POPERY 
 
 AND 
 
 M8ITISI: 
 
 BEING TWO DISCOURSES 
 
 Prepared agreeable to a Resolution of the Synod of Pitta- 
 burgh of 1843 ; and preached before- that Body, at 
 Pittsburgh, September, 1844. 
 
 BY THE 
 RET. DOCTORS GREEN AND MAOIIili. 
 
 PITTSBURGH: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF SYNOD. 
 
 LUKE LOOM1S, Agent: 
 
 1844. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by 
 
 Luke Loomis, Agent, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United 
 
 States in and for the Western District of Pennsylvania 
 
THE 
 
 RIGHT OF 
 
 PRIVATE JUDGMENT: 
 
 OR, 
 
 FREEDOM OF INDIVIDUAL 
 
 OPINION AND BELIEF. 
 
 A SERMON, 
 
 Preached in the Firsb Presbyterian Church, Pittshurgh, 
 on the Evening of Friday, 20th Sept. 1844: 
 
 BY L. W. GREEN, 
 
 PROFESSOR WESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 
 
 " I speak as unto wise men ; judge ye what I say." 
 1st Corinthians 10, 15. 
 
THE RIGHT OF 
 
 PRIVATE JUDGMENT, 
 
 In every great conflict for the mastery of the 
 "world, which has deeply stirred the minds of men, 
 and widely influenced the destiny of the race, the 
 real combatants have been antagonist principles; 
 and the mightiest leaders, in the great struggles of 
 their age, have gathered the masses around them, 
 and wielded them at pleasure — only as the repre- 
 sentatives, or rather the living embodiments, of the 
 principles they loved. In that general movement of 
 the human mind, which signalized the sixteenth 
 century — which revolutionized the whole intellec- 
 tual, moral and social condition of mankind, and 
 gave that new impulse to the progress of the race; 
 of which our own civil and religious institutions 
 are at once the noblest product and happiest exem- 
 plification — the opposing principles of the contend- 
 ing parties were boldly and broadly emblazoned on 
 the hostile banners. On the one side, stood forth 
 luminously there, in bright and glorious transpa- 
 rency — radiant with the mingled light of earth and 
 heaven, and shedding its benignant influence on all 
 human interests — that fundamental principle — the 
 basis of all pure morality and all true religion — of 
 a2 
 
THE RIGHT OF 
 
 all personal independence, and all national free, 
 dom — "The Right of Private Judgment" — Free- 
 dom of Individual Belief — an open Bible — a Free 
 Press — unfettered Liberty of Thought, of Inquiiy, 
 of Discussion — for every human being, of every 
 sect and party — for the Layman as well as for the 
 Priest; while on the other, was engraven in gloomy 
 capitals upon a dark back-ground — faintly ilium-, 
 ined by the fires of the Inquisition — this porten- 
 tous dogma — the favorite principle of all Despots 
 both in Church and State — "The Supreme Author- 
 ity of the Church"— "Implicit Faith— Absolute 
 Submission" — "that most pestilential error, Lib- 
 erty of Conscience" — "that pest, of all others most 
 to be dreaded, unbridled Liberty of Opinion" — 
 "that worst and never sufficiently to be execrated 
 and detested Liberty of the Press,"* and "we for- 
 bid that any Layman shall ever be permitted in 
 public or in private, to discuss the Catholic Faith; 
 and whoever shall disregard this prohibition, let 
 him be hung up in the halter of excommunica- 
 tion" — "Laqueo Excommunicationis Innodetur"\ 
 The simple annunciation of these opposing prin- 
 ciples sufficiently indicates their origin, and bears 
 along with it their own appropriate and ample com- 
 mentary. The one, you perceive at once, is the 
 language of Power: the other is the Claim of Right. 
 The one is the Voice of the Priesthood — the other, 
 the Remonstrance of the People. The one is the 
 Echo of the Past, as it issues from those dark ages 
 
 * Literal Extracts from the Pope's Bull of 1832. 
 | Quoted by Pens and Bishop Hughes from Pope Alex- 
 ander IV. 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 7 
 
 of Priestly Domination, Sottish Ignorance and 
 Ghostly Superstition. The other is the Living 
 Voice of the awakening intelligence of Europe, as 
 the night of centuries rolls away, and the morning 
 of a new, and higher, and holier civilization beams 
 upon their eyes. One is thundered from the VatU 
 can; is muttered from the dungeons of the Inqui- 
 sition; is enforced at the point of the Imperial Bay. 
 onet. The other is the loud shout of emancipated 
 millions, as their fetters drop away — as they look 
 around on this fair earth, and above, at this broad 
 sky — and with mysterious wonder and delight, on 
 the unsealed volume of Revelation — and in the 
 consciousness of new-born vigor and newly-dis- 
 covered rights — exclaim, all together, "Oh! no! 
 It cannot be! We too are men; and God never 
 made these free souls of ours to be the bondslaves 
 of the Priesthood ; the blind recipients of their 
 dogmas, or the abject registers of their decrees!" 
 It is the mighty outburst of those electric thoughts 
 which had been gathering long, and blackening 
 silently in the minds of men, and only waited for 
 a fit conductor, to discharge their accumulated 
 thunders on the high places of Idolatry and Sin, 
 and startle those self-constituted Lords of the faith 
 and the consciences of men, from their long and 
 guilty dream of Universal Dominion. Here, then, 
 is the great question for the country and for the 
 age, the question of questions, for ourselves and our 
 children, which, for the next fifty years, shall 
 arouse the energies of the mightiest minds; in the 
 light or the gloom of which, all inferior questions 
 shall be swallowed up; before whose overwhelming 
 
ti THB RIGHT OF 
 
 energy and absorbing interest, all minor interests 
 shall be forgotten, and all the barriers of Sect and 
 Party disappear; the only|question,jindeed, in which 
 we all alike are interested: "Whether man — ra- 
 tional, immortal* accountable man, created in God's 
 image and redeemed by the blood s of His Son — 
 does possess the right, and the duty too, to read, 
 think, inquire, reason, judge, decide — freely and 
 independently for himself — in all that concerns his 
 present welfare and eternal destiny; or whether 
 he has been, indeed, consigned, in God's myste- 
 rious wisdom, to Lords, spiritual and temporal, by 
 right of immemorial succession and legitimate 
 consecration, for ihe guardianship of his temporal 
 and eternal interests?" 
 
 You perceive, then, that there is a great gulf 
 between us — immeasurable — unfathomable — that 
 the difference between these fundamental princi- 
 ples, thus arrayed in direct and undisguised antag- 
 onism, extends beyond any mere difference of in- 
 dividual doctrines or even of a whole class of doc- 
 trines, and reaches the very foundations of human 
 opinion — the very basis of human, belief itself. 
 On the one side, it is "Absolute Authority;" on 
 the other, "Rational Conviction." It goes far be- 
 yond the interpretation of any one passage, or any 
 class of passages in God's word, and touches the 
 very right to read and interpret that word at all. 
 Nay, in the wide sweep of the broad and universal 
 propositions, which they severally affirm, it over- 
 leaps the mere boundaries of theological discus- 
 sion; stretches over the whole wide domain of hu- 
 man thought; cuts through and through the whole 
 
PRIVATE JUDG3IENT. V 
 
 of human interests and human destiny; reaches the 
 very springs of moral agency and the foundation 
 of human rights; and involves all that is dearest to 
 the citizen and the freeman as well as to the Chris- 
 tian. It is to this wider aspect of the general 
 subject that we propose to direct our inquiries this 
 evening. 
 
 And here, on the very threshhold of our argu- 
 ment, we are met by the same strange and almost 
 ludicrous phenomenon, which reappears again and 
 again in the history of human folly; where some 
 stupendous absurdity is found to be, not only false, 
 but suicidal; and denies itself in the very terms of 
 its enunciation. Thus: the universal sceptic, who 
 denies the reality of all truth, denies, at the same 
 time, the truth of his own proposition; which, if 
 true, is manifestly false, and only by being a false- 
 hood, could possibly be true. The man who de- 
 nies the reality of his own existence, denies, at the 
 same time, the reality of the proposition which he 
 utters. So that the very words of the assertion 
 necessarily involve the denial of the thing asserted. 
 Very similar is the condition of one who denies the 
 right of private Judgment; the free exercise of 
 man's rational and immortal powers, in their larg- 
 est meaning and widest scope; and then attempts, 
 by reasoning, to sustain the denial. For the very 
 attempt to defend his proposition is a deliberate 
 abandonment of the whole; an exercise of the very 
 right he has just denied; an appeal to the Private 
 Judgment he had rejected ; a recognition of the 
 tribunal he had denounced. He is forced to as- 
 sert what he denies, and deny what he asserts; and 
 
10 THE EIGHT OF 
 
 the larger the range of his inquiries, the vaster tha> 
 accumulation of Ins knowledge, the more luminous 
 the track of his mind, as he urges onward with 
 gigantic energy this stupendous paradox, the more 
 conclusive the refutation of himself. Magnificent 
 reasoning, indeed, againsl the right of reasoning ! 
 Forcible appeals to our private judgment, to prove 
 that no such appeal should be ever made; or if 
 made, ever for a moment entertained ! Plausible 
 •quotations, forsooth, from the Bible, which he had 
 read, (else he quotes it as a parrot, without pro- 
 fessing to ascertain its meaning,) to prove that you 
 and I should never read it! Quotations from the 
 Bible, to prove that it is not the rule of a Chris- 
 tian's faith, and therefore ought not to be quoted 
 at all, as conclusive testimony in any argument. 
 Powerful appeals to our own understanding and 
 interpretation of the Bible, which he quotes, 
 for the purpose of proving, that we have neither 
 the power nor the right to understand or interpret 
 the Bible for ourselves at all. It is as if some in- 
 genious madman, endeavoring to persuade us that 
 we have no power of vision, should hold a lighted 
 flambeau near our eyes, and failing in his effort, 
 should kindle a mighty conflagration, or prepare a 
 brilliant display of fire-works, and delighted with 
 the glare and splendor of the exhibition, should 
 exclaim, in his maniac folly, "Surely now, at least, 
 you are convinced — you must all see that you can- 
 not see/" while to us, each vivid flash of light, and 
 each mounting volume of flame, only called into 
 more active exercise, and awakened to keener con- 
 sciousness, the very faculty whose existence he 
 
 I 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 11 
 
 denies while proving it ; and whose exercise he at 
 the same moment both invites and forbids — stimu- 
 lates and denounces. Whatever else may be doubt- 
 ful, this at least is manifest. My very appearance 
 amongst you ; this evening, for the discussion of an 
 important subject, acknowledges thus much: that 
 you have the power to hear, and the right to exer- 
 cise that power. But does it not equally acknow- 
 ledge, that you have the power to investigate, and 
 the right to judge? Surely it were the very mock- 
 ery of reason, to say you have the right to hear, 
 but not to understand; to investigate, but not to 
 decide. Thus every step upon the field of reason- 
 ing abandons the ground of authority. Else rea- 
 son were no more reason, and authority were no 
 more authority. 
 
