepare the free and extended action of its claims, by an unexpected stroke of liberality. In the Session on Baptism, the Trent Fathers are observed anxiously securing to Protestants the privileges of true baptism. The fourth canon of that Session fulminates an anathema or curse against any one who should say that baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, conferred by a heretic, with an intention to do that which the church intends in that sacra- ment, is not true baptism *. Observe, now, the * Si quis dixerit baptismum, qui etiam datur ab haereticis in nomine Patris, et Filiij et Spiritus Saiicti, cum intentione 122 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE consequences of this enlarged spirit of concession, in the two subjoined canons. " If any one should say that those who have been baptized are free from all the precepts of the holy church, either written or delivered by tra- dition, so that they are not obliged to observe them, unless they will submit to them of their own accord, let him be accursed *." Having soon after declared the lawfulness of infant baptism, they proceed to lay down the XIV. Canon. " If any one should say that these baptized children, when they grow up, are to be asked whether they will confirm what their godfathers promised in their name ; and that if they say they will not, they are to be left to their own discretion, and not to be forced, in the mean time, into the observance of a Christian life hy any other punishment than that of keeping them from the faciendi quod facit ecclesia, non esse verum baptismum, ana- thema sit, — Concil. Trident. Sess. VII. Can. IV. * Si quis dixerit, baptizatosliberos esse ab omnibus sanctae Romanae ecclesise prseceptis, quae vel scripta vel tradita sunt, ita ut ea observare non teneatur, nisi se sua sponte illis sub- mittere voluerintj anathema sit. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 123 reception of the eucharist and the other sacraments till they repent, let him be accursed*." Now, " it is most true," says the author of the Book of the Roman Catholic Church, " that the Roman Catholics believe the doctrines of their church to be unchangeable ; and that it is a tenet of their creed, that what their faith ever has been, such it was from the beginning, such it now is, and such it will ever be." Let him, therefore, choose between this boasted consistency of doc- trine, and the curse of his church. The council of Trent, that council whose decrees are by the creed of Pius IV. declared to be obligatory above all others t; that council has converted the sa- * Si quis dixerit hujusmodi parvulos baptizatos, cum ado- leverint, interrogandos esse^ an ratum habere velint quod pa- trini, eornm nomine, dum baptizarentur, poUiciti sunt, etj ubi se nolle responderint, sue esse arbitrio relinquendos, nee alia interim poena ad Christianam vitam cogendos, nisi ut ab eucharistiae, aliorumque sacramentorum perceptione arceantur donee resipiscant, anathema sit. Can. VIII. et XIV. de Bap- tismo. t " I also profess and undoubtedly receive all other things delivered, defined, and declared by the sacred canons and general councHs, particularly by the holy council of Trent," &c. &c. Creed of Pius IV. in the Book of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 8. 124 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE crament of Baptism into an indelible brand of slavery : whoever has received the waters of re- generation, is the thrall of her who declares that there is no other church of Christ. She claims her slaves wherever they may be found, declares ^em subject to her laws, both written and tra- ditional, and, by her infallible sanction, dooms them to indefinite punishment, till they shall ac- knowledge her authority and bend their necks to her yoke. Such is, has been, and will ever he, the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church ; such is the belief of her true and sincere members; such the spirit that. actuates her views, and which, by every possible means, she has always spread among her children. Him that denifs this doc- trine, Rome devotes to perdition^ The principle of religious tyranny, supported by persecution, is a necessary condition of Roman Catholicism : he who revolts at the idea of compelling belief by punishment, is severed at once from the com- munion of Rome. What a striking commentary on these canons of the Council of Trent have we in the history of the Inquisition ! Refractory Catholics born under AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 125 the spiritual dominion of Rome, and Protestants originally baptized out of her pale, have equally tasted her flames and her racks*. Nothing, in- deed, but want of power, nothing but the much- lamented ascendancy of heresy, compels the church of Rome to keep her infallible, immutable decrees in silent abeyance. But the divine authority of those decrees, the truth of their inspiration, must for ever be asserted by every individual who sin- cerely embraces the Roman Catholic faith. Reason and humanity must, in them, yield to the infallible decree in favour of compulsion on religious mat- ters. The human ashes, indeed, are scarcely cold, which, at the end of three centuries of persecution and massacre, these decrees scattered over the soil of Spain. I myself saw the pile on which the last victim was sacrificed to Roman infallibility. It was an unhappy woman, whom the Inquisition of Seville committed to the flames imder the charge of heresy, about forty years ago : she perished on a spot where thousands had met the same fate. I * Llorente mentions the punishments inflicted by the Spa- nish Inquisition on English and French subjects. 126 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE lament from my heart that the structure which supported their melting limbs was destroyed during the late convulsions. It should have been pre- served, with the infallible and immutable canon of the Council of Trent over it, for the detestation of future ages. How far, to preserve consistency, Rome, in the present time, would carry the right of punishing dissent, which her last general council confirmed with its most solemn sanction; it is not in my power to tell. It may be hoped that the spirit of the age has extinguished her fires for ever * : but the period I fear is still remote when she wiU change another part of her system, by which she ruins the happiness and morals of numbers,— 'I mean her monastic vows, and the laws which bind the Catholic clergy to perpetual celibacy. Where church infallibility is concerned, I can readily understand the necessity imposed on the most liberal individuals who have filled the Roman see, to adhere strictly to former decrees and de- clarations ; but nothing can excuse or palliate the * Note L. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 127 proud obstinacy which Rome has always shown on such points of discipline, as might be altered for the benefit of public morals, without compromising her claims. Such are the laws which annul and punish the marriages of secular clergymen, and those which demand perpetual vows from such as profess any of the numerous monastic rules ap- proved by the Roman church, both for males and females. J will not discuss the question, whether a life of celibacy is recommended in the New Testament as preferable to matrimony at all periods, and in all circumstances of the church. I will suppose, what I do not believe, that virginity, by its own intrinsic merit, and without reference to some virtuous pur- pose, which may not be attainable otherwise than by the sacrifice of the tender passions of the heart ; has a mysterious value in the eyes of God : a sup- position which can hardly be made without advan- tagie to some part of the ancient Manichaean sys- tem—without some suspicion that the law, by which the human race is preserved, is not the pure and immediate eiFect of the will of God. I will not assail such views, which, more or less, might be 128 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE inferred from the writings of the Roman Catholic mystics. I will take up the subject on their own terms. Let virginity be the virtue, not (as I believe) the condition of angels : let it be desirable, as Saint Augustine expresses himself somewhere, that man- kind were blotted from the face of the earth by the operation of celibacy *. Let all this be so ; yet, are not celibacy and virginity described in the New Testament as peculiar and uncommon gifts, as perilous trials, and likely to place human beings in a state which Saint Paul compares to burn- ing ? Are not the warnings and cautions given by our Saviour and his apostles, as frequent as the allusions to it ? Did not Saint Paul fear that the very mention of this topic might become a snare to his converts ? — But how is the subject of vir- ginity and celibacy treated by the Roman Catholic church ? The world rings with the praises of the unmarried state, which her writers, her fathers. * I cannot tax my memory with the words, nor is the object worth the labour of a long search. I believe that St. Augastine, in answering the objection that, if all the world followed the principle he recommended, the earth would soon be a desert, says with an air of triumph— OA^Ka; mundi eseitium ! AGAINST CATHOLICISM^ 129 her Popes, her councils, have sounded from age to age. Not satisfied with placing it at the very summit of the scale of Christian virtue, they con- trived the most cruel and insidious of all moral snares, in the perpetual vows with which they secured the profession, not the observance, of the virtue they extolled. Saint Paul lamented that young widows, after tievoting themselves to the ser- vice of the church, and living at the expense of her members, grew disorderly and married, incurring hlame * from the enemies of the Christian religiouj who scoffed at their fickleness of purpose. Against this evil he provided the most rational remedy — that of receiving no widow to the service of the church, who was not threescore years old. The church of Rome, on the contrary, allures boys and girls of sixteen to bind themselves with per- petual vows: the latter are confined in prisons, be- cause their frailties could not be concealied ; the for- mer are let loose upon the people, trusting that a superstitious reyerence will close the eyes, or seal * The word damnation is, in its present sense, quite in- appropriate in this and several other passages. K 130 PKACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE up the lips of men, on their misconduct. " Chris- tian clemency," says Erasmus, " has for the most part aholished the servitude of the ancients, leav- ing but vestiges of it in a few coimtries. But under the cloak of religion a new kind of slavery has been invented, which now prevails in a mul- titude of monasteries. Nothing there is lawful but what is commanded: whatever may accrue to the professed, becomes the property of the com- munity: if you stir a foot, you are brought back, as if flying after murdering your father and mo- theif*.'* The council of Trent enjoins all bishops to enforce the close confinement of nuns, by every means, and eVeii to engage the assistance of the secular arm for that purpose ; entreats all Princes to protect the inclosure of the convents ; and threatens instant excommunication on all civil magistrates who withhold their aid when the bishops call for it. " Let no professed, nun (say the fathers of the Council of Trent) come out of her mona- stery under any pretext whatever; not even for * See the Whole dialogue, Virgo Mwoyaixog, Note M. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 131 a moment." " If any of the regulars (men and women under perpetual vows) pretend that fear or force compelled them to enter the cloister, or that the profession took place before the appointed age ; let them not be heard, except within five years of their profession. But if they put off the frock, of their own accord, no allegation of such should be heard ; but, being compelled to return to the con- vent, they must he punished as apostates, being, in the mean time, deprived of all the privileges of their order*." Such is the Christian lenity of Rome; such the fences that guard her virgin- plots ; such were the laws confirmed at Trent by the wild uproar of a crowd of bishops, of whom but few could have cast the first stone at the adul- teress, dismissed to sin no more by the Saviour. " Accursed, accursed be all heretics !" exclaim the legates : " Accursed, accursed !" answer, with one voice, the mitred tyrants t. The blood, indeed, boils in one's veins^ and the mouth fills with re- * See the laws on this subject. Note N. \ See the Acclamations in the last session of the Council of Trent. ■ See also the state of morals among the clergy, ac- cording to the avowal of thejirst legates. Note O. K 2 132 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE taliating curses, at the contemplation of that odious scene : yet, I thank God, the feelings of indigna- tion which I cannot wholly suppress, leave me completely free to obey the divine precept respect- ing those that " curse us, and despitefully use us." That my feelings are painfully vehement when I dwell upon this subject ; that neither the free- dom I have enjoyed so many years, nor the last repose of the victims, the remembrance of whom stiU wrings tears from my eyes, can allay the bitter pangs of my youth; are proofs that my views arise from a real, painful, and protracted expe- rience. Of monks and friars I know compara- tively little, because the vague suspicions, of which even the most pious Spanish parents cannot divest themselves, prevented my friequenting the interior of monasteries during boyhood. My own judg- ment, and the general disgust which the prevail- ing grossness and vulgarity of the regulars, create in those who daily see them ; kept me subsequently away from all friendly intercourse with the cowled tribes : but of the secular clergy, and the amiable life-prisoners of the church of Rome, few, if any, can possess a more intimate knowledge than my- AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 133 self. Devoted to the ecclesiastical profession from the age of fifteen, when I received the minor Orders, I lived in constant friendship with the most distinguished youths who, in my town, were preparing for the priesthood. Men of the first eminence in the church were the old friends of my family — my parents' and ray own spiritual di- rectors. Thus I grew up, thus I continued in man- hood, till, at the age of five-and-thirty, religious oppression, and that alone, forced me away from kindred and country. The intimacy of friendship, the undisguised converse of sacramental confession, opened to me the hearts of many, whose exterior conduct might have deceived a common observer. The coarse frankness of associate dissoluteness, left, indeed, no secrets among the spiritual slaves, who, nnable to separate the laws of God from those of their tyrannical church, trampled both under foot, in riotous despair. Such are the sources of the knowledge I possess: God, sorrow, and remorse, are my witnesses. A more blameless, ingenuous, religious set of youths than that in the enjoyment of whose friend- ship I passed tte best years of my life, the world 134 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE cannot boast of. Eight of us, all nearly of the same age, lived in the closest bond of affection, from sixteen till one-and-twenty ; and four, at least, continued in the same intimacy till about thirty-five. Of this knot of friends not one was tainted by the breath of gross vice till the church had doomed them to a life of celibacy, and turned the best affections of their hearts into crime. It is the very refinenlent of church cruelty to say they were free when they deprived them- selves of their natural rights. Less, indeed, would be the unfeelingness of a parent who, watching a moment of generous excitement, would deprive a son of his birthright, and doom him, by a volun- tary act, to pine away through