TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION; WITH Notes and Illustrations. BY THOMAS MOORE, EsQ. Author of" Captain Rock's Memoirs," etc., etc. BALTIMORE: PUBLISHED BY JOHN MURPHY & CO. 182 BALTIMORE STREET. k~ APEO 4EF OF THEIR ANCIENT, N ION FA1 is IN ty of Tradition; 5. A Corporeal Presence in the Eucharist, and 6. The Sacrifice of the Mass. Who can wonder if, after all this, I despaired of ridding myself of Popery? Heaving a heavy sigh, as I closed my ponderous folios, and with a sort of oppressed sensation, as if the Pope were himself bodily on my back, I went to bed feeling much as Sinbad the Sailor would have done, if, after having shaken off, as he thought, the trou. blesome little old Man of the Sea, he felt the legs of the creature again fastening round his neck. CHAPTER VI. Makingthe sign of the Cross.--Tertuilian.--Veneration of Images.-- Prayers for the Dead.-Determination to find Protestantism somewhere. ON the following morning I rose,-thanks to the recruiting power of sleep,-somewhat recovered from the rebuffs of the few preceding days, and feeling, on the whole, as well and Pro. testant as could be expected. At least, my horror of returning to Popery was as strong as ever; though my chances of becoming a good Protestant,-or, indeed, finding out what a good Protestant was,-had become all but desperate. I was, therefore, pretty much in the " unhoused condition" of that sect of heretics, called Basilidians, who described themselves as being no longer Jews, but still not yet Christians. Of the disagreeable, but apostolic, practice of weekly fasting I have already spoken; but there was another Popish custom, against which, as a badge of anile superstition, I still more indignantly rebelled;-and this was the practice of making the sign of the Cross on the forehead, after grace, at meals. The feeling of shame with which, in my youth, I used to perform this overt act of Popery, in the presence of Protestants, I shall never forget.* Nor do I appear to have been,.in this feeling, at all singular among my fellow-Catholics, as I have observed that, ever since the two Religions have come to be on dining terms with each other, the practice has been almost wholly discontinued, insomuch that he must be a primitive Catholic indeed, who, in the present times, would venture to bless himself (as the operation is called) in good company. " This, at least," said I to myself, pettishly, as I opened a huge volume of Tertullian,--( this monk's trick, at least, can * It appears from occasional rebukes, in the Fathers, on this subject, that. a similar shame of being seen to make the sign of the cross was not unknown even among ancient Catholics.-" Let us not be ashamed (says St. Cyril) to confess Him who was crucified; let the apa', (the sign of the cross) be confidently made upon the forehead with the finger." 24 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN assuredly never have received any sanction from the orthodox Christians of the early Church." The words had scarcely passed my lips, when, on turning to this Father's account of the modes and customs of his fellow-Christians, I read, to my astoundment, as follows:-" We sign ourselves with the sign of the cross ir the forehead, whenever we go from home or return, when we put on our clothes or our shoes, when we go to the bath, or sit down to meat, when we light our candles, when we lie down and when we sit." Here was crossing enough, God knows,-cross ing enough, in a single day of Tertullian's, to serve the most particular old Catholic lady in 411 Ireland for a week. There now remained little else to fill up the measure of what are called Popish superstitions but Veneration of Images and Prayers for the Dead;-and to both these I found the same eminent Father lending his sanction. In speaking of the wife who survives her husband, he desires that she should " pray for her husband's soul, solicit for him refreshment, and offer on the anniversaries of his death." In another place, too, we find him tracing this practice to apostolical traditions, not enforced, as he says, by the positive words of Scripture, but delivered down from his predecessors;-thus not only upholding the papistical usage of praying for the Dead, but deriving his authority for it through that equally papistical channel, Tradition? With respect to Images, the use of which, as memorials, was derived also by the early Christians from tradition, a passing sentence of Tertullian, in