 This inextricable dilemma, in which they are 
 thus involved— this indissoluble connection be- 
 tween the right to reason and the right to judge — 
 the right to investigate, and the right to decide — 
 the right to read, and to interpret what we read, 
 has been distinctly recognized by the advocates of 
 Absolute Authority. And hence, Free Discussion 
 is not only discountenanced abroad, but even in this 
 free land of ours, is visited with all the terrors of 
 excommunication here; and all the horrors of eter- 
 nal fire hereafter. In the year 1832, a petty Italian 
 Despot, who unites in his own person all temporal 
 and spiritual power, the present Pope Gregory xvi 
 issued this papal Bull, to all his subjects through- 
 out the world — including the United States — in 
 which he selects as the objects of his especial de- 
 nunciation, every principle which lies at the basis 
 
12 THE RIGHT OP 
 
 of our Political and Social Institutions — the Free- 
 dom of the Press — Liberty of Opinion — and com- 
 mends, with earnest eulogy, the union of Church 
 and State, and the burning of heretical books, in 
 this emphatic language: "Nor can the materials 
 of error be otherwise destroyed than by the blames, 
 which consume the depraved elements of evil." 
 
 This strange ebullition of folly and ignorance, 
 singularly blended with fanatical insolence and ma- 
 lignity, was met with one universal burst of in- 
 dignation and contempt. From Maine to Florida 
 the nation was aroused — and through the Press — 
 from the Pulpit — in the popular assembly— where- 
 ever men met for private intercourse or public con- 
 sultation — the voice of an outraged public senti- 
 ment was heard — mingled with playful sarcasm 
 and bitter derision. Some Catholic young men of 
 New York, stung by the keen invectives of the 
 Press — goaded by the perpetual jeers of their Pro- 
 testant companions — perhaps, warmed by the fresh 
 air of Freedom, that breathed all around them, and 
 deluded with the belief, that in this free land, they 
 too were free — resolved to establish a society for 
 the investigation and discussion of religious truth 
 — and thus to erect in the city of New York — be- 
 fore the eyes of all men — a living monument of the 
 freedom which exists in the Catholic Church-r- 
 and a refutation, through all coming time, of Pro- 
 testant misrepresentations. In the Catholic Diary 
 of Oct. 1st, 1836, appeared a notice of the forma- 
 tion and objects of this society: and a letter from 
 Bishop Hughes on the same subject, in the Truth 
 Teller of the following week. Does this Chi is- 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. Id 
 
 tian Bishop hail with joy these first symptoms of 
 awakening intelligence and inquiry amongst his 
 people? Does he rejoice to find that the youth of 
 his flock are turning their feet away from the play- 
 house — the ball-room— the fashionable gaieties and 
 frivolous amusements — the dark and terrible temp- 
 tations of that crowded and luxurious city — and 
 now, at length, are beginning to ponder those 
 great and eternal themes, that alone deserve the 
 highest energies of our immortal spirit, and ele- 
 vate and purity and enlarge the soul, that comes 
 into contact with them? Does he cheer them by 
 his applauding voice? Does he "point the path to 
 truth, and lead the way?" Far otherwise. He de- 
 nounces the society with unmeasured severity — de- 
 rides their generous love of knowledge — castigates 
 the Editor, who had dared to approve their object, 
 and prohibits absolutely all discussion, except to 
 the Priesthood. Hear how a Bishop dares to speak 
 in these United States, and in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury: 
 " To the Editor of the Catholic Diary : 
 
 "In the Catholic Diary of Saturday last, October 
 1st, I find a notice from you of a society, calling 
 itself the New York Catholic Society, for the pro- 
 motion of religious knowledge. Of the existence 
 of that society, I was utterly ignorant, and feel sur- 
 prised that you, who ought to know better, 
 would think of encouraging and drawing public 
 attention to such a society, without" — 
 
 Without what? Without a serious consideration 
 of the consequences? Without a calm conviction 
 of duty? Is there a Catholic freeman in this house, 
 
14 THE RIGHT OP 
 
 who has escaped from the civil and ecclesiastical 
 tyranny of Europe, and has hoped in this blessed 
 land, to find an elvsium of fr edom — I ask him to 
 answer, without what? "Without first ascertain- 
 ing the sentiments of your ordinary" or Bishop. 
 "The church in the most positive manner, prohi- 
 bits all laymen from entering into dispute on points 
 of religion with sectarians — "Inhibernus," says 
 Pope Alexander iv., "ne unquam Laicae Perso- 
 nae liceat publice vel private de fide Catholicadis- 
 putare; qui vero contradicerit, excommunicationis 
 laqueo innodetur." "We forbid," says Pope Alex- 
 ander iv., "that any layman should ever be allow- 
 ed in public or in private, to discuss the Catholic 
 faith; and whosoever shall disregard this prohibi- 
 tion, let him be hung up in the halter of excom- 
 munication." Had you recollected this sentence, 
 I am sure you would be far from calling on the 
 Catholic young men of this city to become mem- 
 bers of a debating society on religious subjects, 
 open to so many serious objections. 
 
 John, Bishop of New York." 
 And how was this letter received? Was not the 
 American spirit aroused at last? Did not the hot 
 blood boil in the veins of these American youth, 
 at such insolent dictation? Never did scourged 
 spaniel crouch and whine and fawn upon the foot, 
 that spurned him — with more abject submission — 
 than did th^se independent youth and this free 
 press, bow before the will of this foreign emissary 
 of a foreign Despot. And what is the magic in- 
 fluence, which thus, at the distance of 3000 miles, 
 can silence the press and stifle the voices, and 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 15 
 
 even paialyze the free thoughts of American citi- 
 zens? It is the old decree of a foreign monarch, 
 long since dead and buried and rotten in his grave, 
 and written in a language even, which has died out 
 from among the languages of living men. But 
 though the Pope may die — the Bull never dies. 
 This lives on the same, ui. changed, unchangeable, 
 perpetuating from age to age, and from land to 
 land, the same dark decrees of Arbitrary Power- 
 still 
 
 "The same wild Bull 
 Which Priests and Demagogues let loose 
 To toss our Laws and Liberties in the air." 
 
 Again: the Right of Private Judgment — the tin- 
 fettered exercise of our rational faculties, on every 
 question that concerns our temporal or eternal wel- 
 fare — the right to think, reason, examine, weigh, 
 judge, decide freely for ourselves, is involved in 
 the very possession of these faculties. Just as the 
 right to see, hear, move, breathe, is involved in the 
 power to perform these several operations. For 
 these powers are bestowed, either that they may 
 be exercised or may lie dormant. If that they may 
 be exercised, then the right is commensurate with 
 the power, and the duty co-extensive with the 
 right — so that he who interferes with either is guil- 
 ty at once of cruel injustice towards man, and dar- 
 ing impiety against God — injustice to man, since 
 he denies a right, which God has bestowed; and 
 forbids a duty, which God enjoins — and impiety 
 against God, since he thus thwans, as far as human 
 power can do it, the high designs of Hij Infinite 
 Beneficence. The right to think includes the 
 
16 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 whole process of thought ; from the commence- 
 ment to the close ; from the first rude materials of 
 thought, to the finished product; from the first sim- 
 ple facts, which constitute the elements of some 
 subordinate proposition, to the remote and ultimate 
 conclusion, which crowns the summit of some high 
 fabric of reasoning. The simple right to think, 
 therefore, includes all lor which we contend ; for 
 surely, it were too absurd to acknowledge the right 
 to think, and yet deny the right to reason, which 
 is only consecutive thought; to admit the right to 
 reason, and yet deny the right to decide — or draw 
 conclusions, which is one of its component parts. 
 Yet this ultimate conclusion of the mind, in view 
 of all the premises, is our Private Judgment, 
 Should any still question us concerning the source 
 of this right, and the warrant to exercise it, our 
 answer is brief and direct. We point him upward 
 to God, and inward to the wonders of our own bo- 
 som ; and tell him, the origin is there. The war- 
 rant is here. Suppose some one should seek to 
 draw a veil over the outward eye of the body, as 
 well as the inward vision of the soul, and shut out 
 from our view, the beauties and glories of God's 
 works, as well as the wonders of His word, and 
 then deny our right to see them : what would be 
 our reply? Would we go to the Digest of the. 
 Statutes ? Would we point to some decision of 
 our Courts? Would we invoke the testimony of 
 the Fathers ? Would we not tell him to his face, 
 in language brief, bold and unanswerable too, "the 
 right to see is included in the power to see ; the 
 God who gave us eyes, gave us the right to use 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 17 
 
 them. You demand our Bill of Rights : behold ! 
 there it is in the autograph of Heaven — written by 
 the finger of the Almighty." But surely if the 
 structure of the eye, the beautiful and harmonious 
 adaptation of all its parts to the purposes of vision, 
 be God's Charter of Rights for the exercise of vi- 
 sion, the argument is still more conclusive from 
 the structure of the mind — by so much more con- 
 clusive, by how much its structure is more won- 
 derful, its adaptations more various', its powers 
 more transcendant; its dignily more exalted; its 
 destiny, in all respects, unspeakably more glorious. 
 Rightly considered indeed, this is the highest of all 
 possible evidence. Were it thundered to us fiom 
 the Heavens above; were it echoed back from the 
 depths of the abyss; were it flashed upon us in the 
 forked lightning; were it whispered to us by the 
 winds of the evening; were it muttered in the mid- 
 night tempest; were it engraved on the mountain's 
 side; were it written in letters of living fire upon 
 the broad canopy above us; were it blazed and 
 pealed upon us in dazzling and deafening grand- 
 eur from the whole universe around, yet the evi- 
 dence could not be half so direct, so intimate, so 
 irresistible. For behold it is here — it is stamped 
 upon our very existence; it is interwoven with all 
 the elements of our being; it is imbedded in the 
 constitution of our nature; it is a necessary part in 
 every thought and feeling — nay, it would be pre- 
 supposed in the very revelations designed to con- 
 firm it. Since all these wonders in the Heavens 
 and on the Earth, however luminous or loud, could 
 only convince U3 when understood, and only be 
 b2 
 
18 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 understood when interpreted aright — and this in- 
 terpretation would be the exercise of Private Judg- 
 ment—which throws us back at last on this, as an 
 ultimate law of our nature, mingling with and pre- 
 supposed in every mental operation, and thus ris- 
 ing both in its evidence and its importance, to the 
 dignity of an intuitive principle or necessary truth. 
 Again: if this right of Private Judgment be not 
 ours, then no other right existing, possible or con- 
 ceivable, remains for man: for this is of all human 
 rights, the clearest, the most intimate, the most 
 indisputable — earlier than all others, independent 
 of all others — upon which all beside are founded; 
 and from which, as moral and logical corollaries, 
 they do necessarily spring. The right of property 
 is only a secondary right, resulting from the rights 
 of labor; and this is but another name for our right 
 to the exercise and the products of that material 
 machinery of muscles, bones and sinews, which we 
 call our own and not ourselves. Now it is curious 
 to observe that our right of ownership in our bo- 
 dies even, is not only secondary in relation to an 
 anterior and far higher right ; but is extremely 
 transient, even when compared with our property 
 in other things. The house, which is yours to-day, 
 fifty years hence may still be yours — but the evan- 
 escent title, which you hold in that mass of mat- 
 ter, which constitutes your budy, will long before 
 have disappeared. Each particle will have sought 
 some new and separate combination, and gone to 
 mingle with the universe of things. The source 
 and centre, then, of all human rights — whence all 
 originate and whither all converge, is the immor- 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 19 
 
 tal soul of man, and union with this, has given to 
 the body a participation of its rights. But surely 
 the rights of the soul can mean nothing less than 
 the untrammelled exercise of all its various powers. 
 He, then, who strikes at this, not only wounds the 
 first and dearest of human rights, but aims a death 
 blow at the whole. He who surrenders this at 
 the bidding of another, not only is prepared to sur- 
 render, but has in the very act surrendered every 
 other right, and is traitor, with a four-fold treach- 
 ery, to the God who bestowed these invaluable 
 rights, and committed them as a precious deposit 
 to his guardianship — to the country that guaran- 
 tees them to him, all unworthy as he is — and the 
 blood of our dead fathers so freely shed in their 
 defence — to his own high powers and exalted des- 
 tiny—to the present and future generations — to 
 the whole race of man. For in this great battle 
 of the world, he has not merely spiked the cannon 
 confided to his care, but has turned its fire on the 
 advancing columns of his friends. He has not only 
 fled in unmanly cowardice from the post he was 
 appointed to defend, but has betrayed it to the foe. 
 He has abandoned not only the out-works, but the 
 fortress of freedom itself, and received the enemy 
 into the very heart of the citadel. 
 