life in want and misery. A virtuous youth of one-and-twenty, who is made to believe Christian perfection inseparable from a life of celibacy, will easily overlook the dangers which beset that state of life. Those who made, and those who still support the unnatural law, which turns the mistaken piety of youth into a source of future vice ; ought to have learnt mercy from their own experience : but a priest who has waded (as most do) through the miry slough of a AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 135 life of incessant temptation — falling, and rising, stumbling, struggling, and falling again — without at once casting off Catholicism with Christianity ; contracts, generally, habits of mind not unlike those of the guards of oriental beauty. Their hearts have been seared with envy. I cannot think on the wanderings of the friends of my youth without heart-rending pairj. One, now no more, whose talents raised him to one of the highest dignities of the church of Spain ; was for many years a model of Christian purity^ When, by the powerful influence of his mind and the warmth of his devotion, this man had di^wn many into the clerical, and the religipug life (my youngest sister among the latter), he sunk at once into the grossest and most daring profligacy. I heard him boast that the night before the solemn proces- sion of Corpus Christi, where he appeared nearly at the head of his chapter, one of two children had been born, tvhich his two concubines brought to light within a few days of each other. The intrigues of ambition soon shared his mind with the pursuit of pleasure ; and the fall of a potentate, whom he took the trouble to instruct in the policy 136 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE of Machiavel, involved him in danger and distress for a time. He had risen again into court in- fluence, when death cut him off in the flower of life. I had loved him when both our minds were pure : I loved him when Catholicism had driven us both from the path of virtue ; I still love, and will love his memory, and hope that God's mercy has pardoned his life of sin, without imputing it to the abetters of the barbarous laws which occa- sioned his spiritual ruin. Such, more or less, has been the fate of my early friends, whose minds and hearts were much above the common standard of the Spanish clergy. What, then, need I say of the vulgar crowd of priests, who, coming, as the Spanish phrase has it, from coarse swaddling clothes, and raised by ordi- nation to a rank of life for which they have not been prepared ; mingle vice and superstition, gross- ness of feeling, and pride of office, in their charac- ter ? I have known the best among them ; I have heard their confessions; I have heard the con- fessions of young persons of both sexes, who fell under the influence of their suggestions and ex- ample ; and I do declare that nothing can be more AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 137 dangerous to youthful virtue than their company. How many souls would be saved from crime, but for the vain display of pretended superior virtue, which Rome demands of her clergy ! The cares of a married life, it is said, interfere with the duties of the clergy. Do not the cares of a vicious life, the anxieties of stolen love, the con- trivances of adulterous intercourse, the pains, the jealousies, the remorse, attached to a conduct in perfect contradiction with a public and solemn profession of superior virtue — do not these cares, these bitter feelings, interfere with the duties of priesthood ? I have seen the most promising men of my university obtain country vicarages, with characters unirapeached, and hearts overflowing with hopes of usefulness. A virtuous wife would have confirmed and strengthened their purposes ; but they were to live a life of angels in celibacy. They were, however, men, and their duties con- nected them with beings of no higher description. Young women knelt before them, in all the inti- macy and openness of confession. A solitary home made them go abroad in search of social converse. Love, long resisted, seized them, at length, like 138 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE madness. Two I knew who died insane: hun- dreds might be found who avoid that fate by a life of settled systematic vice. The picture of female convents requires a more delicate pencil : yet I cannot find tints sufficiently dark and gloomy to pourtray the miseries which I have witnessed in their inmates. Crime, indeed, makes its way into those recesses, in spite of the spiked walls and prison grates, vyhich protect the inhabitants. This I know with all the certainty which the self-accusation of the guilty can give. It is, besides, a notorious fact, that the nunneries in Estremadura and Portugal are frequently in- fected with vice of the grossest kind. But I will not dwell on this revolting part of the picture *. The greater part of the nuns, whom 1 have known, were beings of a much higher despription— females whose purity owed nothing to the strong gates and high walls of the cloister ; but who still had a human heart, and felt, in many instances, and during a great portion of their lives, the weight of the vows which had deprived them of their liberty. Some there are, I confess, among the * Note P. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 139 nuns, who, like birds hatched in a cage, never seem to long for freedom: but the happiness boasted of in convents is generally the effect of an ho- nourable pride of purpose, supported by a sense of utter hopelessness. The gates of the holy prison have been for ever closed upon the professed in- habitants ; force and shame await them wherever they might fly : the short words of their profes- sion have, like a potent charm, bound them to one spot of earth, and fixed their dwelling upon their grave. The great poet who boasted that " slaves cannot live in England," forgot that superstition may baffle the most sacred laws of freedom : slaves do live in England, and, I fear, multiply daily by the same arts which fill the convents abroad. In vain does the law of the land stretch a friendly hand to the repentant victim : the unhappy slave may be dying to fcreak her fetters ; yet death would be preferable to the shame and reproach that await her among relatives and friends. It will not av3.ii her to keep the vow which dooms her to live single : she has renounced her will, and made herself a passive mass of clay in the hands of a superior. Perhaps she has promised to prac- 140 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE tise austerities which cannot be performed out of the convent — never to taste meat, if her life were to depend on the use of substantial food — to wear no linen — to go unhosed and unshod for life ; — all these and many other hardships make part of the various rules which Rome has confirmed with her sanc- tion. Bitter harassing remorse seizes the wavering mind of the recluse, and even a yielding thought towards liberty, assumes the character of sacrilege. Nothing short of rebellion against the church that has burnt the mark of slavery into her soul, can liberate an English nun. Whereto could she turn her eyes ? Her own parents would disown her ; her friends would shrink from her as if her breath wafted leprosy : she would be haunted by priests and their zealous emissaries ; and, like her sister victims of superstition in India, be made to die of a broken heart, if she refused to return to the burn- ing pile from which she had fled in frantic fear. Suppose that the case I have described were of the rarest occurrence : suppose that but one nun in ten thousand wished vehemently for that liberty which she had forfeited, by a few words, in one moment : what law of God (I will ask) has en- AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 141 titled the Roman church thus to expose even one human creature to dark despair in this life, and a darker prospect in the next? Has the Gospel recommended perpetual vows ? Could any thing but a clear and positive injunction of Christ or his apostles justify a practice beset with dangers of this magnitude ? Is not the mere possibility of repenting such vows, a reason why they should be strictly forbidden ? And yet they are laid on almost infants of both sexes ! Innocent girls of sixteen are lured by the image of heroic virtue, and a pretended call of their Saviour, to promise they know not what, and make engagements for a whole life of which they have seen but the dawn ! To what paltry shifts and quibbles will not Ro- man Catholic writers resort to disguise the cruelty of this practice ! Nuns are described as superhuman beings, as angels on earth, without a thought or wish beyond the walls of their convents. The effects of habit, of religious fear, of decorum, which prevented many of the JFrench nuns from casting off the veil, at a period when the revolu- tionary storm had struck awe into every breast ; are construed into a proof of the unvariableness 1'12 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE of purpose which follows the religious profession. Are nuns, indeed, so invariably happy? Why, then, are they insulted by their spiritual rulers by keeping them under the very guards and pre- cautions, which magistrates employ to secure ex- ternal good behaviour among the female inmates of prisons and penitentiaries ? — Would the nuns continue, durijig their lives, xmder the same pri- vations, were they at liberty to resume the laical state ? Why, then, are they bound fast with awful vows ? Why are they not allowed to offer up, day by day, the free-will offering of their souls and bodies ? The reluctant nuns, you say, are few. — ^Vain, unfeeling sophistry ! First prove that vows are recommended on divine authority, that Christ has authorized the use of force and compulsion to ratify them when they are made ; and then you may stop your ears against the complaints of a few sufferers. But can millions of submissive, or even Willing recluses, atone for the despair of those few ? You reckon, in indefinite numbers, those that in France did not avail themselves of the revolutionary laws. You should rather inquire AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 143 how many, who, before the revolution, appeared perfectly contented in their cloistral slavery, over- came every religious fear, and flew to the arms of a husbandj as soon as they could do it with impimity. Two hundred and ten nuns were secularized in Spain during the short-lived reign of the Cortes *. Were these helpless beings happy in their former durance ? What an appa,lling number of less for- tunate victims might not be made out by averaging, in the same proportion, the millions of females who, since the establishment of convents, have surren- dered their liberty into the hands of Rome ! Cruel and barbarous, indeed, must be the bigotry or the policy which, rather than yield on a point of discipline, sees with indifference even the chance^ not to say the existence, of such evils. To place the most sensitive, innocent, and ardent minds under the most horrible apprehensions of spiritual and temporal punishment, without the clearest ne- cessity ; is a refinement of cruelty which has few examples among civilized nations. Yet the scandal of defection is guarded against by fears that would * Report of the minister Garelli, laid before the Cortes, 1st of March, 1822. 144 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE crush stouter hearts, and distract less vivid imagi- nations, than those of timid and sensitive females. Even a temporary leave to quit the convent for the restoration of decaying health is seldom given, and never applied for, but by such nuns as unhap- piness drives into a disregard of public opinion. I saw my eldest sister, at the age of two-and- twenty, slowly sink into the grave within the walls of a convent ; whereas, had she not been a slave to that church which has been a curse to me, air, amusement, and exercise might have saved her. I saw her on her deathbed. I obtained that me- lancholy sight at the risk of bursting my heart, when, in my capacity of priest, and at her own request, I heard her last confession. Ah ! when shall I forget the mortal agony with which, not to disturb the dying moments of that truly angelic being, I suppressed my gushing tears in her pre- sence ; the choking sensation with which I forced the words of absolution through my convulsed lips ; the faltering steps with which I left the convent alone, making the solitary street where it stood, re-echo the sobs I could no longer contain ! AGAINST CATHOIJCISM. 145 I saw my dear sister no more ; but another was left me, if not equal in talents to the eldest (for I have known few that could be considered her equals), amiable and good in no inferior degree. To her I looked up as a companion for life. But she had a heart open to every noble impression — and such, among Catholics, are apt to be misled from the path of practical usefulness, into the wil- derness pf visionary perfection. At the age of twenty she left an infirm mother to the care pf servants and strangers, and shut herself up in a convent, where she was not allowed to see even the nearest relations. With a delicate frame, requiring every indulgence to support it in health, she em- braced a rule which denied her the comforts of the lowest class of society. A coarse woollen frock fretted her skin ; her feet had no covering but that of shoes open at the toes, that they might expose them to the cold of a brick floor ; a couch of bare planks was her bed, and an unfurnished cell her dwelling. Disease soon filled her conscience with fears ; and I had often to endure the torture of witnessing her agonies at the confessional. I left 146 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE her, when I quitted Spain, dying much too slowly for her only chance of relief. I wept bitterly for her loss two years after; yet I could not be so cruel as to wish her alive. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 147 LETTER VI. Rome the enemy of mental improvement : the direct tendency of her Prayer-bookj the Breviary, to cherish credulity and adulterate Christian virtue. I COULD not connect the subject of my pre- ceding Letter with any other, without doing the greatest violence to the overpowering feelings which the recollection of celibacy and monachism never fail to raise in me. I now proceed to shoiw the natural opposition which exists between the spiritual power assumed by the church of Rome, and the improvement of the .human understanding. After this I shall close my subject with numerous proofs of her disregard of truth, in the dissemina- tion of a timid j superstitious, and .credulous !spirit, -frthe best security of her influence among man- kind. The long Mst of illustrious writers, members of the- Roman (Pajtholiqi communion, with which the first part of my charge wiU ; be met^ is well known to me. I would ^allow that .list -to be ndouhled;:; I L 2 148 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE would grant every one of your boasted authors the whole weight of learning and abilities which you allot to them by your own scale of merit ; yet it would remain to be proved, that vigour of mind and comprehensiveness of knowledge were, in such instances, attained in accordance with the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, and not, as I am ready to show, in the very teeth of its spirit. The resources of the human mind, when once in motion after knowledge, are innumerable. Fear and re- straint may force it into devious and crooked paths, not without injury to its moral qualities ; but no power on earth can prevent the exertion of its activity. It is curious to observe the invariable accuracy with which certain principles, true or false, will work ; and how perfectly analogous their effects will be when applied to the most different objects. We see the assumption of supernatural infalli- bility, gradually leading the popes to attempt the subjection of all Christian powers. A criminal ambition might often mix in their political plans and views ; but the impulse which threatened the thrones of Europe, was independent of the indi- AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 149 V^idual temper of the popes. The mildest, hum- blest individual, believing himself an infallible guide to salvation, must have considered the re- moval of every obstacle to that paramount object, a part, not only of his privilege, but his duty. He would, therefore, strive to reduce all human power, so as to suit his views of spiritual rule. The declaration that Christ's kingdom is not of this world, would not prevent a conscientious Pope from checking any temporal power, which he con- ceived to oppose the interests of the next. On the same grounds, and from the very same prin- ciple, has Rome been, at all times, the declared enemy of mental independence. She, it is true, confines her open claims, in this case, to points of Christian faith, as to spiritual supremacy in the former. But remove opposition in both, and you will see her become as great a tyrant over the human intellect, as she was at one time over the governments of Christendom. There is, in fact, a greater connexion between the learned and scientific opinions of men and their religious tenets, than between moral practice and civil al^ legiance. Hence the rights of the Roman Catholig 150 PEACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE church to prescribe limits to the mind are still openly contended for, while the indirect dominion of the popes over Christian kings and their people is only timidly whispered within the walls of the Vatican. But how does it happen that Italy and France have produced men of extraordinary eminence, not- withstanding their mental subjection to Rome ? — I might answer this question by another :^ How is it that the talent of Spain and Portugal has been rendered abortive ? — The tendency of moral as well as physical agents must be estimated, not by that which they fail to effect, but by the condition of what is fairly submitted to their action. Will you h-ave an adequate notion of the fetters laid by Rome upon the human mind ? examine the intellect of such as wear them really, not ostensibly; Would you ascertain the true practical consequences of any law? observe its results, where it is not eluded. The Roman Catholic restraints on the understand- ing have been and are still actively enforced in Spain ; whereas the weakness of the papal govern- ment has never been able to put the Italian inqui- sitions into full activity. (France was always free AGAINST CATHOI.ICISM. 151 from that scourge ; and the confinement of a few authors to the Bastille, was a poor substitute for the Autos^da-Fe of the unfortunate Spanish pen- insula. But has not the influence of Roman Catholic infallibility, even in those less oppressed countries, disturbed the best efforts of the human intellect, closed up njany of the direct roads to knowledge, and forced ingenuity to skulk in the pursuit of it ^ke|a thief? Sound the antiquarian, the astro- nomer, the natural philosopher of Italy ; and the characteristic shrug of their shoulders will soon tell you that they have gone the full stretch of the chain they are forced to drag. What if the chain be already snapt at every link, and kept together by threads ? Reckon, if you can, the struggles, the sighs, the artifices, the perjuries which have brought it to that state. Look at Galileo on his knees : see the commentators of Newton prefixing a declaration to his immortal Principia, in which, by a solemn falsehood, they avoid the fate of the unhappy Florentine astronomer. " Newto|i," say the great mathematicians, Le Seur and Jacquier, " assumes, in his third book, the hypothesis of the earth's 152 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE motion. The propositions of that author could not be explained except through the same hypothesis. We have, therefore, been forced to act a character not our own. But we declare our submission to the decrees of the Roman pontiffs against the mo- tion of the earth *." The same sacrifice of sincerity is required at the Spanish universities. Science, indeed, has scarcely ever made a step without bow- ing, with a lie in her mouth, to Roman infallibility. Mankind has to thank Lord Bacon, as he might thank the intellectual liberty which the Reforma- tion allowed him, for that burst of light which at once broke out from his writings, and spread the seeds of true knowledge, too thick and wide for Rome to smother them. She had been able, at former peiiods, to decide the fate of philosophical systems according as they appeared to favour or oppose her notions. In this case, however, she * Newtonus, in hoc tertio libro, telluris niotse hypothesim assumit,. Autoris propositiones aliter explicari non poterantj nisi eadffln quoque facta hypothesi. Hinc alienam coacti sumus gererc personam. Cseterum latis a summis pontificibus contra telluris motum decretis, nos obsequi profitemur.— Newtoni .Principia, vol. III. Colon iae Allobrogunij 1760. This decla- Vation Has made in 1742. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 153 was both unable to perceive the extent of her dan- ger, and to check the simultaneous impulse of the awakened mind of Europe. The Council of Trent, however, had, a short time before, done every thing in their power to keep mankind in subjection to the church, upon every branch of knowledge. By a solemn decree of that Council, the press was sub- jected to the previous censure of the bishops or the inquisitors, in every part of Christendom. It is not difficult to conceive the use which these holy um- pires of knowledge would make of their authority to check and subdue the petulant minds *, who dared to broach any thing which jarred with the principles of school philosophy or divinity. But we need not leave this to conjecture: the censures attached to the long list of books condemned in the Index Expurgatorius of Rome, accurately de- scribe the extent of intellectual freedom which Rome grants to the faithful subjects of her spiritual empire t. ♦ Ad coercenda petulanda ingenia.^The Council of Trent confirmed the decree of the Council of Lateran, which extends the censure to all kinds of books. t I cannot deny myself the pleasure, nor this part of my argument the advantage, of a quotation from the excellent 154 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE The fact that both popes and bishops of the Roman Catholic communion have often patronized knowledge, is anxiously brought forward to prove the existence of a liberal and enlightened spirit in speech of Sir Robert Harry Inglis, on the third reading of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, Tuesday, May 30, 1825— " If I," said the Honourable Baronet, " were asked to measure the progress of public opinion, and the state of the human mind in any country, I should refer, not so much to her laws, iiot so much to her institutions, as to her literature — to that which represents man in every condition of his social and pri- vate life, which models his character, and is itself modelled by it. Now, by that test I am willing to try the Church of Rome. I will tell you, not what her literature is, but what it is not. Her tyranny over literature, her proscription at this day of all the great masters of the human mind, can be paralleled only by the tyranny and the proscription which she ^XQrcised five ce?ituries ago over the piinds and bodies alike. The volume which I hold in my hand, the Index Librorum Pro- hibitorum, contains a list of the books which are at this time proscribed in the Church of Rome, under the penalties of the Inquisition. It was printed at Rome, by authority, in 1819, and I bought it there, in the College, I think, de Propaganda, in 1821. The list was framed at different times : the litera- ture of every generation since the Reformation has added some of its treasures to it : but when I quote the names of earlier greatness proscribed in it, let me not be supposed to violate the pledge with which I began : for I quote no charge against the sixteenth century, which cannot in the same words be applied to the nineteenth — none against a Pius V. to which a Pius VII, did not actually and honestly expose himself. The AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 155 the Roman church. Now, if the conduct of in- dividuals were admitted as a criterion of the temper of their church, it would be easy to pro- duce thousands who have opposed real knowledge first book in this great catalogue of works, which are taken from the faithful every where, and are given up to the Inqui- sition, is Bacon de Augmentis Scientianwi : Locke on the Hu" man Understanding, and Cudworth's Intelkctual System, follow in the train. Let me add a iflinor fact, connected with the Papal condemnation of Bacon's work : The date of the pub- lication of that work preceded the date of the decree against it about fifty years ; so little had the Church of Rome in that day risen to the level of the age, that fifty years had elapsed before the name and the work of Bacon appear to have reached the Vatican. It is true that the best modern literature of the land of these great men is not as yet proscribed; but may we not venture to believe, that fifty years hence, when some future Pius shall have heard, that, in the heretical country of England, there had existed about this time two such men as Dugald Stewart and William Paley, their names will be added to those of Bacon, Locke, and Cudworth ; and their works also will be condemned, as fatal to the faith of man ? Many other English works are proscribed. One only I will mention — the Paradise Lost of Milton. The reading of the work was interdicted, indeed, nearly a hundred years ago ; but the prohibition was renewed in 1819. Is not this enough to prove, that the character of the Church of Rome is not so open to a beneficial change as some of my Honourable Friends are willing to hope and believe it to be .'' I pass over large classes of books, the very possession of which is forbidden ; but I must notice the impartial prohibition of science. Sir, 156 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE for every one that has promoted its interests*. Besides, a Pope may be a patron of the fine arts, and a determined enemy to philosophical studies. A cardinal or a bishop may spend his savings and fortune in the erection of a college, with a view to perpetuate the metaphysics of the thirteenth century. Such will be found to be the bene- the Church of Rome proscribed Copernicus ; but, to make ieU things even, it has proscribed Descartes also. Will the 'House believe it possible, that the celebrated sentence, in ' 1 634, against Galileo, — a sentence immortalized by the exe- cration of science in every country where the mind is free, — should be renewed and republished in 18J9? Yet of this fact I hold the proof in my hand, in the volume of the Index which I have already quoted. The work of Algarotti, on the Newtonian system, shares the same fate : so that every modification of science, in other words, every effort of free inquiry, every attempt to disengage the mind from the trammels of authority, is alike and universally consigned to the Inquisition. I venture to think, that a good library, in almost every class of literature, might be formed out of the books which the Church of Rome in this Index prohibits. Am I not justified in saying, that the Church of Rome re- mains unchanged, the unchangeable enemy to the progress of the human mind ? Every other institution is advancing with sails set, and banners streaming, on the high, yet still rising, tide of improvement: the Church of Rome alone remains fixed and bound to the bottom of the stream, by a chain which can neither be lengthened nor removed." * See note Q, AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 157 factions which learning has generally received from the members of the church of Rome. It is true, we owe the preservation of manuscripts to the monks, though it would be difficult to enume- rate the multitude of works which were destroyed by their sloth and ignorance. The public schools of Europe were endowed by the liberality of Roman Catholics; but if either those that pre- served the treasures of ancient literature, or those who founded our universities, had suspected the direction which the human mind would take from the excitement of these mental stimuli, they would have doomed poets, orators, and philosophers to the flames, and flung their endowing money into the sea. I do not blame individuals for partaking the spirit of their age, but must protest against a church which, having attained the fulness of strength under the influence of the iriost ignorant ages, would, for the sake of that strength, stop the progress of time, and reduce the nineteenth cen- tury to the intellectual standard of the thirteenth*. * The inveterate enmity of a sincere Roman Catholic against books which directly or indirectly dissent from his church, is unconquerable. There is a family in England who. 158 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE Moral as well as physical beings must love their native atmosphere ; and Rome being no exception to this law, is still daily employed in renovating and spreading credulity, enthusiasm, and super- stition — the elements in which she thrives. The charge is strong, and expressed in strong lan- guage ; but I believe, not stronger than the follow- ing proofs will warrant. A Christian church cannot employ a more effectual instrument to fashion and mould the minds of her members, than the form of prayer and worship which she sanctions for daily use. Such is the JSrevimy or Prayer-book of the Roman Catholic clergy, which, as it stands in the present day, is the most authentic work of that kind. >In consequence of a decree of the Council of Trent, Pope Pius V. ordered a vi\asAi&co'i learned and able men to compile i the JBreviary, and by his buH Qmo^ a woto, July, 1566, 'sanctioned it, and comma,nded the use thtereof to the clergy of the • havirig inherited a copious library under circumstances whitli make it a kind of heir-loom, have torn out every leaf of the Protestant works, leaving nothing in the shelves but the cbvers. This fact I know frokn the most unquestionable authority. r . , .,, AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 159 Roman Catholic church, all over the world. Cle- ment VIII., in 1602, finding that the Breviary of Pius V. had been altered and depraved, restored it to its pristine state ; and ordered, under pain of excommunicatioin, that all future editions sliould strictly follow that which he then printed at the Vatican. Lastly, Urban VIII., in 1631, had the language of the whole workj and the metres of the hymns, revised. The , value whidi the churc^h of Rome sets upon the Breviary; may ;be known from the strictness with which she jdemands the perusal of it. Whoever enjoys any ecclesiastical revenue; all. persons of both sexes who hme pr^i fessed in any of the regular orders;* ; all sub- deaeons^ deacons, and priestSs, are bound to repeat;, either in public or private^ thie whole service ;4Sf the day, out of the' Breviary. The omission fof any one of the eight portions of which that* service consists is declared to be a mortal sin, «". e. a sin that, unrepehted, would be sufficient to excltidfe * Some orders have a peculiar Bi-eviai'y, with the appro- bation of thepcype. There is no substantial difference betw'eeii these monkish prayer bodks and the Breviary which is'iisefl by the great body of the Roman Catholic *16rgy. '' - ' 160 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE from salvation. The person guilty of such an omission loses all legal right to whatever portion of his clerical emoluments is due for the day or days wherein he neglected that duty, and cannot he ab- solved tiU he has given the forfeited sums to the poor, or, in Spain, redeemed the greatest part by a certain donation to the Crusade. Such are the sanc- tions and penalties by which the reading of the