which he mentions, as though it were of common occurrence, the pictures of Christ upon the communion.cups,* is a sufficient proof that the use of images had been, at the time he wrote, long prevalent. There appears little doubt, indeed, that Reformed eyes would have been shocked by such " idolatrous" representations, not only in the second cen. tary of Christianity, but most probably from its very earliest periods.t From the same fondness for religious memorials, we find St. Clement of Alexandria, in the same century, recommending to Christians to wear the figure of a fish engraved on their rings,-the fish being a symbol of the name of Christ.4 * In a curious work on the Eucharistic Cups of the ancient Christians, (by Doughty,) the author has collected, with much industry, an account of the different materials of which these vessels were formed, from wood up to crystal, onyx, &c., and among the images upon them he particularly specifies that of the Crucified Saviour, and the good Shepherd carrying the lamb on his shoulders. f In the year 814, when Leo, the Armenian, assembled several bishops in order to induce them to break images, Euthymius, metropolitan of Sardis, thus addressed him:-" Know, sire, that for eight hundred years and more since Christ came into the world, he has been painted and adored in his image. Who will be bold enough to abolish so ancient a tradition?" I Clem. Alexand. Opera curA Potteri, p. 288. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. ZC I had now, in addition to the six " plague-spots of Popery," which I had already, in this her virgin period, counted on the fair face of the Church, to number also the three following,viz. 7. Prayers for the )ead.-8. Veneration of Images. And 9. Crossing, without end! Assuredly, any one less determined than myself to find Protestantism somewhere, would have given up the chase in despair. But I was still resolved to persevere. I had bid too solemn a farewell to Popery to allow of my revoking the step now with a good grace. Besides, it is but fair to con fess,-what I ought perhaps to have confessed somewhat sooner, -that, in addition to a very conscientious desire of exchanging my religion for a better, I had also some motives of a more mundane and, I may add, tender nature, which had considerable weight in determining me to become a Protestant as soon as possible;-motives which, though of that class usually styled private and delicate, I shall, in some future chapter, venture to communicate to the reader. CHAPTER VII. Great dearth of Protestantism.-Try Third and Fourth Centuries.--St. Cyprian.-Origen.--Primacy of St. Peter and the Pope.--St. Jerome.List of Popish abominations. THOUGH I had now pretty well convinced myself that if, as Protestants assure us, the pure original of their Creed is to be found in the first ages, it must be found there in some such modest and unobtrusive shape as that of a certain tragic author's " moon behind a cloud," I did not, even yet, allow myself to despair of catching, at least, a glimpse of this retired luminary. I therefore continued my Inquest, and, summoning the Fathers of the two following centuries before me, resolved to try whether, by dint of close cross-questioning, I should be able to detect a single Protestant among them. But no; the answer of all was the same,-they belonged to the one Catholic Church; to that Church, says St. Cyprian, " which, imbrued with the light of the Lord, sends forth her rays over the whole earth." When asked to name the centre from which this Catholic light radiates, the same Saint points to Rome, to the Chair of Peter, and " the pri-. cipal Church (as he says emphatically) whence the Sacerdotal Unity took its rise."-Ep. 55. Thus foiled, I flew to Origen, with somewhat, perhaps, of a hope that, being but a questionable Saint, he might prove a good Protestant. But my success was no better; I found him as eager for the Primacy of St. Peter and the Pope as his brethren, 3 26 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN and, on the subject of exclusive salvation, as Catholic as need be: "Let no one," he says, " persuade, let no one deceive him. self; out of this house, that is, out of the Church, there is no sal. vation."-Hom. 3 in Josue. By St. Jerome this monopoly of' heaven was, I saw, asserted with no less vigor:-" I know that the Church is founded upon Peter, that is, on a Rock. Who. ever eateth the lamb out of that house, is a profane man. Whoever is not in the Ark shall perish by the flood."