 Here, then, is a new tyranny, such as the sun 
 never shone upon before ; a tyranny so subtle in 
 its slow advances ; so terrible in the awfulimystery 
 of its unfathomable resources, that in comparison 
 with it, every other form of oppression, which the 
 world hath witnessed, might well aspire to the 
 name of perfect freedom. There was a time when 
 
20 THE EIGHT OF 
 
 we could proudly boast, that "the mind is its own 
 place." Amidst all the abounding tyranny and 
 oppression in the world— the violence, the cruelty, 
 the blood-shed, we have consoled ouiselves with 
 the thought, that there is even upon earth one spot 
 secure from all invasion — which no human power 
 can approach, no human scrutiny can penetrate, no 
 tyranny of man can awe — which all the embattled 
 powers of the globe, with their combined artillery, 
 could never storm—but the Almighty himself hath 
 shielded it. against all human assaults, and barrier- 
 ed it around against all human intrusion, and veil- 
 ed it from human espionage, and thrown it aloof 
 from all outward collision, amidst the invisibilities 
 of His own eternity — that He who throneth amidst 
 those invisibilities, might there erect His awful 
 throne, and there reveal His presence, and stretch 
 over it the sceptre of His power, and utter his high 
 commands, and make it a sanctuary for himself — 
 and man, in the sacredness of that secure retreat, 
 might be alone with God, where no human power 
 could rush in between the soul and its Creator. 
 This sanctuary i3 the human bosom; and secure 
 amidst its impenetrable secrecies, the soul of man 
 hath bid defiance to every other form of tyranny; 
 hath smiled at the dungeon and the chains; hath 
 exulted on the gibbet and at the stake; "seen death 
 in all its forms, and scorned them all" — nay, the 
 very dungeon, where the imprisoned patriot or 
 Christian, hath been pinioned down with heavy 
 chains to the cold, hard floor, has been converted 
 into a temple for God's worship — and the flames, 
 which consumed the martyr's body, have been a 
 
. PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 21 
 
 chariot of fire to his ascending spirit, as he mount- 
 ed aloft h rapture to the bosom of his God. But 
 here is a dark and mysterious power, which enters 
 this God-ordained and God-consecrated sanctuary, 
 and profanes its sanctity — storms this last strong 
 hold of human freedom — dashes down its battle- 
 ments, drags forth its awful secrets at the Confes- 
 sional, and throws over the immortal soul itself, its 
 paralyzing and degrading fetters. Even the south- 
 ern slave may be a freeman. You may brand his 
 brow, but it is only skin deep — no deeper than his 
 color, and cannot touch the soul. The chains that 
 bind his brawny limbs, may leave the mind unfet- 
 tered; and amidst all outward bondage, he may be 
 the freeman, whom "Christ makes free"— but here 
 is a tyranny, whose brand burns deep into the in- 
 most soul; whose fetters bind the free thoughts as 
 they rise, and reaching all the faculties, degrade 
 and paralvze the whole. For the mind of man is 
 a unit. You cannot degrade it in one respect and 
 retain its dignity in another. The man who will 
 crouch before a priest, will quail before a tyrant — 
 and he who has surrendered his mental indepen- 
 dence at the bidding of another, and wears the fet- 
 ters on his soul — he who hath bowed down beneath 
 the yoke of such a bondage, hath stooped to the 
 depth of such ineffable degradation, has nothing 
 left to lose, and is a fit instrument of the same fear- 
 ful power to fasten the same ignominious fetters 
 upon others. 
 
 But there are relations of far wider compass- 
 far deeper significance, far loftier, holier, more so- 
 lemn and more sacred interest, than all that can be 
 
22 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 comprehended in the enumeration of political rights 
 —relations that link us with the great universe of 
 moral beings, and reader us intelligent and accoun- 
 table subjects of God's mora! government, and by 
 that unchanging and terrible connection which God 
 hath established of all with all, the blow which is 
 aimed at the rights of thought, strikes deeper — to 
 the very springs of moral agency, and severs the 
 bonds of all human obligation. For duty and 
 right are correlative terms, and there can be no 
 duty, without a correspondent right; (for surely 1 
 have a right to perform my duty.) But the right 
 to perform a duty, involves by unavoidable conse- 
 quence, all that 13 necessary to its intelligent and 
 appropriate performance, the employment of all the 
 means and the exercise of all the powers requisite 
 to ascertain our duty — the knowledge of the rela- 
 tions, on which it is based; the scrutiny of the evi- 
 dence by which it is sustained; of the authority by 
 which it is enjoined; the motives, by which it is 
 urged; the exercise, in fine, of all our rational pow- 
 ers, in their fullest meaning and largest scope; from 
 the minutest induction of particular facts to the 
 widest sweep of a lofty and comprehensive gene- 
 ralization. Now duty — moral obligation— is in 
 tensely individual — personal, presses directly on 
 the conscience — lies between man and his God. 
 It is mine, and cannot be transferred to another. 
 No man can love God or his fellow man by proxy. 
 But this moral obligation is itself the compound re- 
 sult of the relations we bear, and the faculties we 
 possess adapted to those relations. Duty is ours 
 only, because the relations and capabilities from 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 23 
 
 which it springs, are ours. Annihilate these rela- 
 tions, and obligation ceases: destroy these powers 
 or suspend their exercise, and obligation is equally 
 at an end. Transfer to another the exercise of 
 these powers on my behalf, and you transfer .along 
 wiih them all the resulting obligations. In assum- 
 ing to himself, the exercise for me of those ration- 
 al powers, from which my moral obligation arises, 
 he deliberately assumes my responsibilities and du- 
 ties, and as far as his power extends, strips me at 
 once of the digniiy and responsibilities of a moral 
 agent. Hence it is not by fortuitous connection, 
 but by necessary sequence, that the power which 
 claims to dictate our faith, claims likewise to par- 
 don sin — that she, who suspends the exercise of 
 Private Judgment, suspends likewise the exercise 
 of individual conscience, and assumes to abrogate 
 the most solemn obligations, even though confirm- 
 ed by the awful sanctity of an oath. Hence that 
 horrible union of devotion and crime; of piety and 
 blood, so common in papal lands. Hence the Span- 
 ish assassin consecrates himself by attendance on 
 high mass, for his deeds of blood. The Italian 
 robber wears near his heart, the image of the Vir- 
 gin. The courtezan of Naples worships with de- 
 vout affection, her patron saint. For salvation, 
 without the necessity of personal holiness, is a ne- 
 cessary counterpart to faith without the trouble of 
 personal inquiry. Thus the subjugation of the 
 intellect leads directly to the extinction of con- 
 sciencp. Stupendous ab=urdi'ies nwural'y beget 
 stupendous crimes: and the darkest secrets of the 
 Confessional are but the necessary result of those 
 
24 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 portentous dogmas, which first challenge our be- 
 lief and then decline our scrutiny — first revolt our 
 reason and then denounce our reason because it 
 has been revolted — for the poison which hath pal- 
 sied the brain, deadens the heart and stupifies the 
 conscience; and the light of reason and of the mo- 
 ral sense are extinguished together. 
 
 Again, this right of Private Judgment, which is 
 thus implied, and exercised in every act of reason- 
 ing, which is interwoven with the whole structure 
 of onr minds — which is the earliest and dearest of 
 human rights, and the basis of all the rest, and in- 
 dispensable to the existence of a moral agent — -is 
 distinctly recognized in that great charter of hu- 
 man equality and human rights, the Bible — is en- 
 joined again and again, both by precept and ex- 
 ample — nay, like the existence of God himself, is 
 presupposed, as an admitted and necessary truth, 
 upon every page of the sacred record. Peter, you 
 know, according to the teaching of our adversa- 
 ries, was the first Pope of Rome. Now, since the 
 days of Peter, there have been many Popes of ex- 
 ceedingly various characters. Some of them, per- 
 haps, pious and worthy men; others, by universal 
 admission, prodigies of crime — monsters in human 
 shape— impure, licentious, beastly, treacherous, 
 steeped in sensuality and blood. Each of these 
 Popes likewise in his day has issued his Bull or cir- 
 cular letters, for the instruction and warning of the 
 faithful — from the first epistle general of Peter to 
 the last encyclical letter of Pope Gregory xvi. be- 
 neath whose happy reign, we heretics are permit- 
 ted as yet to breathe. These letters too are all 
 
PfilVATB JUDGMENT. 25 
 
 written in a dead language, and need to be transla- 
 ted into the vulgar tongue. Now is it not a sin- 
 gular fact, that all the letters of all the Popes, from 
 the beginning to the present time — even the vilest 
 of the vile, who have desolated nations by their am- 
 bition, and disgraced our nature by their crimes- 
 all may be read by the people in their own mother 
 tongue, until you come back to that great Apostle, 
 who alone among them all wrote by divine inspira- 
 tion — and from whom all derive their apostolic dig- 
 nity and power? Is it not a curious circumstance 
 that Protestants alone cherish with affection, and 
 love to read the encyclical letters of Pope Peter, 
 and are publishing them abroad by millions for the 
 instruction of the world ? But why are all men pei- 
 mitted thus to read the letters of the Popes? The 
 question lies upon the surface— but the answer cuts 
 deep into the vitals, and lays bare to the common- 
 est observer, the very heart of this great contro- 
 versy. Because they were written for the very pur- 
 pose that they might be read — written for the in- 
 struction and warning of God's people— addressed 
 to the faithful throughout the world; and even 
 monkish stupidity has never yet ascended that pin- 
 nacle of folly as to propose that one should gravely 
 write a letter for the benefit of mankind, send it 
 abroad thioughout the world, and then forbid man- 
 kind to lead it. Now, precisely 3uch letters are 
 those of Peter the first Pope of Rome: the first 
 and second epistles general, or circular letters of 
 Peter, addressed not to the Bishops or Priesthood, 
 but to the people, all the faithful scattered through- 
 out Pontus, Cappadocia, &c. The same is true of 
 c 
 
26 THE RIGHT OP 
 
 all the apostolic epistles to the different churches, 
 Gallatians, Thessalonians, Corinthians, &c. They 
 are addressed not to the Bishops, but to the people 
 — and written in the language of the people, to 
 whom they were addressed. St. Paul's epistle to 
 the Romans too, was it not addressed to the whole 
 church in Rome, to be read by every individual, in 
 a language understood by every one who could read 
 at all? Is it not a strange procedure then, that the 
 very epistle which St. Paul wrote by divine inspi- 
 ration for the benefit of the church at Rome, this 
 Roman church is not permitted to read at all? Sure- 
 ly it is worse than folly to write me a letter which 
 it is a sin for me to read. Is it not passing strange 
 that the church of Rome is the only church on earth 
 whose members dare not read the epistle to the 
 Romans, and the church which is fojunded on St. 
 Peter, the only one which forbids the letters of St. 
 Peter? 
 