Bre- viary is enforced. The scrupulous exactness with which this duty is performed by all who have not secretly cast off their spiritual allegiance, is quite surprising. For more than twelve years of my life, at a period when my university studies required uninterrupted attention, I believed myself bound to repeat the appointed prayers and lessons; a task which, in spite of a rapid enunciation, took up an hour and a half, daily. A dispensation of this duty is not to be obtained from Rome without the utmost difficulty*. I never, indeed, knew or heard of any one who had obtained it. * Among the many charges made in the name of the Pope by Cardinal Gonsalri, against Baron von Wessenberg, Vicar General of Constance, one is, that he had granted dispensa- tions of this kind to many clergymen in his diocese. Tliis curious correspondence was published in London, by Acker- AGAINST CATHOLICISM. " 161 The Breviary, therefore, must be reckoned the true standard to which the church of Rome wishes to reduce the minds and hearts of her clergy, from the highest dignitary to the most obscure. priest- It is in the Breviary that we may be sure to find the full extent of the pious belief, to which she trains the pastors of her flock ; and the true stamp of those virtues which she boasts of in her models of Chris- tian perfection. By making the daily repetition of the Breviary a paramount duty of the clergy, Rome evidently gives it the preference over all other works ; and as far as she is concerned, provided the appointed teachers of her laity read her own book, they may trouble themselves very little about others. Nay, should a Roiman Catholic clergyman, as is often the case, be unable to devote more than an hour and a half a day, ' to reading ; his church places him under the necessity of deriving his whole knowledge from the Breviary. Precious, indeed, must be the contents of that mann, in 1819. It deserves the attention of such as wish to ascertain the temper of the court of Rome in our own days. 162 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE privileged volume, if we trust the authority which so decidedly enforces its perusal. There was a time when I knew it by heart ; but long neglect of that store of knowledge, had lately left but faiiit traces of the most exquisite passages con- tained therein. The present occasion, however, has forced me to take my old task-book in hand ; and it shall now be my endeavour to arrange and condense the copious extracts made in my last revision. The office of the Roman Catholic church was originally so contrived as to divide the Psaltery between the seven days of the week. Portions of the Old Scriptures were also read alternately with extracts from the legends of the saints, and the works of the fathers. But as the calendar be- came crowded with saints, whose festivals take, precedence of the regular church service; little room is left for any thing but a few psalms, which are constantly repeated, a very small part of the Old Testament, and mere fragments of the Gospels and Epistles. The great and never-end- ing variety consists in the compendious lives of AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 163 the saints, of which I will here give some spe- cimens. In the first place, I shall speak of the early martyrs, the spurious records of whose sufferings have been made to contribute most copiously to the composition of the Breviary. The variety and ingenuity of the tortures described, are only equalled by the innumerable miracles which baffled the tyrants, whenever they attempted to injure the Christians by any method but cutting their throats. Houses were set on fire to burn the martyrs within ; but the Breviary informs us that the flames raged for a whole day and a night without molesting them. Often do we hear of idols tumbling from their pedestals at the approach of the persecuted Christians ; and even the judges themselves dropped dead when they attempted to pass sentence. The wild beasts seldom devour a martyr without prostrating themselves before him; and lions follow young virgins to protect them from insult. The sea refuses to drown those who are committed to its waters ; and when com- pelled to do that odious service, the waves generally convey the dead bodies where the Christians may M 3 164 PKACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE preserve them as relics. On one occasion a pope is thrown into the Lake Moeotis, with an anchor,- which the cautious infidels had tied round his neck, for fear of the usual miraculous floating: the plan succeeded, and the pope was drowned. But the sea was soon after observed to recede three miles from the shore, where a temple appeared, in which the body of the martyr had been provided with a marble sarcopha,gus *. There is a good deal of romantic interest in the history of Cyprian and Justina. The former being a heathen magician, who to that detestable art * " Clemens ... a TFajano imperatore relegatus est trans Mare Ponticum in solitudinem urbis Chersonee, in qua duo millia Christianorum Feperit . . . qui cum in eruendis et secandis marmoribus aquae penuria labordrent, Clemens facta uratione in vicinum collem ascendit; in cujus jugo vidit Agnum dextro pede fontem aquae dulcis, qui inde' scaturiebat attingentem, ubi omnes sitim expleverunt ; eoque miraculo multi infideles ad Christi fidem conversi, dementis etiara sanctitatem venerare coeperunt : quibus concitatus' Trajanus, misit illuc qui Clementem, alligata ad eju;S collum anchor^, in profundum dejicerent. Quo(} cum factum esset, Cbristianis ad littus orantibuSj mare ad tria milliaria recessit; e6q«e iJIi accedenfes, eediculam marmoream in templi forjnam," et intus arcam lapideam, • ubi Martyris corpus conditum el-at, et, jiixta illud, anchoram qua mersus fuerat, inve- nemnt." ' AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 165 joined a still more infamous occupation; engaged to put a young man in possession of Justina, a Christian virgin. ' For this purpose he employed the most potent incantations, till the devil was forced to confess that' he had no power over Christians. Upon' this, Cyprian very sensibly concluded, that it was "better to be a Christian than a sorcerer. The readers of romance may, after this, expect every sort of incident except" a marriage, which none but inferior saints ever contract ; and from which all must extricate themselves before they can be in a fair way of obtaining a place in the calendar. Cyprian and Justina being accused be- fore the Roman judge, are, however, fried together in a "caldron of melted "pitch, fat^ and wax," from which' they come out quite able to be carried to Nicomedia, where they are put to death by the almost infallible means of the sword or the axe. I say almost, because I find an instance • where even this method had nearly disappointed the persecutors, . That happened in the case of St. Cecilia. This saint, of musical celebrity, having been forced to marry a certain Valerius, cautioned most earnestly her bridegroom to avert from him- 166 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE self the vengeance of an angel who had the charge of her purity. The good natured Valerius agreed to forego his rights, and promised to believe in Christ, provided he saw his heavenly rival. Cecilia, however, declared that such a sight could not be obtained without previous baptism; upon which, the curiosity of the bridegroom supplying the place of faith, he declared his readiness to be baptized. After the ceremony the angel showed himself to Valerius, and subsequently to a brother of his, who had been let into the secret. This Cecilia is the martyr on whom, as I mentioned before, a whole house flaming about her for a natural day, had not the smallest effect. Even when the axe was em- ployed, the lictor exerted his strength in vain on the delicate neck of his victim, which being but half divided, yet allowed her miraculously to live for three days more, at the end of which she fairly died*. * " Cyprianus, primum magus, postea martyr cum Jus- tinam Christianam virginem, quam juvenis quidem ardenter amabat, cantionibus ac veneficiis ad ejus libidinis assensum allicere conaretur, daemonem consuluit, qu^nam id re con- sequi posset, Cui daemon respondit, nullam illi artem pro- cessuram adversus eos, qui vere Christum colerent. Quo re> AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 167 After the romantic miracles of the early mar- tyrs, I have to mention the stories by which the spouso commotus Cyprianus, vehementer dolere coepit vitse superioris institutum. Itaque relictis magicis artibus, se totum ad Christi dpmini fidem convertit. Quain ob causam una cum virgine Justina comprehensus est, et ambo colaphis flagellisque cassi, mox in carcerem conjecti ... in sartaginein plenam ferventis picis, aSipis et cerae injecti sunt. Demiira Nicomediee Biecuri feriuntur. " Ca?cilia virgo Romana, nobili genere nata, a prima aetate Christianae fidei prseceptis instituta, virginitatem suam Deo vovit. Sed cum postea contra suam voluntatem data asset in matrimonium Valeriano, prima nuptiarum nocte hunc cum eo sermonem habuit : Ego Valeriane, in Angeli tutela sum, qui virginitatem meam custodit : quare ne quid in me committas, quo ira Dei in te concitetur. Quibus verbis commotus Va- lerianus, illam attingere non est ausus : quin etiam addidit, se in Christum crediturum, si-eum Angelum videret. Cui CjecUia cum sine' baptismo negaret id fieri posse, incensus cupiditat0 videndi Angelum, se baptizari velle respondet . . (Baptizatus, et) ad Caeciliam reversus, orantem et cum ea Angelum divino splendore fulgentem, invenit. Quo aspectu obstupefactus, ut primum ex timore confirmatus est, Tibur- tium Itatrem suum accersit qui a Caecilia Christi fide imbutus . . . ipse etiam ejusdem Angeli quern frater ejus viderat, as- pectu dignatus est. Uterque autem paulo post, Almachio Prsefecto, constanter martyrium subit. Qui mox Caeciliam comprehendi imperat . . . eamque in ipsius aedes reductam, in balneo comburi jugsit. Quo in loco cum diem noctemque ita fuisset, ut ne flamma quidem illam attingeret j eo immissus est carnifex, qui ter securi ictam, cum caput abscindere non potuiss^t, semiyivara reliquit," &c. &c. 168 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE Breviary endeavours to support the extravagant veneration for the Popes and their see, which at all times has been the leading aim of the Roman court. The most notorious forgeries are, for this purpose, sanctioned and consecrated in her Prayer Book. That these legends are often given in the words of those whom the church of Rome calls fathers, shows the weakness both of the Popish structure, and of the props that support it. We thus find the fable about the contest between St. Peter and Simon Magus, before Nero, gravely re- peated in the words of St. Maximus. " The holy apostles (Peteir and Paul) lost their lives," he says " because, among other miracles, they also, by their prayers, precipitated Simon from the .vacuity of the air. For Simon calling himself Christ, and engaging to ascend to the Father, was suddenly raised in flight, by means of his magic art. At this moment Peter, bending his knees, prayed, to the Lord, and by his holy prayer defeated the magician's lightness ; for the prayer reached the Lord sooner than the flight ; the right petition outstripped the unjust presumption. Peter, on earth, obtained what he asked, much before Simon AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 169 could reach the heavens to which he was making his way. Peter,' therefore, brought down his rival from the air as if he had held him by a rope, and dashing him against a stone, in a precipice, broke his legs : doing this in scorn of the fact' itself, so that he who but a moment before had attempted to fly, should not ngw be able to walk; and hav- ing affected wings,, should want the use of his heels*." — Thfe use which the Breviary makes of the forged epistles of the early popes, known by the * " Hodierna igitur die beati Apostoli sanguineni profude- runt.: Sedvideamus causamquare.ista perp^ssi sunt ; scilicet, quod inter caetera mjrabilia etiam niagum ilium Simonem orationibus suis 6e aeris vacuo prKcipiti ruina prostraverunt. Cum enim idem Simon se Christum diceret, et tanqiuam iilium ad patrem assereret volandp se posse conscendere, atque elatus subito magicis artibus volare coepisset ; tunc Petrus fixis ge- nibus precatus est Dominum, et precatione sancta vicit magi- cam levitatem. Prior enim ascendit ad Domiuum oratio quam yolatus ; et ante pervenit justa petitio, quam iniqua prae- suraptio : ante Petrus in terris positus obtinuit quod petebat, quam Simon perveniret in coslestibus, quo tendebat. ; Tunc igitur Petrus relut vinctum Ilium de sublimi aere deposuit, et quodamjprsecipitio in saxo elidens, ejus crura confregit; et hoc in. opprobriofacti illius; ut qui paulo ante volare tenr taverat, subito ambulare non posset ; et qui pennas assump- serat, plaritas amitteret." Septima die infra Octavam SS. Apost. Petri et Pauli. 170 PEACTICAI. AND INTEBNAL EVIDENCE name of false Decretals, is frequently obvious to those who are acquainted with both. As these Decretals were forged about the eighth century, with a view to magnify the power of the Roman see, nothing in their contents is more prominent than that object. The Breviary, therefore, never omits an opportunity of establishing the Papal supremacy by tacit reference to these spurious do- cuments. Yet as this would have but a slight effect upon the mass of the faithful, a more pic- turesque story is related in the life of Pope St. John. His Holiness being on a journey to Corinth, and in want of a quiet and comfortable horse, borrowed one, which the lady of a certain noble- man used to ride. The animal carried the Pope with the greatest gentleness and docility ; and, when the journey was over, was returned to his mistress ; but in vain did she attempt to enjoy the accustomed services of her favourite. The horse had become fierce, and gave the lady many an unseemly fall : " as if (says the authorized record) feeling indignant at having to carry a woman, since the Vicar of Christ had been on his AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 171 back*." The horse was accordingly presented to the Pope, as unfit to be ridden by a less dignified personage. The standing miracles of the city ofRome-^those miraculous relics which even at this moment are drawing crowds of pilgrims within its walls t, and which, in former times, made the whole of Europe support the idleness of the Romans at the * ~" Cum ei nobilis vir ad Corinthum, equum, quo ejus uxor mansueto utebatur, itineris causa commodasset ; factum est ut Domino postea reinissus equus ita ferox evaderet, ut fremitu, et totius corporis agitatione, semper deinceps dominam expulerit : tanquam indignaretur mulierem re- cipere ex quo sedisset in eo Christi yicarius." Brev. Rom. die 27 Mail. The Breviary, true to its plan of giving the substance of every story that ever sprang from the fertile imagination of the idle monks, concludes the life by stating the vision of a certain hermit, who saw the soul of Theodoric the Goth carried to hell by Pope John and Symmachus, through one of the volcanoes of the Lipari Islands. " Paulo post moritur Theodoricus : quem quidam eremita, ut scribit Sanctus Gregorius, vidit inter Joannem Pontificem, et Symmachum Patricium, quem idem occiderat, demergi in ignem Liparita- num." — " This legend (says Gibbon) is related by Gregory I. and approved by Baronius ; and both the Pope and Cardinal are grave doctors, sufficient to establish a probable opinion," Chap, xxxix. Note 108. t Note R. 172 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL' EVIDENCE expense of their devout curiosity — are not over- looked in the prayer-book of her church. Let me mention the account it gives of St. Peter's chains, such as they are now venerated at Rome. Eu- doxia, the wife of Theodosius the yoimger, being on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, received as a pre- sent one of the chains with