-Ep. 14 ad Dam. To a wight, like me, just tottering upon the edge of said Ark,-if not already off,-this metaphoric hint was comfortable ' On all those Popish points of belief and practice which, as 1 have shown, were sanctioned by the Fathers of the two First Centuries, I found the doctrine of those of the Third and Fourth precisely the same;-only put forth more copiously in detail, and enforced by richer stores of ingenuity and learning. To bring forward, indeed, all the testimonies that might, but too triumphantly, be cited to prove that, in those times, Christianity and Popery were convertible terms, would be to transcribe the greater part of the writings of the four first ages, from the simple Hermas down to the learned and rhetorical St. Chrysostom. I shall therefore content myself with adding to what I have already said of the Primitive times, a few specimens of the doctrine held by the leading Fathers of the third and fourth centuries, on some of the principal points at issue between the Church of Rome and her opponents. AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH.-TRADITION. Tertullian.*-" To know what the Apostles taught, that is, what Christ revealed to them, recourse must be had to the Churches which they founded, and which they instructed by word of mouth and by their Epistles."-De Prcescrip. c. 21. " Of these (certain practices in the administration of Baptism) and other usages, if you ask for the written authority of the Scriptures, none will be found. They spring from Tradition, which practice has confirmed and obedience ratified."-De Co rona Militis, c. 3, 4. " To the Scriptures, therefore, an appeal must not be made....... the question is, to whom was that doctrine committed by which we are made Christians? for where this doctrine and this faith shall be found, there will be the truth of the Scriptures and their expositions, and of all Christian Traditions."-De Prescrip. c. 19. Origen.--" As there are many who think they believe what Christ taught, and some of these differ from others, it becomes necessary that all should profess that doctrine which came down * This Father, having embraced Christianity about the year 185 and died in 216, is usually claimed as belonging alike to both Centuries. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 27 from the Apostles, and now continues in the Church. That rlone is truth which in nothing differs from ecclesiastical and apostolical tradition."-Pref. lib. 1. de Princip. "As often as the heretics produce the Canonical Scriptures in which every Christian agrees and believes, they seem to say, Lo! with us is the word of truth. But to them (the heretics) we cannot give credit, nor depart from the frst and ecclesiastical tradition. We can believe only as the succeeding Churches of God have de. livered."-Tract. 29 in Mat. Lactantius.-" The Catholic Church alone retains the true worship. This is the source of truth, this is the dwelling of faith."-Inst. 1. 4. c. 30. Cyprian.-" It is easy to minds that are religious and simple to lay aside error, and to discover truth: for if we turn to the source of Divine tradition, error ceases."*-Ep. 63. Eusebius.-"- Which truths, though they be consigned to the Sacred Writings, are still, in a fuller manner, confirmed by the Traditions of the Catholic Church, which Church is diffused over all the earth. This unwritten Tradition confirms and seals the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures."-Dem. Evang. lib. 1. Basil.--" Among the dogmas of the Church there are some contained in the Scriptures, and some come from Tradition; but both have an equal efficacy in the promotion of piety."-De Spirit. Sanct. c. 27. " In my opinion, it is apostolical to adhere to unwritten Traditions."-Ibid. c. 29. " It is the common aim of all the enemies of sound doctrine, to shake the solidity of our faith in Christ by annulling apostolical Tradition.... they dismiss the unwritten testimony of the Fathers as a thing of no value."-Ib. c. 10. Epiphanius.--" We must look also to Tradition, for all things cannot be learned from the Scriptures." Chrysostom.--" Hence it is manifest that they (the Apostles) did not deliver all things by means of Epistles, but that they made many communications without writing; and that both are equally entitled to credence. It is a tradition, ask nofurther." -Homr. 4. in 2 Thess.t PRIMACY OF THE SUCCESSORS OF ST. PETER. Some of the strong testimonies, on this point, of St. Irenseus, St. Cyprian, &c., have already been laid before the reader. * On this passage St. Augustin remarks:-" The advice which St. Cyprian gives to recur to the Tradition of the Apostles, and thence to bring down the series to our own times, is excellent, and manifestly to be followed."