 The Bible is and has ever been emphatically the 
 book of the people ; designed for the people — ad- 
 dressed originally to the people, and adapted pre- 
 eminently for their instruction. We have seen 
 that this is true of the Epistles. It is manifest 
 with equal evidence concerning every other por- 
 tion of the Bible. The laws of Moses for instance 
 (with a few exceptions) were designed to regulate 
 the civil and ecclesiastical relations, and moral du- 
 ties of the people ; were addressed to them as a 
 nation, in their own language ; were read consecu- 
 tively at the Synagogues, in the people's tongue; 
 and an intimate acquaintance with the sacred his 
 tory and sacred jurisprudence, was enjoined on 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 27 
 
 every Israelite, as his most incumbent duty. When 
 the Prophets warned the people of God's coming 
 wrath ; rebuked them for their sin, or cheered them 
 with the hope of "the glory hereafter to be reveal, 
 ed ; " was it not in the people's language, in the 
 people's ears, and to the people's understandings, 
 that their inspired warnings and exhortations were 
 addressed? And he, the last and greatest of all 
 the Prophets, who closed in his own person, with 
 stern and lofty dignity, that illustrious line of God- 
 inspired instructors; the strange and gif.ed man 
 that issued from the Wilderness of Judea, with his 
 raiment of Camel's hair and leathern girdle, and 
 with all, a Prophet's zeal and energy, denounced 
 the corruptions of his day ; was it not to the peo- 
 ple that he came? Did not all Jerusalem, and 
 Judea/ and all the region round about Jordan, 
 gather to his ministry; and when the Scribes and 
 Pharisees, the teachers of the law anoVkeepers of 
 the consciences of the people, came — how did he 
 salute them? "Oh, generation of vipers, who hath 
 warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" The 
 Miracles, the Parables, the Sermons — the divine in- 
 structions of our Saviour — were they not addressed 
 directly to the people, in their own presence, and 
 in their mother tongue? And when that Man of 
 Sorrows once rejoiced, and poured forth his over- 
 flowing joy in language of gratitude to God, was 
 not this the source of his grateful exultation, that 
 the humblest of all his children could comprehend 
 and enjoy the loftiest Revelations of his Love — 
 "I thank thee, Oh Father, Lord of heaven and 
 earth, because thou hast hid these things from the 
 
28 THE RIGHT OP 
 
 wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes!" 
 Few of his words were addressed to the Priest- 
 hood of his day, and these were daggers. "Oh, 
 generation of vipers," "Blind leaders of the blind," 
 "Ye are of your father the devil," "Ye hypocrites! 
 well did Isaiah prophesy of you," "Teaching for 
 doctrines the commandments of men." 
 
 Suppose now that one of those devoted lovers of 
 the Saviour, who had hung with wrapt attention on 
 his lips — at the Sea of Galilee, or upon Mount Ol- 
 ivet — till each word of wisdom, as it fell burning 
 on his heart, was engraven indelibly upon his mem- 
 ory, had been told that it was criminal to remember 
 what it had been a duty and a blessedness to hear; 
 and hearing, to love; and loving, it was impossible 
 to forget? What would be his wonder? But sup- 
 pose that he had transferred to paper, for the in- 
 struction of his children or his friends, the record 
 of those glorious truths, whose living impression 
 still glowed and beamed in joy upon his own bo- 
 som, would it not be absurd to say that it was 
 criminal for them to read with the eye of the body; 
 what it was right for him to contemplate with the 
 eye of the understanding and by the light of mem- 
 ory? But behold we have the same instructions 
 recorded by the pen of inspiration, and their per- 
 fect accuracy vouched by the infallibility of God 
 himself; and does not that doctrine sink even be- 
 neath the dignity of contempt, which gravely 
 teaches, that the very instructions which it was 
 right for him to hear; and hearing, to love; and 
 loving, to remember; and remembering, to record; 
 it is criminal for us to read, when recorded by 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 29 
 
 Infinite Wisdom and vouched by Infinite Veracity. 
 But we said the Bible is adapted to the Peo- 
 pae, as well as designed for them, and we are 
 bold to assert, that apart altogether from any ques- 
 tion as to its inspiration, there is not in the whole 
 circle of ancient or modern literature, a single work 
 which can for a moment be compared with it, as a 
 manual of popular instruction, as a book for the peo- 
 ple, adapted alike to every period of life, and every 
 condition of human society. Its simple narrative, 
 its lofty poetry, its instructive history, its pathetic 
 eloquence, its ingenious parables, its touching 
 portraitures of nature and of human character, its 
 pure morality, its exalted and spiritual religion, 
 its majestic doctrines, so simple in their majesty, 
 that like their divine and glorious author, who fill- 
 eth immensity with his presence, and the heaven 
 of heaven's cannot contain him, yet condescendeth 
 to dwell in the bosom of the humble and contrite 
 one, even so these wonderful revelations, though 
 touching the loftiest themes, though comprehend- 
 ing all time and all eternity in their immense sur- 
 vey, though fitted to expand an archangel's bosom, 
 and employ a seraph's tongue of fire, may hover 
 in softened radiance around the head, and gently 
 nestle with soothing tenderness in the heart of in- 
 fancy itself! Who of us has not wept at the story 
 of Joseph; who has not been elevated by the gran- 
 duer of Isaiah; who has not melted at the tender- 
 ness of David; and where is the heart so cold that 
 it has never "burned within him as he talked with 
 Jesus in the Evangelists?" The Bible! Why I 
 have read it from my earliest childhood, and never 
 c2 
 
.'Ill THE RIGHT OP 
 
 found that it had taught me one false principle of 
 action, one single error in doctrine, or in morals. 
 The Bible! I learned to read it on my mother's 
 knee. It was bathed with my father's tears, and 
 consecrated with a double sacredness, by his dying 
 prayers; and when that sainted mother was just 
 ready to depart, it lay upon her dying pillow, and 
 cheered her dying hour, a3 she charged me to love 
 the Bible we had read so ofien, and so fondly to- 
 gether. Go, then, thou dark Inquisitor! if go thou 
 must, strike from my little library — the meagre 
 collections of my youth — each noble and each hon- 
 ored name — Bacon, who enlarged the boundaries 
 of human thought; Locke, who fathomed the 
 mysteries of the human spirit ; Galileo, who 
 taught the motions of the Universe ; and Mil- 
 ton, Patriot, Philosopher, Poet, Sage, with his 
 glorious treatise on the rights of conscience and 
 freedom of the Press; draw across them all, yes, 
 all, the dark mark of Papal Censorship, but spare, 
 O, spare my Bible! What should I do without 
 my Bible? It was the instructor of my infancy, 
 the guide of my youth, the companion and friend 
 of my manhood, and shall it not be the solace of my 
 declining age? And that poor Orphan Boy, who 
 wanders homeless and latherless in your streets, 
 why rob him of his Bible? I never knew a boy 
 that loved his Bible, who was not the better for 
 it ; who did not grow up to be a more upright 
 man — a worthier citizen — a bolder freeman. Be- 
 sides, is it not his birth-right? — the last possession 
 which orphanage and poverty have left him. Did 
 not his father or forefathers, as well as vours and 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 3] 
 
 mine, light this same battle in the groat revolu- 
 tionary struggle? Was it not for this above all 
 other rights, for freedom of conscience, and liberty 
 to read the Bible, that those venerable patriots 
 shed their heart's blood of old 1 Was not this the 
 very height and front of their indignant denuncia- 
 tion of British Tyranny, when on the 21st of Oc- 
 tober, 1774, in Congress assembled, in an address 
 to the English nation, they charged on that Gov- 
 ernment the design to extend the "dominion of 
 Canada, that their numbers, daily swelling with 
 Catholic emigrants from Europe, may reduce this 
 ancient, free, Protestant Colony, to a state of 
 slavery, and to establish, in this country, a religion 
 which has deluged your Island in blood, and dis- 
 persed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and 
 rebellion throughout every part of the world ? " 
 But why rob him of his Bible? Because the Popes 
 and Cardinals of a foreign land, lodged in the 
 palace of the Caesars, and "arrayed in purple and 
 Sne linen," have issued their imperial decree, for- 
 bidding the Bible to their vassals? Because the 
 thousands of their "Bonds-men born," drifted on 
 the tide of foreign immigration, have left their 
 country, but retained their principles, and dare 
 not, even here, exercise the rights our fathers pur- 
 chased for their children, and which we so freely, 
 yet so vainly, proffer to them? And has it come 
 to this already? That the large, fred mind of this 
 great nation can be contented within the narrow 
 limits which priestly fanaticism, or despotic power, 
 have prescribed to their most abject menials — the 
 Catechism of the Diocese, "A Book of Arithmetic, ' 
 
32 THE BIGHT OF 
 
 "A Book of Moral Lessons" — replete with Monkish 
 fables. Shall Italy be transported to these United 
 States? Shall the same dark and bbody flag, which, 
 more than three hundred years ago, was hung out 
 from the Battlements of the Inquisition, and ever 
 since has waved its gloomy folds in triumph over 
 despotic Austria, down-trodden Italy, benighted Por- 
 tugal and Spain, and semi-barbarous South Amer- 
 ica, blackening the earth with its shadow, and 
 shutting out the blessed light of heaven, be planted 
 here, upon the graves of our dead fathers? Why, 
 their very bones might well rattle in their coffins, 
 at such a profanation! The marble statues of our 
 immortalized heroes might, without a Popish mira- 
 cle, speak out from their stone bosoms, and even 
 weep tears of blood, over their degenerate offspring. 
 Oh, no, it cannot be! The Bible, depend upon 
 it, lies near to the throbbing heart of this great 
 nation. It is a sacred, tender place. Touch it 
 not; I beseech, I entreat, I warn you, touch it not 
 too roughly. The Bible is the basis of all our 
 institutions; to banish it would be a revolution, not 
 begun, but consummated; a revolution in the vital 
 principles of our Government and our society. 
 The very revolution predicted on the 21st of Octo- 
 ber, 1774, and by the very instrumentality which 
 the gifted seers of that day foresaw in the distance, 
 and with such prophetic sagacity announced. Then 
 leave us our Bible; take what you will beside; if 
 only the Bible be left, the nation may be free and 
 happy still. Let foreign despotism pour in, by 
 tens of thousands, upon our shores, and lead up in 
 dense columns to our polls, her marshalled myrmi- 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 33 
 
 dons, her masses of vice and putrefaction, spared 
 from the gallows, or vomited forth from the darkest,, 
 foulest alleys of her crowded and pestilential cities. 
 Let some supple demagague, borne into the highest 
 office of our Government, upon the shoulders of a 
 foreign Priesthood, guided by Italian chicanery, 
 and paid with Austrian money from the Leopold 
 foundation, worship the power that gave him polit- 
 cal pre-eminence; let Jesuitical skill, in the heat of 
 party collision, succeed, for a season, in arraying 
 our free citizens, one against another; nay, let the 
 fair fabric of this Government be overthrown, and 
 our free Constitution be scattered to the winds: yet 
 with an open Bible, and a Free Press, we will go 
 forth amidst that benighted and corrupted popula- 
 tion, and, by God's blessing, from the very ruins of 
 Liberty and Virtue, will ereet, once more, the no- 
 ble edifice of our civil and religious institutions. 
 