which St. Peter was bound in pris(m, when he was liberated by an angel. This ch3,inj set with jewels, was forwarded by the pious empress to her daughter, then at Rome. The young princess, rejoiced with the gift, showed the chain to the Pope, who repaid the compliment by exhibiting another chain, which the holy apostle had borne under Nero. As, to compare theijr structure, the two chains were brought into contact, the links at the extremities of each joined together, and the two pieces became one uniform chain*. After these samplfes, no one will be surprised * " Cum igitar Pontifex Romanam cateaam cum ea, quae Jerosplymis allata fuerat, cratulisset, factum est, ut illae inter se sic connecterentur ut non duae sed una catena ab eodem artifice confecta, esse videretur." In Festo Sti. Petri AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 175 to find in the same authorized record, all the other supposed miracles, which, in different parts of> Italy, move daily the enlightened traveller tff laughter or disgust. The translation of the house of Loretto from Palestine to the Papal" States, is asserted in the collect for that festival; which being a direct address to the Deity, canhot be supposed to h.ave been carelessly compiled*. The two removals of that house by the haiiAs of ad Vincula. — The present Pope mentions this chain as one of the inducements for the faithful to visit Eome this year of Jubilee. See the translation of the Proclamation, Note R. * " DeUs, qui beats Marise Virginis dora'itin pel- incarnatl Verb! mysterium misericorditer consecrasti, eamque in sitiu ecclesicB tuae mirahiliter collocasti," &c. &c. The account of the pretended miraculous conveyance of the hotise by the hands of the angels, is given in the Lessons : " Ipsius autem Virginis natalis domus divinis mysteriis consecrata, Angelorum mini- sterio ab Infidelium pdtestate, in Dalmatiam prius, deinde in Agrum LauretanumPic^nseProviiicise translata fuitj sedente-- sancto Ccelestino qujjito: eandemque ipsam esse.in qua Ver- bum caro factum est", et habitavit in nobis, turn Pontificis" diplomatibus, et celeberrima totius Orbis veneratione, turn continua miraculorum virtute, et coelestium beneficiorum gratia, comprobatur. Quibus permotus Innocentius Duode- cimus, qu6 ferventius erga Matris amantissimae cultum Fi- delium memoria excitaretur, ejusdem Sanctae Domus Trans-, lationem anniversarift solemnitate in tota Piceni Provincia veneratam, Missa etiam et Officio proprio celebrari praecepit.". 1745 PKACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE angds, first to the coast of Dalmatia, and thence, over the Adriatic, to the opposite shore, are gravely related in the Lessons ; where the mem- hers of the Roman Catholic church are reminded that the identity of the house is warranted by papal buUs, and a proper mass and service, pub- lished by the same authority for the annual com- memoration of that event. It is rather curious to observe the difference in the assertion of Italian and of French miiracles : the unhesitating confidence with which the former are stated ; the hypercritical jealousy which ap- pears in the narrative of the latter. The walk of St. Dionysius, with his own head in his hands, from Paris to the site of the present abbey of St. Denis, is given only as a credible report. " De quo illud memoricB proditum est, abscissum suum caput sustulisse, et progressum ad duo millia passuum in manibus gestasse*." The French, * The Breviary, however, does not betray such hesitation as to the works of the said Dionysius, the Areopagite — the most barefaced forgery which ever was foisted on the credulity of the world. Libros scripsit admirahiles, ao plane ccelestes, de divinis nominihus, de ccelesti et Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, de mystica Theologia, el alios qttosdam. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 175 indeed, with their liberties of the Gallican church, have never been favourites at Rome; but all is certainty in the accounts of Italian worthies. Witness the renowned St, Januarius, whose ex- traordinary miracles, both during his life under Diocletian, and in our own days, are stated with equal confidence and precision. That saint, we are told, being thrown into a burndng furnace, came out so perfectly unhurt, that not even his clothes or hair were singed. The next day all the wild beasts in the amphitheatre came crouch- ing to his feet. I pass over the other ancient per- formances of Januarius, to show the style in which his wonderfid works, after death, are given. His body, for instance, on one occasion, extinguished ■ the flames of Vesuvius*. This is no miracle upon * " In ardentem fornacem conjectus ita ilJaesus evasit ut ne vestimentum aut capillum quidem flamraaviolavej'it.— (Ferae) naturalis feritatis oblitse, ad Januarii pedes se prostravere.^- In primis memorandum quod erumpentes olim e monte Vesuvio flatnmarum globos, nee vjcinis modo,. sed longinquis etiam regionibus yastitatis metum afferentes, extinxit, — Prseelarura illud quoque, quod ejus sanguis, qui in ampulla vitrea concretus asservatur, cum in conspectu capitis ejusdem martyris ponitur, admirandum in modum colliqusfieri, et ebuUire, perinde atque recens eiFusus, ad haec usque tempera cernitur." 176 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE vague report, but one which, according to the Breviary, deserves a peculiar remembrance. Next comes that "noble mirajc\e"—rpr chaiiis, nettles, scourges, and even to roll herself among thorns, regardless of a diseased constitution ?" — Is she not told that St. Rosej " from a desire to imitate St. Catharine *, wore, day and night, three folds of an iron chain round her waist ; a belt set with sma,ll needles, and an iron crown armed inside with points ? That she made to herself a bed of the unpolished trunks of trees, and that she filled up the interstices with pieces of broken pottery ?" She did all this in spite of her " tortures froni sickness," and by this means she obtained the frequent visits of saints and angels; and heard Christ himself uttering the words, " Rose of my heart, be thou my hride.^^ Can the poor, weak, visionary recluse doubt the teality of scenes attested by her church, or question the lawfulness of slow s6lf-murder, supported by the brightest of her commended models f ? * Observe the effect of the proposed models. *rhe Breviary l-ecords a nuihber of similar imitations : every one acquainted with Roman Catholics must have seen them repeated every day. f St. Theresa. . . ." Per duodeviginti annos gravisaimis morbis et variis tentationibus vexata, constantissime meruit P S 212 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE The only rational principle which can regulate self-denial, and give it the stamp of a Christian virtue, would condemn the whole of the monkish system at once : Rome, therefore, cannot, will in castris Christianse poenitentise. . .Infidelium et hsereticorum tenebras perpetuis deflebat lacrymis, atque ad placandam divinsB ultionis iram, voluntaries proprii corporis cruciatus DeOj pro eorum salute dicabat. . .Tarn anxio castigandi cor- poris desiderio aestuabat, ut quamris secus suaderent morbi, quibus afflictabatur, corpus ciliciis, catenis, urticarum mani- pulis, aliisque asperrimis flagellis saepe Cruciaret, et aliquando inter spinas volutaretj sic Deum alloqui solita : ' Domine, aut pati aut mori'. . .Ei morienti adesse visus est inter angelorum agmina Christus Jesus : et arbor arida cellK proxima statim effloruit." Die 15 Octobris. St. Rose of Lima. . ." Oblongo asperrimoque cilicio sparsim minusculas acus intexuit ; sub velo coronam densis aculeis introrsus obarmatanij interdiu noctuque gestavit. Sanctae Catharinse Senensis ardua premens vestigia, catena ferrea, triplici nexu circumducta, lumbos cinxit. Lectulum sibi d truncis nodosis composuit, horumque vacuas commissuras fragminibus testarura iraplevit. Cellulam sibi angastissimam struxit in extreme horti angulo, ubi caelestium contemplation! dedita, crebris disciplinis, inedia^ vigiliis corpusculum ex- tenuans, at spiritu vegeta, larvas deemonum frequenti cer- tamine victrix, impavide protrivit ac superavit. . . Exinde coepit supernis abundare deliciis, illustrari visionibus, coUi- quescere Seraphicis ardoribus. Angelo tutelar!, sanctae Catha- rinse Senensi, Virgini Deiparae inter assiduas apparitiones mir^ familiarisj a Christo has voces audire meruit : ' Rosa cordis mei, tu mihi sponsa esto.' " Die 30 Augusti. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 213 not admit it. Make the good of mankind the ©nly ground for voluntary endurance of pain ; make the habit of rational self-denial (without which extensive usefulness is impossible) the ob- ject of certain slight privations, used as a discipline of mind and body ; and a convent assumes the character of a mad-house. Penance is, conse- quently, erected into an independent virtue, and saints are made to appear after death, in glory, to proclaim the Indian doctrine of Heavenly enjoy- ments purchased by bodily sufferings *. The models which Rome presents for imitation, are not more removed from the spMtual- simpli- city of the Gospel, than they are from that sobe?' ness of devotional feeling which pervades the whole of the New Testament, Read the accounts of saints who have lived since the beginning of the sixteenth century ; and, whether male or female, you will find a sentimentality of devotion, a sus- picious kind of tenderness, which from time to time, has alarmed the truly sincere sons of Rome, * St. Peter of Alcantara is said to have appeared after death to St. Theresa, and exclaimed : feltx pcenitentia, guts tan(am mihi promeruii gloriam J Die 31 Octobris. 214 PBACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE under the grossest shape of devotional sensuality. There is, I am aware, a distinction between the raptures of St. Theresa, and the ecstatic reveries of the quietists ; but on reading her own account of her feelings, and hearing the description which the church of Rome gives of her visions, it is im- possible not to observe that both have some moral elements in common. The picture of St. Theresa fainting under the wound which an angel inflicts on her heart with a fiery spear, were it not for the nun's weeds worn by the principal figure, might easily be mistaken for a votive -fablet in- tended -fer some heathen temple: and her dying , ^ rather of love than disease" is more worthy of a novel of doubtful tendency, than of a collection of lives prepared by a Christian church, to exemplify the moral effects of the Gospel *. * " Tanto autem divini amoris incendio cor ejus con- flagravit, ut merito viderit angelum ignito jaculo sibi prae- cordia transverberantem ; et audierit Christum datS, dextera dicentem sibi : ' Deinceps ut vera sponsa meum zelabis ho- norem.' " — (I cannot venture any remarks on the apposition of these emblems.) " Intolerabili igitur divini amoris incendio potius, quam vi morbi . . . sub columbae specie purissinium animum Deo reddidit." Ubi supra. — I must observe, with- out however insinuating any thing more than the dangerous AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 215 Does the Breviary produce effects analogous to the character of its contents, and commensurate to the extent of the use of it by the Roman Ca- tholics? Does it everyTvhere degrade faith into credulity, and devotion into sentimentality ? That it does so among Roman Catholics, in Italy, in Spain, in Portugal, and in all other countries where the religion of Rome predominates, is a matter of general notoriety. It would afford an additional praise of the reformed religion, if it could be proved that the Roman Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland, had been preserved from the injurious effects which the true book of their church has so widely produced among their foreign brethren. It is possible that the class of Roman Catholics to whom I have addressed my- self in these letters, and who alone are likely to read them, have never since their childhood exa- nature of this kind of devotion, that in male saints it generally has the Virgin for its object. The life of St. Bernard con- tains descriptions of visions, which vcould be unfit for the eye of the public in any other book. Hagiography, however, gives great liberty both to writers and painters. The picture of the vision I allude to, I have seen in a convent of Cistercian Nuns. The Breviary, however, omits the story which forms its subject. 216 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE mined the devotional books published in England for the use of, the sincerely pious among them. If they should be well acquainted with such books, they will not require any further proof of the per- fect agreement between the minds and feelings of such persons, and those which I have instanced from the Breviary. Such as may have forgotten the character of their devotional books would do well to reperuse them. I will, however, in the mean time, give one or two speciihens, from the TWELFTH London edition, of the Devotion AND Office of the Sacued Heart of Jesus *. I have so much exceeded the length which I proposed to give this letter, that I wiU not detain my readers much longer upon this subject. The ostensible Roman Catholics of England, I mean such as appear in the character of specimens of their religious communion, are so dexterous in the use of theological distinctions, so practised in the pious work of throwing a cloak over the nakedness of their spiritual parent, that the Protestant public * Extracts from this book will be found in an Appendix after the Notes to these Letters, AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 217 will hardly expect to find the following rule of belief, upon matters not strictly of dogmatic faith, prevalent among the pioUs and sincere Roman Catholics of these realms. The rule applies to the subject of revelations and miracles, such as the Roman Church records in her Breviary, " The public is in possession of many writings of holy women, who have yielded to advice and obeyed their spiritual directors. They contain an account of many revelations, celestial visions, and other extraordinary graces, which they have re- ceived from God. Now I reason thus: either these writings were penned by the saints, or they were not. If they were, either they designedly published a falsehood, or were themselves deluded, and have given us idle dreams. Will you sup- pose that they were not the real authors of these works ? You shock every idea of reason and com- mon sense. The man who will venture to deny that St. Theresa wrote her life, may doubt of her existence. But you will say she was deluded, and her imagination deluded all she wrote. The delusion must be the work of the evil spirit, which no Catholic can believe to have had any 218 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE power over the chaste spouse of Jesus Christ, canonized by the church. If imagination pre- vailed, it is true she was not a hypocrite, but a fool. I shudder at the thought of so impious, so groundless an imputation. Who can believe that these saints lived in a perpetual aberration of mind ? I say perpetual, for we are not here treating of transient acts, which lasted a few hours or days, or even during certain periods of life, but the duration of which is measured by the whole ex- tent of their existence *." I know this argument to be unanswerable upon the principles of a sin- cere Boman Catholic ; and cannot but feel pained to see that it must have weight with millions of Britons. Such is the genuine work of Rome among the most thinking people of Europe ! Strange that a set of Italian priests should have it in their power thus to emasculate understand- ings, which claim kindred with Locke, Napier, and Berkeley ! Nor is their power less effectual in rendering Christian devotion in these kingdoms as childish, * Page 70. AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 219 disgusting, and contemptible as it appears in the "worst pages of the Breviary. I have at this mo- ment before me an Angelical Exercise, which the same English Manual of Devotion recommends in the following terms : " Whosoever is devoted to this exercise in honour of the blessed Virgin Mary, in reading over every point, may meditate upon it for the space of one Hail Mary, or more, and by God's grace, he will in a short time find himself greatly increase in love towards that blessed queen of Heaven ; and at the hour of death will, by so pious a mother, be received as her dearest child. Nor can such a one, according to St. An- selm and St. Bernard, possibly perish, but shall find life everlasting, and taste of the joys of eternal bliss *." Under these assurances the devout Roman Car tholic is urged to peruse a series of questions, as from the Virgin Mary, and give his own answers, in the words which the book suggests. I select the Exercise for Monday as a specimen, not bei * Page 275. 