 But again: The opposite principle leads necessa- 
 rily to persecution. There can be no wrong with- 
 out a correspondent right; nor can omnipotence 
 itself guided by infinite wisdom, and urged on by 
 boundless desire, devise any method by which it 
 could violate a right, where there is no right exist- 
 ing to be violated. Hence, if I have not the right 
 of Private Judgment, the absolute and unlimited 
 right to reason, investigate and determine for my- 
 self, he who denies me the possession of this right 
 and prohibits its exercise, does me no wrong; nay, 
 if I have challenged for myself rights which are 
 really another's, if I have assumed for my individ- 
 ual behoof, prerogatives which appropriately belong 
 to the church for the common good, then am I an 
 
34 
 
 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 usurper; and if the exercise of this assumed right is 
 injurious at once to myself and to others, then upon 
 every principle of moral and social obligation; in 
 every view of the most enlarged and comprehen- 
 sive philanthropy, the church and the state are not 
 only authorized, but imperatively bound, at all ha- 
 zards to the individual, and by all necessary penal- 
 ties, to resist the usurpation, and to extirpate, if 
 need be, the offender and the offence. Hence we 
 can explain that otherwise strange and incredible 
 contradiction, which meets us so often in the his- 
 tory of persecution, when the really amiable inqui- 
 sitor weeps, as he hands over his victim to the gib- 
 bet or the rack; and our holy mother sometimes 
 mingles tears with her curses upon her rebellious 
 children. Persecution is with them a religious du- 
 ty, and lies upon the conscience. Others may per- 
 secute from passion, she must from principle. 
 
 Hence too, that parallel phenomenon, that when- 
 ever through all time, an individual or a sect be- 
 comes tinctured, however slightly, with this por- 
 tentous doctrine; from that very moment, and in 
 that precise degree, begins the cry for blood. Thus 
 the British Critic, the accredited organ of that non- 
 descript sect, which originated recently in England 
 and rejoices in the name of Dr. Pusey, that infini- 
 tesimal sub-division of the church, that fragment 
 of a fragment of a fragment, whose ecclesiastical 
 arithmetic, with such graceful modesty, proves it 
 to be the whole church of Christ upon earth, that 
 broad burlesque upon the page of history, that most 
 ridiculous of all abortions from the womb of time, 
 which has its head in England, its center of unity 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 35 
 
 ai Rome, while its cloven feet are here, and as for 
 the brains thereof, no human anatomy hath discov- 
 ered their place as yet; that farce of farces, amidst 
 the great world-epic and tragedy around us; that 
 modern antique and mediaeval nineteenth century; 
 with all the puerility of Rome, yet without her oc- 
 casional grandeur, with more than all her audicity 
 and insolence, yet without her courage or her pow- 
 er; the British critic, edited by the brother-in-law 
 of Dr. Newman, the accredited organ of this most 
 ludicrous of all the sect? past, present or to come, 
 and of all the successors of all the apostles, whose 
 beatific presence blesses this happy land of ours — 
 tells us as quietly now, and with as much relish too, 
 as a tame tiger would lick the blood from off his 
 paws, that he acknowledges a certain pleasure in 
 the thought that innovators in religion (by which 
 he means all who differ from himself) shall have to 
 suffer for their opinions. 
 
 And now, had we no practical application of this 
 principle, in the affairs of the world; no authorita- 
 tive exposition of its deep and ominous significance; 
 no bold avowal of its ultimate results, even in their 
 most revolting form, by its ablest and most distin- 
 guished advocates; still our argument wonld be 
 conclusive, and it were absurd to exclaim, "Where 
 is the decree of a General Council or acknowledged 
 Bull of a Pope, which teaches persecution as a doc- 
 trine of the Church]" for we have proven, that it is 
 a necessary result from this admitted and funda- 
 mental doctrine; and surely we do not need a Bull 
 of the Pope, or decree of a General Council, to 
 enable us to see the connexion between the pre- 
 
36 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 mises and the conclusion, in an argument — and 
 even the strictest Churchman hath never yet con- 
 tended, that the Holy Fathers, however infallible 
 in faith, were infallible in logic. But, fortunately 
 for our argument, though unfoitunately for the 
 welfare of the race, the conclusions we have drawn 
 from this principle are established as legitimate re- 
 sults, by the authorized interpretation ot the Roman 
 Catholic Church, through all her organs; by the 
 open avowal of her most distinguished writers; the 
 public acts of her accredited agents; again and 
 again by the Bulls of Popes and the decrees of 
 General Councils. Passing by all more ancient 
 authorities, I shall direct your attention only to two 
 works of modern times, published, circulated, n nd 
 read by the authority, and with the sanction of the 
 most enlightened and liberal Prelates in Ireland, in 
 the present century; one a Commentary on the New 
 Testament, the other a standard author in Theology. 
 The work which I hold in my hand is entitled, 
 "The Moral and Dogmatic Theology of the Rev. 
 and Most Learned Lord Peter Dens." "Printed at 
 Dublin, by Richard Coyne, Chapel street, Printer, 
 and Bookseller to the Roman Catholic College, 
 Ma'ynooth. The second edition, dedicated to the 
 Most Rev. Lord and Father in God, Daniel 
 Murray, Archbishop of Dublin and Primate, of 
 Iieland, and printed with his approbation." We 
 pass bye, for the present, its ineffable pollution, its 
 unfathomable depths of unimaginable filth. I do 
 declare, that there are described in this book, pur- 
 sued into the most loathsome details, dwelt upon 
 with the most disgusting minuteness, forms, and 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 37 
 
 modes, and degrees of crime, which I had never 
 heard of, or conceived before, and which, I verily 
 believe, have no existence, except in the polluted 
 imaginations which gloat over them, with such 
 peculiar fondness, or in the deepest and darkest 
 hells of the over-crowded population of European 
 cities. And I orTer publicly to any respectable 
 married gentleman of middle age, Protestant or 
 Catholic, who is able to read the Latin language, 
 or who can bring a competent interpreter, that I 
 will show him passages in this system of Moral 
 Theology, so unapproachably, immeasurably, in- 
 expressibly obscene, that he cannot read them, 
 even in a foreign language, and in the presence of 
 a male acquaintance, without a blush for the honor 
 of his race; and his very eyes will turn away with 
 intolerable nausea and disgust from the unfinished 
 page. And if he shall think that my description 
 has surpassed, or even equalled, or that any human 
 description could more than indefinitely approxi- 
 mate the revolting and loathsome reality, then I 
 am willing to be publicly denounced through life, 
 as a maniac or a slanderer. This in passing. But 
 I must hasten to the passages directly bearing on 
 my subject. The first passage which I shall quote 
 gives his views on the subject of toleration, and 
 may be found on the 83d page, vol. 2d. Under 
 the question, whether the rites of Infidels are to be 
 tolerated, after disposing of the Jews, his second 
 answer is in the following words: "The rites of 
 other Infidels, such as Pagans and Heretics, are 
 not in themselves to be tolerated, because they are 
 
38 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 so evil, that no truth, nor advantage to the Church? 
 can be derived therefrom." 
 
 On the 289 page (same vol.) is found the follow- 
 ing language: "Heretics, schismatics, apostates and 
 all other like baptized persons, are bound by the 
 laws of the church, because by their baptism, they 
 are made subjects of the church; nor are they re- 
 leased from her laws more than the rebel subjects 
 of a lawful prince, are released from the laws of 
 that prince." Upon the 88th and 89th pages of the 
 same volume, we find a chapter, with the following 
 title: "Concerning the Punishments of the Crime 
 of Heresy." In answer to the question what are 
 the punishments of the crime of Heresy, he re- 
 plies, "Notorious heretics are infamous for this 
 very cause itself, and are deprived of Christian 
 burial." "Their temporal goods are for this very 
 cause itself confiscated." "Finally they are also 
 justly afflicted with other corporeal punishments, 
 as exile, imprisonment," &c. But the question is 
 put, "Are Heretics justly punished with death?" 
 This, one might well suppose would bring his or- 
 thodoxy at least to a momentary pause. But no! 
 Mother church is familial with blood. He marches 
 directly up, and boldly grapples with the question, 
 in all its naked horrors, and proves that heretics 
 should be put death from the testimony of St. Tho- 
 mas, the authority of the Bible, and the decision 
 of the Council of Constance. "St. Thomas an- 
 swers affirmatively, (that is, that Heretics should 
 be put to death) because falsifiers of the coin are 
 justly punished with death, therefor?, likewise 
 Heretics should be put to death, who are falsifiers 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 39 
 
 of the Faith., and all experience being witness, 
 grieviously disturb the Republic. It is confirmed 
 by the fact that God, under the old law, command- 
 ed false prophets to be slain; and Deut. chap. 17th, 
 v.l2th, it is decided that "whosoever shall be proud, 
 unwilling to obey the authority of the Priest, let 
 him die." The same thing is proven from the con- 
 demnation of the 14th Art. of John Huss, by the 
 Council of Constance." 
 
 The next authority from which I propose to read 
 a few extracts, is the Rhemish Testament, and you 
 will permit me to introduce it with a few prefatory 
 remarks. Concerning Den's Theology, there is no 
 dispute. There it stands before the world, with 
 the Arch Bishop's broad imprimatur, written in 
 blood. Of this Rhemish Testament, there were 
 published in Ireland two editions, one in 1813 and 
 the other in 1818. On the title page of that of 1813 
 is found the name of the same John Coyne, to 
 whom you have been already introduced, as author- 
 ized publisher for the Jesuit College at Maynooth, 
 "by permission of his Grace Dr. Troy, Catholic 
 Lord Primate of Ireland; and under the careful re- 
 vision of the Rev. A. P. Walsh, Denmark, Hill, 
 Dublin," and on the exterior title page, were the 
 names of all the most distinguished Prelates of 
 Ireland as its avowed and public patron.*. This 
 work, published in numbers, was circulated freely 
 throughout Ireland, until some copies falling into 
 the hands of English protestants, drew forth a 
 severe and merited exposure, of its persecuting 
 principles from the public press. It was then, and 
 not till then, in the year 1817, that Dr. Troy dis- 
 
40 THE RIGHT OP 
 
 claimed all connection with the publication, and 
 denounced the principles therein avowed. This dis- 
 avowal, of course, impugned the character of Coyne 
 who publicly exposed the whole disgraceful proce- 
 dure. I read from a letter dated Parliament street, 
 Oct. 26th, 1817. "On Monday, the 13th instant, 
 your Grace sent me a message, by your servant, 
 requesting to see me at Cavendish-row, at the hour 
 of two o'clock. I had scarcely entered your Grace's 
 apartment, when the very Rev. Dr. Hamill, your 
 Grace's Vicargeneral, and the Rev. Mr. Kenney 
 of Clengours college, appeared. Your Grace then 
 produced, and read a paper, purporting to be an 
 extract from the "British Critic," and containing 
 animadversions on the notes of a late edition of 
 the Catholic Bible, bearing in the title-page the ap- 
 probation of your Grace. You then observed that 
 you were sure that I had no bad intention in putting 
 your Grace's name to the work; but that very bad 
 consequences had followed — that finding its way 
 into England, it armed our enemies against us, and 
 this at a time when we were seeking emancipa- 
 tion." Upon these remarks, I asked, "Did not 
 your Grace approve and sanction the publication 
 of a Bible by Mr. Macnamara, of Cork?" Your 
 Grace replied, "I did." I then asked, "Did not 
 your Grace depute the Rev. A. P. Walsh, of Den- 
 mark streetjchapel, to revise, correct and approve 
 for publication, in your Grace's name, the said 
 Bible of Macnamara?" Your Grace answered, "I 
 did." Then said I, "My lord, that is the Bible 
 now in your hand." "I never authorized,'' replied 
 your Grace, "the Rev. Mr. Walsh, to approve a 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 41 
 
 Bible with Rhemish notes." "Of any private un- 
 derstanding," said I, "between your Grace and Mr. 
 Walsh, I know nothing; but this I know, that Mr, 
 Walsh is accountable for your Grace's approbation, 
 which is now in the title page." 
 
 Here then is the truth at last. The Bishop au- 
 thorized the publication of these notes, not by 
 himself, but by his agent. That is, you are arrest- 
 ed for muider, and protest that you are not guilty, 
 but the instrument you employed. You give a 
 false Bill of Lading, and assert it was not yourself 
 who signed it, but your clerk — by your directions! 
 Might you not better complete the climax of folly, 
 by asserting that it was neither yourself nor your 
 clerk, but the pen which wrote the signature. The 
 motives too which dictated this tardy denunciation 
 by the Archbishop, are sufficiently indicated in 
 the conversation with Coyne; and yet more clearly 
 and decisively expressed in the following language, 
 uttered about the same time by O'Connell. Mr. 
 O'Connell remarked, "He had recently been in 
 England himself; and personal and accurate in- 
 formation, acquired upon the spot, enabled him to 
 state, that if these notes were not denounced, the 
 Member of Parliament who should be hardy enough 
 to support Emancipation in the next session of Par- 
 liament, would run a very considerable risk of losing 
 his seat in the House of Commons on the approach- 
 ing election." But the most instructive, if not amus- 
 ing, commentary on these indignant denunciations, 
 is to be found in the fact, that at this very moment, 
 a new edition was passing through the press, and 
 issued under the same distinguished patronage, in 
 
42 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 1818, the following year. But I will not detain 
 you from the extracts. "The first text I shall read 
 is a note on Matt. 13:29; [Lest perhaps.] The good 
 must tolerate the evil, when it is so strong, that it 
 cannot be redressed, without danger and disturb- 
 ance of the whole church, and commit the matter 
 to God's judgment in the latter day; otherwise, 
 when ill men, be they heretics, or other malefac- 
 tors, may be punished or suppressed without dis- 
 turbance and hazard of the good, they may and 
 ought by public authority, either temporal or spi- 
 ritual, to be chastised or executed." 
 
 The next comment is on Luke 9:55. That is, 
 the passage in which, when our Saviour had been 
 refused assistance by the Samaritans, and James 
 and John asked whether they should call down fire 
 from heaven upon them, he turned and said: "Ye 
 know not what manner of spirit ye are of." And 
 here is the note on our Lord's rebuke, verse 55th: 
 [He rebuked them.] "Not Justice, nor all rigorous 
 punishment of sinners is here forbidden, norElias's 
 act reprehended, nor the Church, nor Christian 
 princes blamed for putting heretics to death, but 
 that none of these should be done for desire of our 
 particular revenge, or without discretion, and re- 
 gard to their amendment, and example to others. 
 Therefore, St. Peter used his power upon Ananias 
 and Sapphira, when he struck them both down to 
 death, for defrauding the Church." 
 
 The next is a note upon Luke 14:24. Verse 
 23, [Compel them.] "St. Augustine also referreth 
 this compelling to the penal laws, which Catholic 
 princes do justly use against heretics and schisma- 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 43 
 
 tics, proving that they who are, by their former 
 profession in baptism, subject to the Catholic 
 Church, and are departed from the same after sects, 
 may and ought to be compelled into the unity and 
 society of the Universal Church." 
 
 The next passage to which I would call your 
 attention is a note on Acts of the Apostles, 25:11, 
 in which St. Paul appeals to Caesar. "If St. Paul, 
 both to save himself from whipping and from death, 
 sought by the Jews, doubted not to claim succour 
 from the Roman laws, and to appeal to Caesar, the 
 prince of the Romans, not yet christened, how 
 much more may we call for aid of Christian prin- 
 ces and their laws, for the punishment of heretics, 
 and for the Church's defence against them." — St. 
 Aug., 50. The remaining passage is Rev. 12: 6. 
 "The Protestants foolishly expound it of Rome, for 
 that they put heretics to death, and allow of their 
 punishment in other countries; but their blood is 
 not called the blood of saints, no more than the 
 blood of thieves, man-killers, and other malefac- 
 tors, for the shedding of which, by order of Justice, 
 no commonwealth shall answer." But why need I 
 read farther? The whole book is steeped in gore; 
 a perfect Alcedama; one broad blood blotch! so 
 reeking with bloodshed and murder, that O'Connell 
 found it necessary publicly to "denounce its damn- 
 able doctrines," (the Archbishop's hardest word 
 for all this treachery and slaughter, is "uncharita- 
 ble in sentiment,") and had a committee appointed 
 to prepare a denunciation of those Notes. The 
 committee met and adjourned; met again; promised 
 to report; became extinct; dissolved; and nodenun- 
 
44 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 ciation! These Notes are circulated freely on the 
 Continent; and as late, at least, as 1838, a new 
 edition was published, with the recommendation 
 of the Archbishop of Mechlin, assuring the pious 
 reader that they contain nothing contrary to pure 
 doctrine or sacred morals, as understood in the 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 This, then, is the general, almost universal in- 
 terpretation of the great Doctors of the Church, 
 and it does not in the slightest degree affect the 
 force of my argument to reply, that the Church has 
 never authoritatively sanctioned those doctrines. 
 She has sanctioned the doctrine from which all 
 these necessarily flow, according to the concurrent 
 testimony of her ablest writers, and the practical 
 interpretation of the vast majority of her people. 
 But to allow, is, with her, to sanction. Not to pro- 
 hibit, is to adopt. Has she ever renounced them? 
 She watches, with closest scrutiny, over all that 
 concerns the doctrine, the morals, the ceremonies, 
 and the discipline ot the Church, in every quarter 
 of the globe. With eagle eye she detects every 
 variation from either; and the anathemas of Rome 
 are ever ready to rebuke them. Yet here are two 
 books — only tivo, out of one hundred similar — 
 widely circulated amongst her people, recommend- 
 ed by her Bishops; nay, written by ber own most 
 orthodox and distinguished sons, (and thus, for all 
 practical purposes, bearing the highest sanction of 
 the Church); which openly and deliberately incul- 
 cate the most flagitious crimes, the darkest treach- 
 ery, the cruellest massacres — as sacred duties to 
 God and to the Church. Why are they not con- 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 45 
 
 demned — suppressed? Milton, Bacon, Addison, 
 Locke, Robertson, Hallam—every name that has 
 thrown a lustre over English literature — all that is 
 loftiest in Poetry, profoundest in Philosophy, most 
 instructive in History; nay, our good old English 
 Bible itself, has been marked by the Inquisitors — 
 loaded with the anathemas of Rome, and prohibited 
 as unfit to be read. But here Murder is taught as 
 a duty; Persecution is lauded as a virtue. The 
 baptized sons of the church (sons — though way 
 ward and rebellious)are to be butchered — nay, have 
 been butchered — by thousands in the name of reli- 
 gion. Yet there is no voice of stern rebuke, or deep 
 remonstrance, or mild entreaty from our holy mo- 
 ther. The Doctrine of Butchery circulates — the 
 work of butchery goes on. But the Papal thun- 
 ders slumber — the Papal Bull is dumb. In the 
 light then of the evidence adduced already this 
 evening, I do not hesitate to charge it upon Rome, 
 that all the blood shed by this infernal principle, 
 is upon her skirts. In the name of those mur- 
 dered millions, I arraign her to-night before the 
 grand inquest of the nations, and the bar of Eter- 
 nal Justice, as guilty in the first degree — if not as 
 principal, yet as accessory — as particeps criminis> 
 in every case privy before the fact — privy after the 
 fact, and throughout the whole, aiding and abetting 
 by her counsel — shielding by her power and re- 
 warding by her smiles. 
 
 But let us proceed to the practical interpretation 
 of this dogma, in the history of the world. I sjiall 
 not detain you with the horrible details. The broad, 
 general facts are^writlen in letters of blood and fire 
 
46 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 upon the page of history, and can never be erased. 
 There they stand, undented and undeniable; nay, 
 are not the living memorials of these persecutions 
 scattered all over the world, as if Providence had 
 designed that the testimony should be as universal 
 as the crime was appalling; that every mountain 
 might find a tongue, and every valley lift up its 
 voice, and the whole creation cry aloud against this 
 violation of the laws of nature and humanity? I 
 doubt not there are present here, this evening, at 
 least one hundred from among ourselves, who, ei- 
 ther in their immediate or remoter ancestors, have 
 suffered from these persecutions; murdered; driven 
 from their homes; their goods confiscated; their 
 houses burned over them at midnight; or in some 
 other form made to suffer the terrible vengeance of 
 this ruthless power. There is not a city in all 
 Protestant Europe, where the exiled Hugonot may 
 not, at this day, be found; and, in this land of ours, 
 what a long and bright array of noble nnmes might 
 I not enumerate this evening, — the Hugers, the 
 Grimkes, the Ramseys, of the South, — not to men- 
 tion the representatives now living in our own city, 
 of old Hugonot families, whose decapitated names 
 still retain enough to indicate their noble origin, 
 and at least remain a living and abiding type of 
 the sufferings their families endured, when driven 
 into long exile from the fair plains of their own 
 beautiful France, by the savage cruelty of their fe- 
 rocious persecutors. It hath been calculated that 
 at least fifty millions of human beings have fallen 
 victims to this relentless principle— fifteen hundred 
 thousand Moors and two millions of Jews in Spain 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 47 
 
 alone. Strike from these numbers as you may, 
 and enough remain to sicken the heart, and curdle 
 the blood with honor. A Catholic Historian in- 
 forms us that, in the Netherlands alone, in thirty- 
 eight years, the number of those who were hanged, 
 beheaded, burned, and buried alive for Heresy, 
 was at least fifty thousand. The Abbe Condilac 
 informs us that, on tSt. Bartholomew's nighty sev- 
 enty thousand were murdered in Paris, while other 
 accounts increase the number to an hundred thou- 
 sand; and, during the subsequent butcheries, it has 
 been calculated that nine hundred thousand Protes- 
 tants lost their lives in France, while it is well as- 
 certained, that the Revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantz expelled near one million from their homes, 
 almost depopulated some of the most populous cities 
 of Southern France, crippled her manufactures, 
 filled whole regiments of foreign armies with her 
 exiled subjects, and, by a righteous retribution, 
 inflicted upon her national prosperity and power a 
 blow from which she has never since recovered. 
 The Spanish Inquisition, in a period of a little more 
 than three hundred years, punished, in various 
 ways, — imprisonment, torture, death, — from four 
 hundred and fifty to five hundred thousand men. 
 "But why charge upon the doctrines of the Church, 
 or upon the Church herself, the cruelties inflicted 
 by the civil government, or by the passions of the 
 people, in these different lands?" Grant the truth 
 of the proposition upon which this question is 
 manifestly based, yet it does not in the slightest 
 degree affect my argument. I am now inquiring 
 into the practical effect of this principle upon all 
 
48 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 who embrace it — the natural, spontaneous, univer- 
 sal interpretation, by the Priesthood and the People, 
 where other causes do not interfere; and I summon, 
 this night, as witnesses on my behalf, the tens of 
 thousands employed in these persecutions, the rail- 
 lions of their nation who authorized and sustained 
 them in it, the public authorities of the Church, 
 who sanctioned by their approbation, and consecra- 
 ted with their blessing, the ghosts of those mur- 
 dered millions in their blood and gore — I summon 
 all to testify, that this has been the prevalent, 
 the practical interpretation of the doctrine. 
 