220 PBACTICAL AND INTEKNAL EVIDENCE cause its tone of devotion is more puerile than the rest, but as containing a fresh and striking proof of the indefatigable industry of Roman Catholic priests, in entrapping young people to take the dangerous vow of perpetual celibacy. " I am the Queen of Virgins, Begina Virginum, says the glorious Mother of God. Will you, my dear child, remain a virgin all your life, and live, as it were, an angel in flesh, as did my dearly be- loved son Aloysius Gonzaga, St. Agnes, St. Cathe- rine, and a thousand others, my devoted children, who have rather chosen to lose their lives than their virginity ? I will love you as I have loved them, and cherish you as I cherish the angels, and, if it be possible, more than the angels themselves ; and moreover, my child, I will obtain your name shall be written in the book of the blessed ; and assure you, with a heart truly maternal, that at your death you wiU wish you had been the most chaste and holy in the world. Think well upon it, and resolve the best. Hail Mary !" " Yes, my most dear Mother ! I desire to be pure all my life, as well in body as soul : I AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 221 do, I say, most humbly desire it, and ttiost ear- nestly beseech you, dear Lady, to obtain for me that which you so much recommend to me. I do here, prostrate, reverence you, O sacred Virgin Mary, Mother of the Word incarnate ! and to- gether with the holy thrones and all celestial spirits, ever bless and praise you infinitely, the Morning Star, Stella Matutina ; for that you, the most beautiful of all creatures, were the first that did vow perpetual chastity, preparing the way to so many virginal souls which have already fol- lowed, and shall hereafter follow you in so high, so glorious, and so divine an enterprise. — Hail Mary !" In the name of the Father of Spirits, " whose eyes are upon the truth," I entreat such as love the Author of our common faith, more than the name of a religious party, not to efface the impression of shame which these passages must produce, by the usual method of recrimination. I protest before Heaven, that neither through these quotations, nor by any expression which in the course of this work may have flowed from my 222 PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE feelings, it has been my purpose to hurt yours. Remember, that whatever absurdities you might glean from Protestant writers, cannot affect a church whose authorised articles of faith and form of prayer, have nothing in common with such aberrations from common sense and the Gospel. Observe, on the other hand, how naturally the credulity and dangerous sentimentality with which your pious books abound, flow from the system of Rome, exhibited in her prayer-book, as well as in her whole conduct in regard to miracles and devo- tional practices. Remark the activity and watch- fulness with which she has at all times persecuted all kinds of books, wherein the least insinuation was thrown out, not against her articles of faith, but even the least part of this her deluding system. Compare it with the supine indifference which she exhibits in giving free course to thousands of books which, at this very day, propagate every thing that can degrade the understanding and enfeeble the mind, under the name of piety. When you have candidly and honestly weighed all this, de- cide with yourselves, if it be not the part of every AGAINST CATHOLICISM. 223 ingenuous and liberal Catholic of these kingdoms, to strike out the Roman from his religious deno- mination, and place in its stead the noble epithet of Christian? Preserve, with God's blessing, so much of your tenets as may appear to you con- sistent with his word ; but disown a church which, by her miracles, libels the Gospel history with imposture ; and whose mawkish piety disfigures the sublime Christian worship into drivelling im- becility. NOTES. A.— Page 10. " TVherever the religion of Rome reigns absolute, there is but one step between it and complete infidelity^' A DIVINE of great eminence has observed to me, that this important position demands proof and elucidation.— I am most willing to defer to his judgment; though nothing is so difficult as reducing to theory the daily experience of life. I have stated as a general fact what I have seen invariably happen, in my native country ; what all inhabitants of Roman Catholic countries, in every part of the world, with whom I have become acquainted in the course of my life, have confirmed to me, both as witnesses and as instances. I . hope I can give good reasons, and probable explanations of this moral phenomenon ; but, to a mind deeply impressed by the experience of the fact, they must all appear tame and lifeless. As I cannot, however, communicate the impres- sions themselves,, I request, that in case my theory should appear unsatisfactory, it may not be allowed to weaken ray testimony. The tendency of Roman Catholic Christianity to produce complete and sudden infidelity arises, in the first place, from .its ejeclusivenets. A Romanist is, from infancy, taught, as an article of faith, that Popery and Christianity are iden- Q. 226 NOTES. tical. He must therefore be prepared to reject the Gospel revelation, the moment he shall find cause to reject Popery. A Roman Catholic is also taught to believe in the infalli- bility of the church as an essential part of Christianity. He must therefore reject Christianity, upon being convinced of the existence of a single error in his church's creed. But, it will be asked, why do not Roman Catholics, in countries where Romanism reigns supreme, doubt and examine thos'e two articles, before they reject the whole system of Christianity ? — I answer, because those two arti- cles are impressed upon their minds above all others. I believe whatever the Holy Roman €hurch believes, is made to be the compendious creed of the Romanist. This implicit acquiescence, this faith by proxy, dispenses from all thought, all reading, all attention. The very common aversion of the understanding to abstract subjects, is cherished by this short-creed J a'load of care and trouble is thus thrown off the mind, and all apprehensions from the want of faith, vanish at the comfortable recollection, that the church is bielieving mightily for her children. The mass of Romanists are, on this point, like the good Tartar tribes, who employ praying-machines ; a kind of little windmills which whirl their written prayers in the face of heaven. The churdh is a Faith-engine for the Roman Catholic. Now, suppose a young Tartar, in the practice of setting up daily his praying- machine, grows intimately acquainted with an European traveller, who indulges his wit at the expense of the devout contrivance : — Can you expect that, when the force of ridi- cule or reason shall induce him to destroy his whirl, he will sit down to inquire into the necessity of prayer, and the right mode of performing it? No more will the yonng Spaniard (I say Spaniard, because I know them best), when Voltaire has made him heartily laugh at popes, saints, monks, and miracles, undertake a long and laborious study, to di- stinguish Christisunity from Popery. NOTES. 2217 The more I reflect upon the popular customs and feelings of Spain, the more clearly I perceive the bitter roots of unbelief which Rome has twined, as it were, round the very heart of the country, in the bonds with which she has se^ cured it to herself. The Inquisition has indissolubly con- nected, in the popular mind, the ideas of absurdity, con- fusion, immorality, and disgrace, wit^ that of heresy. The language preserves proverbial expressions, denoting a com- plete misrule, in the names of Geneva and Leghorn * ; the first, as the best known school and shelter of the unfor- tunate Spanish Calvinists of the seventeenth century ; the second, from the scandal of its commercial toleration of different sects. The historical origin of these proverbs is now lost to the multitude; but the spirit which produced them remains. I well remember the difficulty I often ex- perienced in the attempt to persuade Spaniards, not of the lowest description, that, in Protestant countries, the practice of all vice and debauchery was not open and free. To my assertions they objected the common expression, " AlU cada qual vive en su ley" (Every man lives there according to his own law) ; conveying the notion most industriously spread at all times by the agents of Rome, that a heretic does not deserve the name of Christian. With these rooted preju- dices, and under the regular and established ignorance of the Bible, which the Romanist system encourages, how is it possible tliat the doubts of the bolder minds should be pro- perly and exclusively directed to the false foundation on which Rome has fixed the Gospel ? The last thing which discipline gives to the intellect, is the power and habit of discrimination ; will that discrimination be expected in the Romanist school of religion, where men are most anxiously accustomed to see Christianity as a whole, a system which cannot exist but * Esto es una Ginebra : esio es fma Uorna, are, at this day, very com- mon expressions to denote confusion. «2 228 NOTES, by a miraculous kind of attraction, of which the Pope, with the church, is the centre? It is said that Henry IV. of France excused his change to the Romanist persuasion by the childish argument, that since both Protestants and Ca- tholics agreed that salvation might be obtained in the church of Rome, whilst that church denied the benefits of redemption to Protestants j it was most prudent to embrace a faith the sufficiency of which was denied by no party *. The thorough-bred Romanist abroad, who finds an insuper- able objection to any one article of the Papal creed, and is, consequently, forced to disbelieve the infaiK' ility of his church, carries the calculating argument of the French king still farther. If (says he) the best of these two chances of salvation is grounded on clear error ; . if the infallibility on which Ireposed, is a fiction, why should I trouble myself at all about religion ? I will not, however, fatigue the reader with speculations upon a matter of experience. I repeat, that, according to my own observation, the transition from Romanism to in- fidelity is sudden and violent. It is certainly so in Spain : if Roman Catholics, in countries where other forms of Chris- tianity exist, are more disposed to pause and examine before they reject Christianity; they owe it to the political circum- stances which check the'e£fect of the Romanist principles in their minds. Rome, certainly, by her intolerant and exclusive spirit,' by identifying herself with Christ, does every thing in her' power to exclude from the minds of her members the idea of any spiritual advantage, except in a complete surrender of the understanding to her. According to her decisions, there is no salvation for,, such as would believe all her doctrines, but not upon her own authority. ■What is this but teaching men, that if they leSXie the Pope, * Jeremy Taylor has exposed with admirable strength of reasoning the absurdity of this calculation of chances, in the 2nd Part of his Distuarivt from Popery. NOTES. 229 it Is a matter of iadifferencCj in regard, at least, to the next, world, whether they become Protestants or Atheists ? B — Page32. TsoTjGH it is impossible that. Mr, jS^ai^they can omit to take notice of the strange charge Jivhich his afltag.9nist makes against him, respecting a pass^g§, qfjjP^iilfis Emilius Vero- nensis, Mr. Butler's hallucination is so i^xtraordin^ry on this point, that I must expose it as a general- c.^tion to my readers. ' j .. The passage relates to some deputies of the city of- Par, lermo, who came to implore the Pope's ftiercy in behali' of their fellow-citizens. I will copy both the Latin words and the translation of them from Mr. B.'s Book of the R. C. Church, pp. 131 and 132, first edition. " Cum apud Pontificem de hac consternatione ageretur, a Panormitanis missos ad eum oratores, viros sanctos, qui ad pedes illius strati, velut pro ar| hostiaque, Christum ag- NUM Dei Salutantes lUa etiam ex altaris mysteriis verba supplices. effarentur — ' Quitollis peccata mundi, miserere nostri : — Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nostri : — Qui tollis, peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.' Pontificem re- spondisse, Panormitanos agere quod fecissent, qui, cum Christum pulsarent, eundem regem Judseorum salutabant, re hostes, fa.ndo ^alvere jubentes." Mr. Butler thus translates the passage : — " The city of Palermo having grievously ofiFended the Pope sent some holy men to him as ambassadors, who prostrated themselves at his feet, and saluted Christ ■jTHE Lamb of God, as before an altar and the blessed sa- crament, and suppliantly pronounced the mystic words of 230 NOTES. the altar, « Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us ! Who takest away the sins of the world, give us peace !" The Pope replied by telling them, that they acted like those who, after they had struck Christ, saluted him King of the Jews; that in reality they were his enemies, although in these words they wished him health." This translation makes the transaction quite unintelligible. The ambassadors saluted Christ, and yet the Pope, taking the salutation to himself, accuses them of being his enemies in reality, though in the words they had used they wished him health. The fact is, that a school-boy that can construe the Selecta e Profanis would be able to clear the difficulty at once. Had Mr. Butler taken notice of the vblitt, which qualifies the whole of the next sentence, and the etiam, which applies to the words taken from the Mass, he would have perceived his mistake. But he drew the attention of the readers to tire Christum agmtm Dei salutantes by means of a larger type, for fear of their stumbling on those two little words. Let, now, the public judge Sf the natural translation of the words be not as follows: — "Who being prostrate at his feet, as if they were saluting Christ the Lamb of God before the ara and the host, used sven those words from the mysteries of the altar, (i. e. the Mass), Agnus Dei," &c. This translation ought to have been evident to a Roman Catholic, well acquainted with the ceremony to which the writer alludes. The prieS't, Mr. B. well knows, bending upon the ara, or consecrated slab of marble which lies in the centre of the altar, and looking on the consecrated host, smites his breast three times, using these very words, Agnus Dei, &c., and concluding with dona nobis pacem. Nothing, therefore, can be clearer, than that when the ambassadors used these words at the Pope's feet, they wished to address them to the Pope himself, of whom they came to ask peace' NOfES. 231 Mr. 3- asserts th>at the Pope resiled firam the address. Why? If the words were directed to Cforistj what fault could he find ini thena? He resiled, because he believed the ambassadors to be insincere in their professions to^- wards him. The whole mistake is so unaccountable, and the writer, by copying the original words, has made it so palpable, that It seemS' to stand in the book of the 11. 0. Church to> warn, the readers of the strong bias under whick the author labows. Since writing the preceding n.o,tej it has cost me no snjaU trouble to find the passage qupted by Mr, Butler. If thsit gentleman took it from the^ origipia],. he should have m,en- tioned the edition. In that of Baisle, 1601, the words in question are found at page 233 : Mr. B, refers to page 328. 1 might have spared myself the trouble, gf along^ind tedws. seajTch, biit for a strpng §uspicip,ft;> grounded upon several instances of Mr, Bijtler's iaa)CQuraey pf quot^tipn, that iij his tif^pscript, of Paulus .^^miliiis's wprds there w^s an acf- ditio.nal comma, jus.t in. the place vhere it may thrpvsr some ambiguity pn the sense., Apd 5" "^ I*^^^ fpuud it>- The original has qui ad pedes illiug strati,, vehit pro ara ho.stiaqm Christum a^mm Dei salutantes ; evidently cpnnecting the whole sen- tence with the partjc.le of comparison velut, Mr. Butler, however, places a comma after hgstiaqiie. It fortunately happens, however, that the rest of the passage betrays the original reading. I must add pne word more to obviate a pos- sible iSubterfuge qf casuistvy. Will it be possible that the figure pf ^ semicolon used in old editions to denote the abbreviation of the qjue, in hostiaq; be pleaded in favour of Mr< BvitleJf's pwiRt'Jf'ti.cm i If &t(ch a defence should be 332 NOTES. attempted, the reader must know, that, in the very same page, of the original work, a comma is placed after the mark of abbreviation, whenever the sense requires it. Thus, in the eighth line from the bottom, it is written, per nefariam fraudem, furtumq;, sed id atrocissiraum, &c. &c. Soon after the publication of this work, my very kind friend, Mr. Southey, referred me to a passage in the history <)f the Council of Trent, by Sarpi, which puts the industrious error of Mr. Butler beyond all possibility of defence, and quite out of the reach of the most inveterate special pleading. On the twenty-ninth of March, 1546, a Congregation was held to prepare the decrees concerning the use of the Scripture : it was debated whether passages from the inspired books might be applied to profane subjects, as it was then a very general custom. That the scriptures should be used with reverence could not admit a question j but it ^as observed that a decree prohibiting all accommodation of texts to worldly subjects would be too strict and morose ; for St. Antoninus in his history did not blame the Sicilian ambassadors, who, demanding pardon of Martin IV. in a public consistory, ex- posed their message in no other words but Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis, three times repeated : nor the Pope's answer, who repeated also three times : Ave Rex JudcBorum, ei dabant ei alapas *. I subjoin the original iii„ssage of St. Antoninus. — Ibi etiam {mchronicis) narratur quod facta magna strage Gallicorum per Siculos, Pjmormitani cum aliis Siculis antequam rex Aragonum venisset eis in adju- torium, miserunt oratores suos, viros religiosos, ad summum Pontificem pro petenda venia, timentes iras Karoli. Et eorum oratio fu'it hceci Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis, ter replicantes. Quibus in publico consistorio Papa re- * Sorpi Istoria del Condlio di Trento, lib. ii. p. 165. Oeneva, 16^9. NOTES. 233 spondit hcBC solum: Ave Rex Judceorum, dixerunt Judai Christo; et dabant ei alapas : ter et ipse hoc ipsum dicendo. Aliud re- sponsum non habentes, abierunt contristati valde. — Tertia pars Hystorialis venerabilis domini Antonini, tit. xx. capit. III. § iii. fol. Lxx. verso. — Lugduni^ 1586. C— Page 35. DEFIRITION or THE POPE'S AUTHORITY BY THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE, IN THE TWO LANGUAGES USED IN THE ACTS OF THAT COUNCIL *. Efj opi^onev T^v dyiav aiiOffroKmi^v jca&gJfav, xaj rov Pw- jjidhiav ap^ispsa, ei; ■matra.v trfli OMOvi/^svrjv to itpotslw Kocts^stv, avtov ts rov VmimCvkov xp^tspsa, SmSo^oy sivai •ton jotaxapiou IlsTpov 70V KOf u^aioo rwv atfotrroAtuv, itai aAijS^ roTforijgyjrijv rou XpidVou, Kai ifOKj-rjs rijj £K>i\rj(na.s KS(j>a?oj\i, xat ita,rruiv fuiv Xgi(r- •tixvuiv TtaTspa wai J* JairxaXov Citag^siv, xa,i ouiTif sv rj) jj,a,Ka,piu) Ilerfa; rou itOiikOiiVBiv , kcx,i Sii&vystv e^s public at Seville, and the subsequent 286 NOTES. judicial proceedings have given them such notoriety, that I do not feel bound to conceal names. Maria Francisco Barreiro, the unfortunate subject of this account, grew up, a lively and interesting girl, in the convent ; while a younger sister enjoyed the advantages of an education at home. The mother formed an early design of devoting her eldest daughter to religion, in order to give to her less at- tractive favourite a better chance of getting a husband. The distant and harsh manner with which she constantly treated Maria Francisca, attached the unhappy girl to her aunt by the ties of the most ardent affection. The time, however, arrived when it was necessary that she should either leave her, and endure the consequences of her mother's aversion at home, or tajce the vows, and thus close the gates of the con- vent upon herself for ever. She preferred the latter course ; and came out to pay the last visit to her friends. I met her, almost daily, at the house of one of her relations ; where her words and manner soon convinced me that she was a victim of her mother's designing and unfeeling disposition. The father was an excellent man, though timid and undecided. He feared his wife, and was in awe of the monks ; who, as usual, were ex- tremely anxious to increase the number of their female pri- -soners. Though I was aware of the danger which a man incurs in Spain, who tries to dissuade a young woman from being, a nun, humanity impelled me to speak seriously to the father, entreating him not to expose a beloved child to spend her life in hopeless regret for lost liberty. He was greatly moved by my reasons; but the impression I made was soon obliterated. The day for Maria Francisca's taking the veil was at length fixed; and though I had a most pressing invitation to be present at the ceremony, I deter- mined Bot to see the wretched victim at the altar. On the preceding day, I was called from my stall at the Royal Chapel, to the confessional. A lady, quite covered by her NOTES. 287 black veil, was kneeling at the grate through which females speak to the confessor. As soon as I took my seat, the well-known voice of Maria Francisca made me start with surprise. Bathed in tears, and scarcely able to speak with- out betraying her state to the people who knelt ©ear the confessional box, by the sobs which interrupted her words ; she told me she wished only to unburden her heart to me, before she shut up herself for life. Assistance, she assured me, she would not receive ; for rather than live with her mother, and endure the obloquy to which her swerving from her announced determination would expose her, she " would risk the salvation of her soul." All my remonstrances were in vain. I offered to obtain the protection of the archbishop, and thereby to extricate her from the diiRculties iii which she was involved. She declined my offer, and appeared as resolute as she was wretch'ed^ The next morning she took the veil; and professed at the end of the following year. Her good aunt died soon after; and the nuns, who had allured her into the convent by their caresses, when they perceived that she was not able to disguise her misery, and feared that the existence of a reluctant nun might by her means transpire, became her daily tormentors. After an absence of three years from Seville, I found that Maria Francisca had openly declared her aversion to a state, from which nothing but death could save her. She often changed her confessors, expecting comfort from their advice. At last she found a friend in one of the companions of ray youth ; a man whose benevolence surpasses even the bright genius -mih which nature has -gifted him: though neitlier has been able to exempt him from the evils to which Spam^ds seem to be fateji in proportion to their worth. He became her confessori and in that capacity spnke to her daily. But what could he do against the inflexible tyranny in whose grasp she languished ! 288 NOTES. About this time the approach of Napoleon's army threw the town into a general consternation, and the convents were opened to such of the nuns as wished to fly, Maria Fran- cisca, whose parents were absent, put herself under the pro- tection of a young prebendary of the Cathedral, and by his means reached Cadiz, where I saw her, on my way to England, I shall never forget the anguish with which, after a long conversation, wherein she disclosed to me the whole extent of her wretchedness, she exclaimed. There is no hope for me ! and fell into convulsions. The liberty of Spain from the French invaders was the signal for the fresh confinement of this helpless young . woman to her former prison. Here she attemp^ted to. put an end to her sufferings, byithrowing herself into a deep well ; but was taken out alive. Her mother was now dead, and her friends instituted a suit o{ nuBiti^ of profession, before the ecclesiastical court. But the laws of the Council of Trent were positive; and she was cast in the trial. Her de^spair, however, exhausted the little strength which; her protracted sufferings had left her, and the unhappy Maria Francisca died soon after, having scarcely reached her twenty-fifth year. O.— Page 131. CORRUPTION OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLEBCY AT THE PERIOD OP THE COUNCIL OP TRENT. The corrupt morals which prevailed among the Roman Catholic bishops and higher clergy, are attested by the legates who presided at the first sessions of the Council of Trent. NOTES. 289 " Hoc enim summatim dicimus de omni genere armorum si, qui ilia contra nos tractarunt, a suis ecclesiis pastores fugarunt, ordines confuderunt, laicos in episcoporum locum sufFecerunt, ecclesiae bona diripuerunt, cursum verbi Dei impediverunt : hie, inquam, dicimus, nihil horum esse, quod in libro abusuum pastorum, maxima illoi-um pars, qui hoc nomen sibi vendicant, per se factum esse, si legere libuerint, non scriptum apertis verbis inveniant. Nostrum enim ambi- tionem, nostram avaritiam, nostras cwpiditates, his omnibus malis populum Dei prius aiFecisse statim inveniet at^ue harum ri ab ecclesiis pastores fugari, easque pabulo verbi privari, bona ecclesiarum, quae sunt bona pauperum ab illis tolli, indignis sacerdotia conferri, et illis qui nihil a laicis praeterquam in vestis genere, ac ne in hoc quidem diiFerunt, dari. Quid enim horum est, quod negare possimus per hos annos a nobis factum esse," — Concione ad Concilium, pp. 736, 737. Collect Labbei et Gossartii. P.— Page 151. ON THE ACCOUNT OF THE MORAL STATE OP MONKS AND NUNS, IN THE DIOCESE OF PISTOIA AND PRATO, CON- TAINED IN THE LIFE OF BISHOP RICCI. Protestant writers, in this time and country, labour under a great disadvantage, when they touch upon the immoral tendency of those two monstrous evils of Romanism — forced celibacy, and auricular confession. The veil which Rome anxiously keeps over the abominations which frequently spring from both, decency compels us to leave unremoved. It happens, however, as a natural consequence of confession itself, that the best and most conscientious Romanists be- come familiarized with the most filthy images, both in the study of their casuists, and in the secret intercourse of their Sacrament of Penance. In countries where an essential part of the education of the clergy consists in the learning detailed 290 NOTES. classifications of every possible species of vice, and where young men preparing for the priesthood, are lectured and examined on books of a more dangerous tendency than those which are prosecuted for immorality in this country ; the rules and feelings of delicacy must be peculiarly mo- dified. Hence the perfect unconcern with which sometimes religious men give circulation to statements, which exceed in indecency every thing that ever appeared in the worst cases brought before the English courts of justice. Of this character are the examinations and evidence of several nuns, which Scipio de Ricci, bishop of Pistoia, in- serted in the Memoirs of his own life, from which Monsieur de Potter has, in part, written a work of the greatest interest to those who wish to ascertain the present state of the Ro- manist Church *. Ricci was one of the most exemplary and zealous members of the Jansenist party — that Roman Ca- tholic sect, which, for the space of more than two centuries, has been vainly trying to obtain the benefits of our Reform- ation, without rejecting the authority of the Pope and his Church. He was made Bishop of Pistoia and Prato, in 1780, by the Archduke Leopold, then reigning in Tuscany, who, being also a Jansenist, wished to employ Ricci in the work of ecclesiastical reform, which he meditated in his do- minions.. The zealous bishop, bound, by his allegiance to Rome, to respect the monastic institutions; was yet too well aware of the depravity which they are apt to produce. He knew that the Dominicans of Tuscany were ndtoriously pro- fligate, and had for a long time made an infamous use of their exclusive authority over the nuns of their order. In 1642 the commune of Pistoia had petitioried the Grand Duke, that the direction of the convents of St. Lucy and St. Ca- therine should be taken out of the hands of the Dominicans, " on account," they said, " of the great evils arising from * Vie de Scipion de Ricci, Eveque de Pistoia at Prato, par De Potter. Brussels, 1825. 3 vols. 8vo. NOTES. 291 it, whichj out of reverence and modesty, are passed over in silence ; for the greatest scandals and worst consequences would follow from the exposure.". In another petition by the Gonftdoniero, and two hundred noblemen, knights and citizens of Pistoia, it was demanded that the government should " apply a remedy to protect the honour of the nuns, who were of the first families of that town." The circum- stances which occasioned these applications were stated verbally to the Auditore of the Grand Duke, by a trusty messenger commissioned by the Gonfaloniero *. It appears, however, that the same state of things con- tinued in spite of thesb . efforts ; for, in 1775, six nuns of St. Catharine presented to the Grand Duke an accusation against the Dominicans, 'ijie spiritual directors of the con- vent, which is literally inserted among the documents ap- pended to the life of Ricci t. The accusation contains de- tails so shocking, that I refer to it vi'ith pain. It had, how- ever, the gopd effect of inaking Leopold issue an order, pro- hibiting the monks all communication with the mins, under pain of imprisonment. This separation produced the most scandalous resistance on' the part of the deluded females. They applied to the Cardinal Protector of the order, im- ploring his assistance to have their directors restored to them ; but the cardinal, knowing that his court was not able to cope with Leopold and his brother Joseph, who at that time was giving great alann to Ron»e in his Austrian do- minions, advised the nuns to stand firm to the privileges of their order, and be assured that the storm would blow over|. The cardinal's prediction would probably have been verified if Ricci had not been raised at that period to the see of Pistoia. The new bishop was a man who could not wink at the profligacy of any part of his flock for the sake of their privileges. » Vol. i. p. 337. t P- 339. $ P. 347. u2 292 NOTES. The accusations of a few uncorrjH)ted nuns were repeated. I will insert a passage which describes in general terms the character of the monks. It is copied from De Potter's French translation, which I prefer to the original Italian, as being in a language generally understood. The writer> Flavia Peruccini, Prioress of the convent of St. Catherine of Pistoia, in her report to the rector of the Episcopal Semi^ nary-j having given the names of the most profligate monks who frequented the nunnery, thus continues : " Mais a quoi bon en nommer davantage ? Excepte trois ou quatre religieux,parmi tant de moines, actuellement vivans ou deja morts, que j'ai connus, il n'en etoit pas un seul qui ne fut du meme calibre. Tons ils professent les memes maximes, et tiennent la meme conduite. lis vivent avec les religieuses plus familierement que ne vivent entre elles les personnfes raariees." The details which follow this general charge I will not transfer to my pages. Nor will I give even an abridged account of the horrible state to which the tyrannical laws of the Church of Rome brought the two nuns Spighi and Buo- namici. I only refer to their cases, in order to assure my readers, that though such- shocking instances are seldom allowed to transpire, they are not unfrequent. in the nun- nieries on the continent. The reason why they do not more frequently appear, may be learned from the conduct of the Pope and his court in the present instance. It is an un- deniable fact that the exertions of Bishop Ricci to put a stop to the abominable practices of" the Dominicans and their nuns, gave the greatest ofifence at Rome. Pius VI., in a brief addressed to Ricci, in consequence of the steps he had taken against the ofiFenders, calls him " an insincere fanatic, a liar, calumniator, seditious, and usurper of other men's rights*." The Pope could not forgive the exposure which the Bishop's zeal had produced, by declining the method, • Vol. i. p. 4;'2. NOTES. 