 But is not the Church involved directly? Let 
 us see. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew! — a word 
 in which all horrors meet and blend! When Mira- 
 beau would awe down the aspirations of the Priest- 
 hood, and of the haughty Aristocracy with whom 
 they were in league, and make the blood of his au- 
 dience alternately boil with indignation and curdle 
 with horror, he would shake that huge head of his, 
 and fix his fiery eye, and point his uplifted finger to 
 the very window of the Palace from which Charles 
 IX. issued his infernal orders on that bloody 
 night, and, in his deepest tones, would whisper, 
 "St. Bartholomew!" 
 
 When the infuriated mob, in the French Revo- 
 lution, gave in some small proportion to the Priest- 
 hood the same chalice of tears of blood which they 
 had so often mingled to the brim for others, and 
 vainly strove to rival for a season the demoniac 
 cruelties which they for centuries had practised, 
 they murmured darkly to each other as they pass- 
 ed, "Remember St. Bartholomew," "They sang 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 49 
 
 last night the same Hymn which prepared the mas- 
 sacre of St. Bartholomew," "Remember, remem- 
 ber St. Bartholomew." All the furies of Hell 
 eemed that night to hover over Paris; each sev- 
 eral crime that hath stained the annals of our race, 
 brought its own hue of blackness to heighten the 
 accumulated horrors of the scene. Hypocrisy — 
 Treachery — Falsehood — Perjury — Cowardice — 
 Cruelty — Fratricide — Murder — Abused Friend- 
 ship—Violated Confidence — Broken Oaths — Help- 
 less and Confiding Innocence butchered at the 
 Fireside and the Altar — every crime which God 
 and man abhor— which Religion denounces and 
 Nature shudders at — all were gathered into that 
 single night, and over all was thrown the sanctity 
 of Religion. They celebrated High Mass to pie- 
 pare them for the work of death. The very bell 
 that calls our childhood to the house of God for 
 prayer on holy days, was tolled as a signal 
 for the Butchery, and the cries of murdered 
 thousands mingled with the voice of fanatic prayer 
 and praise. And how was all this received at 
 Rome? If Paris was drunk with Blood, Rome was 
 still more drunken with Joy. The gray head of 
 the old Admiral Coligny — one of the noblest and 
 bravest men that ever fought for a cowardly and 
 perjured Prince, or died for the rights of con- 
 science — was embalmed in precious spices, and 
 borne (like the head cf John the Baptist, on a 
 charger, to Herod and his chief men,) to the great 
 World-Butcher at Rome. The messenger who 
 bore the joyful tidings received a thousand crowns 
 for his reward. The Pope and all his Cardinals 
 
50 THE RIGHT OP 
 
 marched in solemn and devout procession to St. 
 Mark, and sang Te Deum for the Butchery — 
 
 " Called on God to bless 
 
 Damnations's deeds and works of devilishness." 
 
 Nay, the Pope had a triumphant medal struck, in 
 memory of the event. On the one side was the 
 Pope's Head, with this inscription written in Latin, 
 "Gregorious xin. Pontifex Maximus;" and on the 
 other, a Destroying Angel, with the Cross in one 
 hand, and a SwOrd in the other, slaying the Pro- 
 testants, and this inscription, "Hugonotorum Stra- 
 ges." The Slaughter of the Hugonots! Oh, Gre- 
 gory! Gregory ! Thou thirteenth of the name!— 
 why strike that medal to record thine infamy? Did 
 you think it could ever be forgotten? Is it not en- 
 graven here, deep in the hearts of men? Is it not 
 recorded there, high in the Archives of Heaven? 
 Has not the Echo of it gone far and wide over the 
 Earth, and its loud reverberations, as they roll down 
 the waste of centuries, and gather fresh echos from 
 each noble and manly bosom, have they not long 
 since rung the Knell of Papal Supremacy and Pa- 
 pal Power? 
 
 But again: The Inquisition! "The cruelties of 
 the Inquisition," say the apologists of Rome, "have 
 been greatly exaggerated, both as to their number 
 and their enormity; nay, the very secresy which 
 veiled their proceedings renders it impossible to 
 ascertain the truth of the charges against them." 
 This is surely the apology of the murderer, who, 
 when arrested for numerous and diabolic deeds of 
 blood, should acknowledge the fact of frequent 
 bloodshed, yet charge the witnesses with perjury 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 51 
 
 because he did his work at midnight, and no eye 
 but the eye of God had seen the numbers that he 
 slew. But the apology, poor as it is, is not true. 
 God is terrible in his Justice, and the eye which 
 beholds the deeds of darkness, is united with an 
 arm that can rend the veil of secrecy, and drag 
 out hideous crimes to the gaze and the execration 
 of mankind. The French troops twice broke in- 
 to the dungeons of the Inquisition, and all that im- 
 agination had conceived or terror described, or 
 credulity believed — or madness, in its wildest par- 
 oxysms, had darkly muttered — was equalled, if not 
 surpassed, by the terrible reality. Four hundred 
 persons were found confined in one, and among 
 them forty females, imprisoned without even a 
 charge of heresy, and for purposes which they 
 shuddered to reveal. "But the Spanish Inquisi- 
 tion was not a Roman Institution, and the fault lies 
 at the door of the cruel and bigotted civil govern- 
 ors of Spain." For answer, we would simply in- 
 quire, "What was the Inquisition? Was it a civil 
 or ecclesiastical institution? Did it arrest men for 
 treason or for heresy? Who appointed its officers? 
 Who authorized their proceedings? Who threw 
 an impenetrable veil of secresy over their darkest, 
 bloodiest deeds, and lent to their persons and their 
 office, that awful and mysterious sanction of Reli- 
 gion, which made men speak in whispers, as they 
 approached; and when they heard, even in their 
 most secret retirement, of some new arrest for her- 
 esy, made "the boldest hold his breath for a time." 
 Was it not the Pope? Who alone could visit their 
 dungeons, arrest their sentences and punish their 
 
£2 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 -crimes? The Pope. But, did he? No. The 
 cries of the suffering victims came to Rome, and 
 it was music to his ears; the smoke of burning 
 hetacombs was wafted to the Palace of St. Peter, 
 and was a sweet savor in his nostrils. It is the 
 nature of all beasts of piey, that the sight or taste 
 of blood converts desire into uncontrollable fury. 
 So it was with Pope Paul the Third. He could no 
 longer yield to the Spanish monks, tho exclusive 
 enjoyment of torture. He removed the Inquisi- 
 tion to Rome — proclaimed himself chief Inquisitor 
 for all the world. He claimed a monopoly in 
 blood — took out a patent right for murder — to do 
 it at the shortest notice — on the slightest pretexts, 
 in the most terrific forms, and after the Gddliest 
 fashion, with saintly processions and solemn sighs 
 and groans, and all the imagery of terror; that thus 
 the sufferings of the sinner here might be a live- 
 ly and edifying type of the horrors of the damned. 
 What shall we say of the persecuting civil govern- 
 ment now? Behold, here it is at Rome,thecentre of 
 unity — where all civil and ecclesiastical power are 
 happily united in the chair of St. Peter, and di- 
 vine infallibility guides and harmonizes all. Was 
 it not here — in Rome, that Galileo was arraigned 
 — tried — convicted, and by a decision, in which 
 brutal ignorance was blended with savage barbar- 
 ity, condemned to the dungeons of the Inquisition? 
 And for what? For teaching that men might mur- 
 der their neighbors, on account of heresy? For 
 any violation of faith or morals? No! — For daring 
 to interpret God's works, as Luther did his word, 
 and teaching that the Earth was not the centre of 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 53 
 
 the Universe, but revolves around the Sun! Here 
 it is easy to perceive how the central error of the 
 Papal System necessarily extends its influence over 
 all earthly interests, and rears its gigantic form, 
 clothed with terror and dripping with blood, di- 
 rectly in the pathway of all human improvement 
 — of all free inquiry and independent action, in 
 Science and Government, as well as in Religion. 
 
 The length of our preceding remarks will re- 
 quire us to pass with great rapidity over that por- 
 tion of our subject which still remains to be consi- 
 dered. We can not pause even to mention the 
 various Papal Bulls, in which his Holiness has con- 
 descended to consign, with the most hideous curses, 
 various obnoxious individuals to eternal torments. 
 You all remember, that he has extended, again and 
 again, (in the Bull, "bi Coenam Domini" for in- 
 stance, which is repeated publicly every year at 
 Rome) the same awful execiation against the whole 
 Protestant World. He has pursued us with his 
 curses to the remotest quarters of the Globe — as 
 far as the reverberations of the Papal thunders 
 reach. He "has cursed us, in every article and par- 
 ticle of the man — most scientifically, most psycho- 
 logically, most anatomically. In every limb of the 
 body, and every faculty of the soul; in every bone, 
 muscle, sinew, tendon, joint, ligament; in every 
 nerve, vein, artery, gland, fibre, tissue; in every 
 organ, and in every function of each organ; cursed 
 us from the crown of the head to the sole of the 
 foot; cursed us through time; and through all eter- 
 nity cursed us; a curse so ferocious in the spirit 
 which it breathes, so wildlv terrible in its frantic 
 b2 
 
54 THE EIGHT OF 
 
 exaggerations, that even Grecian Tragedy, in the 
 boldest efforts of creative genius, when she would 
 pourtray human passion, stung to superhuman rage 
 by the avenging furies, has nothing half so horrible. 
 These Bulls of the Popes, when not rejected by 
 the Church, are admitted to be the authorized ex- 
 position of her principles. 
 