293 usual in, such cases, of accusing' the guilty to the Inquisition; for that secret tribunal not only supports the Church of Rome by its terrors, but hides the profligacy arisiiig from her institutions, by the secresy of its trials. Four times had the nuns Spighi and Buonamici been absolved by means of a private recantation, in which the judges had taken care to insert an abjuration of tire principles of the reformed religion, though the culprits professed the boldest Spinozism, and the most unbounded debauchery. The profligacy of the monks was evident from these repeated confessions. One of the nuns of St. Catherine had, some time before the proceedings of Ricci, addressed a petition to the Pope, acquainting him with the dissoluteness which prevailed in the convent. An- other nun of Santo Sepolcro had given a similar account to the General of the Dominicans. Yet the Pope, in his in- sulting brief, lavishes the most unbounded praise on the members of that order ; and declares, on the word of the General, that no information had been received concerning the monasteries in question. I cannot, however, give a correct idea of the conduct and policy of pope, cardinals, and heads of religious orders, such as it appears from the documents extracted by De Potter. The documents them- selves must be consulted. Q Page 156. BEAIi INFLUENCE OF EOME AND THE MONKS UPON LEABNIN6. Opinion is no less subject than taste to the periodical turns and changes of fashion. The love of the romantic has lately raised every thing, belonging to the middle ages in the estimation of the reading public, and monks and mo- nasteries share the favour into which the period of their full prosperity has grown. We constantly hear of the services 294 NOTES. which the monks and their church, have rendered to religion and learning ; and men seem willing either to disbelieve or forget the deep wounds which their gross ignorance, and still grosser imtaorality, gaVe to both. These alternate turns of the public attention to the favourable and unfavourable side of historical subjects, de- prive us of the benefits of experience, as we might derive them from the records of former times. To judge of the utility of old institutions, we should be careful not to mis- take the accidental efiFects which they may have produced, for the predominant and decided tendency of their moral operation. There is no human establishment unmixed with evil : of this we are well aware ; but few men are fully impressed with the fact, that no pure arid unmixed evil can long exist, except by open violence. A¥faen, therefore, we see any law, custom, or establishment supported and che- rished for a length of time, we may be sure that its existence is connected with some real, though partial advantages. The philosopher, in such cases, should not confine his observation to the partial operation on either side, good or evil ; but examine, in the first place, whether the original rise of the institution took place at the expense of social prosperity ; and next, whether, upon the whole, it was cal- culated eventually to improve or degrade society. The epigram made upon the usurer who, having impove- rished a district, founded an extensive almshouse to keep the poor he had made, is, I believe, perfectly applicable to the monks and their peculiar church, in regard to the mental interests of mankind. They first barbarized the polished subjects of imperial Rome, and then fed them with the intellectual garbage of their schools. A number of circumstances made the Christians of the primitive ages extremly averse to profane literature. The first cause of this was their general want of education ; for it pleased God to change the moral face of the world by the NOTES. 295 instrumentality of the poor and ignorant, that the superna- tural work of his grace in the conversion of mankind might be evident. " Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called ; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the worjd to confound the wise, that no flesh should glory in his presence *," The abuse of the name of science was, in the second place, a source of strong dislike to knowledge among the early Christians. Abomina- ble practices of sortilege and imposture were common among those men who, under- the name of mathematicians, Chaldeans, and astrologers, were known all over the empire, in the first century of the Christian aera. The prevalence of these abuses may be conceived by the multitude of books on magic which were burnt at Ephesus; in consequence of the preaching of Paul f. But nothing appears to have so much prepared the dark- ness of the middle ages, as the prevalence of monkery in the Christian church. The extraordinary reverence paid to- the grossly ignorant multitudes who inhabited the Egyptian deserts t must naturally have tended to the discredit of study and mental acquirements. When the monastic institution was introduced into the West, and became widely spread under the patronage of the Popes, a spirit of opposition to every thing that can refine and enlighten the mind, became visible. As both literature and the arts had flourished among the heathen, zeal and piety conspired to reader them odious to the generality of Christians. If, as there is reason to suspect it, the Christians joined the barbarians in the destruction of the works of art, the charge falls especially • 1 Cor. i. 27, 29. ■)■ " Many of them also which used curious arts brought theu books together, and burned them before all men ; and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver." Acts xix. 19. i There were 76,000 monks in Egypt at the end of the 4th century. 296 NOTES. upon the monks, who appear to have courted and gained the favour of the invaders *. But nothing is more certain than that the neglect of an- cient literature, and the substitution of scholastic learning, was chiefly the work of him who, as it were in mockery of titles bestowed by men, is called the Great, among the Popes who bore the name of Gregory. That liis zeal in the pro- pagation of Christianity was extraordinary and sincere, it would be injustice to doubt ; but it is equally indubitable, that, to a mind grossly superstitious and ignorant, he joined a shocking indifference to moral character, in those who felt disposed to favour the Roman see, and her then maturing plans of supremacy. His flattery of the monster Phocas, is a disgrace both to Gregory and to his see, and shows the character of papal ambition in its true colours t. Gregory enjoyed a most extraordinary moral influence in his time, which he wholly directed to the object of effacing the few remaining traces of ancient literature, and intro- ducing monkish learning in its worst shape. " A report has reached our ears," he writes to a professor of grammar, "which I cannot mention without shame, that your' fra- ternity expounds grammar to some persons : this is so pain- ful to us, and it so vehemently raises our scorn, that it has * Dr. CJlarkei in his work on Greek Marbles, seems to understand two passages from Eunapius in this sense. I confess that, considering the cir. cumstances of the case, the fact is extremely probable to me; but tlie words of Eunapius may be understood, not of direct, but indirect co-opera-, tion with the irruption of the barbarians into Greece. Eunapius says, that " the impiety of those who wore black garments (the monks) had opened the passage of the Thermopylse to Alaric and his barbarians." This may be un- derstood in the same sense as it is said that the weakness of the Roman government invited the invasion of the northern tribes. The Latin transla- tion is too definite for the original, and does not render it strictly. Instead of the abstract word xtriffeix, it has iinpia gens. See Simapius De Vit. PMlos. m Maximo. t See the article under Gregory's name in Bayle's -Dictionary. See also Gibbon. NOTES. 297 changed all I have previously said into wailing and sorrow — the same mouth, indeed, cannot hold the praises of Jupiter and of Christ." Gregory made a public boast of his igno- rance, and inveighed with such vehemence against all polite literature, that the report of his having burnt the Palatine library, collected at Rome by the emperors, though doubted by modern critics, receives a strong confirmation from his character. " I scorn," he says, " that art of speaking which is conveyed by external teaching. The very tenor of this epistle shows that I do not avoid the clashing of metacism, nor the obscurity of barbarism : I despise all trouble about prepositions and cases, because I hold it most unworthy' to put the heavenly oracles under the restraint of a gram- marian *." With such a pattern of elegance and learning before them, the Christian world had no fair chance, at the beginning of the seventh century, to escape the intellectual darkness which was settling on Europe. Gregory's books on morals were generally substituted in the room of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. Pope Theodore 1 st gave out that he had recovered the lost copy of that work by a revelation of St. Peter and St. Paul, and thus enhanced its value to those who, from distant countries, sent for it to Rome, to make it the source and standard of their knowledge f. Abstracts and digests of it were industriously compiled for the use of students ; and Gregory became the founder, master, and leader of the bar- barous schools of the middle ages. The limits of a note oblige me to refer my readers to the interesting history of the rise of school philosophy, given by Brucker, Period. II. Pars II. cap. ii. de Philos. Christ. Occi- dent, torn. iii. * Non metacismi coHisionem effugio, non barbarismi confiisdonem devito : situs, motusque praepositionum casusque servaie contemno, quia fndignum vehementer existimo, ut verba caelcstis oraculi restringam sub legulis Donati. f Mariana daims the honour of the revelation for Tajon, Bishop of Sara- gossa. Hist, de Espana, 1. vi. c viii. 298 NOTES. On the moral character of the monks, Fleury, a Roman Catholic, gives considerable information in his eighth dis- course, prefixed to Vol. XX. of his Histoire Ecelesiastique. R.— Page j7i. PROCLAMATION OP THE JUBILEE FOB THE TEAR OP 1825. The Bull by which the present Pope has proclaimed the jubilee is so curious a document, that posterity will hardly believe it was really published in the last year of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. I wish to increase its circulation as much as it may be in my power j for I am per- suaded no arguments are so powerful against Rome as the authentic documents in which she breathes out her genuine spirit. I beg the attention of the reader to the catalogue of curious relics, by which the Pope tries to draw pilgrims to his capital; and to that part of the Bull where he addresses all Protestants, inviting them "to have one consentient mind with this (the Roman) Church, the mother and mistress of all others, out oJ' as the wickedness of the inipious is still creeping like a cancerj He may accomplish, in his clemeticy towards us, that work which he himself has begun. This,, truly, we had chiefly in view, when we deliberated on the celebration of the Jubilee ; well persuaded of the importance of such a sacrifice of pi'aise to the Lord, in this common consent of all Christian people, for obtaining those heavenly gifts, all the treasures of which we now throw opien. Let, therefore, the Catholic prince's labour for this purpose ; and as they are endowed with great jnd generous minds, let them pro- tect this most sacred work' with earnest zeal and perpetual care. Assuredly they will learn, by experience, that by this means particularly they will secure to. themselves the mer- cies of God ; and that they certainly add to the support of their own government by whatever they do for the protec- tion of religion and the encouragement of piety ; so that, having destroyed every seed of vice, a delightful crop of virtues may succeed. But in order that all may prosper to our wishes, we entreat your prayers with God, dear children, who are of x2 308 NOTES. the fold of Christ ; for we confide in your common vows and supplications, which you put forth to the divine raercj', for the welfare of the Catholic religion, and for the return of those that err to the truth, and for the happiness of princes ; and that you will hereby powerfully assist our infirmity in supporting our most w^eighty functions. And that these presents may more easily come to the knowledge of all the faithful in every place, we will, that precisely the same credit be paid even to printed copies, signed nevertheless by the hand of some public notary, and certified by the seal of a person invested with ecclesiastical dignity, as would be paid to these present, if they should be produced or shown. Be it, therefore, utterly unlawful for any man to infringe, or by any rash attempt to gainsay, this page of our ordi- nance, promulgation, grant, exhortation, demand, and will. But if any one shall presume to attempt it, let him know, that he shall incur the indignation of Almighty God, and of his blessed apostles Peter and Paul. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of our Lord's Incarnation, 1824., on the 24th May, in the first year of our Pontificate. A. G. Cardinal, Pro-Datary. J. Cardinal Albani. t " 'f R APPENDIX I. ON THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. " The Church at Trent invited the heretics of the XVIth century (those who broached or renewed the errors which are now revived) to plead their own cause before the Coun- cil : these blind and obstinate men refused to do so ; but their cause was examined fully and dispassionately, sen- tence at length was passed, and the matter set at rest for ever. Causajinita est." So says Dr. Doyle * in an address to his clergy, whose members he forbids to hold public conferences with the Protestants on the free circulation of the Bible, and the leading points of controversy connected with the authority of the written word of God. Broad and positive assertions of this kind, seasoned with the epithets of blind and obstinate men, and heretics, and swelled by the mysterious phrase of the Church at Trent, are in perfect harmony with the system they support. The delusion so long and so successfully practised by that 'combination of Italian priests, who, for ages past, have turned the superstition and credulity of Europe into a source of wealth and power to themselves, * These words are copied from his Address, as it. appeared in the New Times, of the eth September, 18'^5. 310 APPENDIX. consists chiefly in the invention and artful circulation of a set of words of high sound, conveying to the common mind no other distinct idea but thsfc