 Of the Councils to which I might refer in con- 
 firmation of these views, I shall notice only the 
 fourth Lateran Council, and that which met at 
 Constance. Concerning both of these, it was ad- 
 mitted by Dr. Crotty, on oath before a committee 
 of the House of Commons, that they had passed 
 persecuting edicts. It is admitted, on all hands, 
 that at Constance John Huss was tried and burned 
 for heresy, and this in violation of the Emperor's 
 safe conduct, or written. imperial promise that he 
 should not be injured. But say our Papal adver- 
 saries, "The Council only condemned him — it was 
 'the Emperor who burned him." Grant the truth 
 of the apology, and to what does it amount? That 
 the Emperor was executioner for the Council! It 
 is the difference between the guilt of the Judge 
 who unjustly condemns, and that of the Sheriff who 
 executes the judgment!. Did not the Council declare 
 the safe conduct of the Emperor void! Void as 
 to what? Surely as to the purpose for which it 
 was given. Arid what was this purpose? Not to 
 prevent an invesigation of his doctrines; (it was 
 to insure this that the safe conduct was given;) but 
 to save his life. In declaring the safe conduct 
 void, therefore they declared that his life must be 
 taken. This simple reasoning from the acknow- 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 55 
 
 ledged facts, involves the Council in all the guilt of 
 his murder. But we are not left to inference on 
 this point. There is a subsequent decree of the 
 same Council, in which they deliberately assume 
 the whole guilt of that perfidious and cruel trans- 
 action, and brand every man as a heretic and trai- 
 tor who disapproves any part of the procedure. It 
 seems there was a murmur of indignation and hor- 
 ror through the crowd — and men whispered darkly 
 to each other that the Emperor's safe conduct to 
 John Huss had been basely violated. After reci- 
 ting these facts, the Council proceed to say: "Yet 
 the aforesaid John Huss, by his pertinacious oppo- 
 sition to the orthodox faith, had rendered himself 
 incapable of any safe conduct or privilege; nor 
 could any faith or promise be observed with him, 
 by any law, natural, divine or human, in preju- 
 dice of the Catholic Faith: therefore, the aforesaid 
 Holy Synod, by the tenor of these presents, declares 
 that the aforesaid invincible Prince did what was 
 lawful, and what became his royal majesty, respect- 
 ing the said John Huss, notwithstanding the above 
 mentioned safe conduct, and decrees and ordains 
 for each and every true Christian, that heieafter 
 no one shall detract or speak injuriously of the Sa- 
 cred Council, or his royal majesty, concerning the 
 transactions, in relation to the said John Huss. But 
 whoever shall do to the contrary, let him be pun- 
 ished without mercy, as a favorer of heretical 
 pravity, and guilty of treason." 
 
 We shall now give you the persecuting decrees 
 of the fourth Lateran Council, not in the revolting 
 language of the original, but as softened, palliated 
 
56 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 and veiled over by the r ingenious plausibility of 
 Bishop England: "We now come," says his Grace, 
 "to examine what are called the 'persecuting lawn 
 of our Church." 
 
 "In the year 1215, at the Council of Lateran," certain he- 
 resies were condemned by the first canon. 
 
 " In its third canon it excommunicates those heretics, ajid 
 declares them to be separated from the body of the church. 
 Then follows a direction, that the heretics so ^condemned are 
 to be given up to the secular powers, or to their bailiffs, to be 
 duly punished. This direction continues to require of all 
 bishops and others having authority, to make due search 
 within their several districts for those heretics, and if they 
 will not be induced to retract their errors, desires that they 
 should be delivered over to be punished. There is an in- 
 junction then to all temporal lords to cleanse their dominions 
 by exterminating those heretics: and if they will not, within 
 a year from having been so admonished by the church, cleanse 
 their lands of this heretical filth, they shall be deprived if 
 they have superior lords, and if they be superior lords and 
 be negligent, it shall be the duty of the metropolitan and his 
 provincial bishops to excommunicate them, and if any one of 
 those lords paramount so excommunicated for this negligence 
 shall continue during twelve months under the excommuni- 
 cation, the metropolitan shall certify the same to the pope, 
 who, finding admonition useless, shall depose this prince, and 
 absolve his subjects from their oaths of fealty, and deliver the 
 territory over to Catholics, and who having exterminated the 
 heretics shall remain in peaceable possession." 
 
 In defence of this barbarous edict, by which 
 whole districts were consigned to fire and^sword, 
 for no other reason given, but the crime of heresy, 
 his Grace urges, Frst, that the Council had no 
 right, human or divine, to pass it. Strange absurd- 
 ity, indeed! Why, this is the very charge we bring 
 against it! Would it not have better suited his 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 57 
 
 purpose to prove that they had an undoubted right, 
 and only erred in the mode of exercising it? 
 
 Secondly, That it was designed only to murder 
 these especial heretics, and not extended unto all. 
 But is not this the nature of every iniquitous deci- 
 sion, that it affects only those whom it does affect? 
 Besides, do numbers affect principles? Has Right, 
 political or moral, become a matter of arithmetical 
 calculation? If Albigenses and VValdenses may be 
 robbed and murdered for heresy, why not Armi- 
 nians, Lutherans, Calvinists? 
 
 Thirdly, That this was a decision of the Lay- 
 men present, and not of the Infallible Council. 
 Answer. First — It is a mere conjecture at best, 
 and does not profess to rest on any historical basis. 
 Second — It is contradicted by the Record, which 
 gives it as a canon of the Council; as -such, it is 
 quoted by Bishop England himself; and this re- 
 cord, so slanderous, if false, has never been dis- 
 claimed or suppressed by the Roman Church; but, 
 at the bar of public opinion, she hath suffered judg- 
 ment to go against her, by default, upon documents 
 which, according to this statement, are forged — 
 and whether forged or genuine, need only to be 
 authoritatively disclaimed. But, Fourth: He boldly 
 asserts (with the approbation of Bishops Purcell 
 and Hughes,) that, by whomsoever issued, the de- 
 cree, in itself, is right. "I may, however, be per- 
 mitted to say, that, in my opinion, the existence of 
 civilized society required its enactment." Look 
 back, now, at the atrocious requirements of this 
 decree, and then ask yourself, Where was this au- 
 dacious avowal made? Was it in some remote cor- 
 
58 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 ner of the land, where the light of knowledge sel- 
 dom and slowly penetrates? Was it whispered un- 
 der the seal of the Confessional? Was it muttered, 
 under the influence of high excitement, in one of 
 those armed forts, which they have manned with a 
 foreign soldiery, in our own streets, to shoot our 
 own citizens? No; it was uttered in the broad light 
 of day, by one of the most distinguished Prelates 
 of the Church, in the presence of the Senators and 
 Representatives of these United States, in the Hall 
 of Representatives assembled, and with the admir- 
 ing applause of these faithful guardians of the pub- 
 lic liberties. 
 
 And what is the pretext for this unparalleled 
 atrocity, which thus, in the nineteenth century, en- 
 dorses the darkest and bloodiest deeds of the Mid- 
 dle Ages — the wholesale butchery of defenceless 
 thousands? The reason might almost excite a 
 smile upon the cheek of terror. It is, that they 
 were uncommon heretics — extremely heretical, 
 indeed — that they rejected marriage, as the Priests 
 do themselves, and were Manicheans — one branch 
 in fine, of that old Gnostic school, from whose 
 eastern philosophy sprang the whole Monkish Sys- 
 tem, with its convents and nunneries, and half the 
 follies which Popery has substituted for the Gos- 
 pel. But the pretext, foolish as it is, is worse than 
 foolish. It is absolutely false — false as the pur- 
 pose for which it was invented is execrable. — 
 There never lived, since the days of the Apostles 
 — unless, perhaps, we ma}' - except our Puritan fa- 
 thers — there never ^breathed upon the face of the 
 earth, which they blessed with their presence — a 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 59 
 
 holier, purer, more religious race. They had the 
 Bible in their memories, which they dared not 
 keep in their houses — their very women and chil- 
 dren refuted Bishops by quoting at pleasure from 
 God's word — and I could recite this evening, for 
 an hour in your hearing, whole passages from Ca- 
 tholic writers, attesting the spotless innocence of 
 this butchered and then slandered people. But 
 these have ever been the tactics of persecution — 
 first, to murder and then to slander-— to destroy 
 one's goods, and then his character. The wolf, 
 when he would devour the lamb, charged the lat- 
 ter with polluting the stream which he had him- 
 self defiled. The serpent, before he swallows his 
 prey, covers over with his own filthy slime, the 
 crushed limbs of the victim which he hath stran- 
 gled with his folds. Nay, it is curious to remark, 
 that the most enormous crimes ever hinted against 
 these innocent followers of Christ, as a prerext for 
 this wholesale butchery, are borrowed from the an- 
 cient accusations, made against the early Chris- 
 tians, by their heathen persecutors. "Those Chris- 
 tians are atheists and despisers of the gods," said the 
 Priest — "And enemies of Caesar," cried the mag- 
 istrate. "In their midnight assemblies, are exhi- 
 bited scenes of licentiousness, at which the day 
 would blush" — exclaims one. "And in their hel- 
 lish orgies, they devour young children, and swear 
 horrid oaths as they drink their young blood," re- 
 plies another. "Yes, and I saw it," swears a third. 
 "Away with such men from the face of the earth," 
 cry all together — "the good of society requires 
 their destruction." 
 
60 THE RIGHT OF 
 
 And now, "Watchman! what of the night?" 
 Shall this doctrine of darkness once more over- 
 spread the globe? Shall this colossal tyranny once 
 more tread down the nations beneath its ponderous 
 footsteps, crushing the rights of conscience, stifling 
 all freedom of inquiry, and bringing back "the 
 reign of Night, and Night's daughter, Ignorance? " 
 We answer, earnestly, solemnly, with deep convic- 
 tion, with calm yet firm assurance, NO. In the 
 name of Humanity and Religion; in the name of 
 Outraged Reason and Violated Rights; in the 
 name of our dead Fathers, and our unborn Chil- 
 dren; in the name of God, our Creator, and of the 
 whole Human Race, our brethren, we answer, NO. 
 From the Heavens and from the Earth; from the 
 distant Past; from the hopeful Present; from the 
 depths of the unfathomable Future; from the graves 
 of martyred millions; from every field where Free- 
 dom hath been cloven down, or Tyranny hath 
 erected her trophies; where Religion has had her 
 martyrs, or Bigotry hath offered up her victims, 
 Old History lifts up her warning voice, and Pro- 
 phecy utters her awful denunciations, and angelic 
 voices mingle with the Jubilee of Earth, as the 
 loud response comes sweeping over land and sea, 
 like the roar of many waters — like the peal of ten 
 thousand thunders — NO. "Babylon the Great 
 
 IS FALLEN — FALLEN — FALLEN!" 
 
 True — there is a momentary revival — a terrible 
 death-struggle. A violent rush of the accumula- 
 ted blood from the convulsed heart to the remotest 
 extremities. It is the way of all Superstitions — 
 they die hard. The expiring lamp blazes up bright- 
 
PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 61 
 
 ly, in its socket, before it is extinguished forever. 
 The dying giant lifts himself fiercely on his couch 
 — looks wildly around in his fury' — starts to his 
 feet, brandishes once more his brawny limbs, and 
 sinks down with a groan. It was the energy of 
 spasm, and not of healthy life. The old heathen 
 Superstition' died just so; its hands red with Chris- 
 tian blood. A spasmodic^revival after a long de- 
 cline — apparently vigorous to the last. So well 
 does the hectic of decay sometimes mimic the 
 bloom of youth — and the mad energy of incurable 
 disease and approaching dissolution, often surpass, 
 for a season, the mightiest efforts of heroic courage 
 and manly strength! c