-De Bapt. contra Donatist. 1. 5. c. 26. t On the passage of St. Paul: "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught whether by word, or our epistle." 28 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN Cyprian.-" Nevertheless that he (Christ) might clearly es. tablish unity, he formed one See, and by his authority fixed the origin of this same unity by beginning from one. The other apostles were accordingly, like Peter, invested with an equal participation of honor and power; but the beginning is built on unity. The Primacy is given to Peter that there might be exhibited one Church of Christ and one See."-De Unitat Eccles. Jerome.-(In a letter to Pope Damasus.) "I am following no other than Christ, united to the communion of your Holiness, that is, to the Chair of Peter. 1 know that the Church is founded upon that Rock."-Ep. 14. ad Damasum. " I cease not to proclaim, He is mine who 7emains united to the Chair of Peter." Chrysostom.-" For what reason did Christ shed his blood? Certainly, to gain those sheep the care of which he committed to Peter and his successors." SATISFACTION TO GOD BY PENITENTIAL WORKS. Cypi lan.-" The Lord must be invoked; must be appeased by our satisfaction."-De Lapsis. " Before Him let the soul bow down: to Him let our sorrow make satisfaction:..... By fasting, by tears, and by moaning, let us appease, as he himself admonishes, his indignation."-Ib. "Purge away your sins by works of justice, and by alms-deeds which may save the soul. God can pardon: he can turn away his judgment. He can pardon the penitent who implores fbrgiveness; he can accept for him the supplications of others; or should he move him more by his own works of satisfaction, and thus disarm his anger, the Lord will repair his strength, whereby he shall be invigorated anew."*-Ib. Ambrose.--" Let Christ see thee weeping, that he may say, SBlessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted' (Mat. v. 4.) Therefore did he immediately pardon Peter, be. * See Bossuet's defence of the language of St. Cyprian, on this subject, in answer to M. Jurieu. " Itfaut, dit-il (Saint Cyprian,) satisfaire a Dieu pour ses pichis; mais il faut aussi que la satisfaction soit refue par notre Seigneur. 11 faut croire que tout ce qu'on fait n'a rien de parfait ni de suffisant en soimeme; puisqu'apres tout, quoique nous fassions, nous ne sommes que do serviteurs inutiles et que nous m'avons pas meme a nous glorifier du peu qte nous faisons, puisque, comme nous Pavons ddja rapporte tout nous vient de Dieu par J6sus Christ, en qui seul nous avons acces aupres du Pere."-.vertissemens aux Protestans. Such is the much misrepresented doctrine of Catholics on this point. The language of St. Augustin respecting this doctrine is fully as Popish as that of St. Cyprian:--"It is not enough," he says, "that the sinner change his ways, and depart from his evil works, unless by penitential sorrow, by humble tears, by the sacrifice of a contrite heart, and by alms-deeds, he make satisfaction to God for what he has committed."- -Homil. 1. T. x. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 29 cause he wept bitterly; and if thou weep in like manner, Christ will look on thee, and thy sin will be cancelled.......Let no consideration then withhold thee from doing penance. In this imitate the Saints, and let their tears be the measure of thy own."-De Pcenit. c. 10. PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. Cyril of Jerusalem.-" Then (in the Sacrifice of the Mass) we pray for the Holy Fathers and the Bishops that are dead; and in short, for all those who are departed this ife in our communion; believing that the souls of those, for whom the prayers are offered, receive very great relief, while this holy and tremendous victim lies upon the altar."-Catech. Mystag. 5. Ambrose.-(In his Funeral Oration on the two Emperors, Valentinians.) " Blessed shall you both be if my prayers can avail any thing. No day shall pass, in which I will not mention you with honor; no night in which you shall not partake of my prayers. In all my oblations I will remember you." Epiphanius.-" There is nothing more opportune, nothing more to be admired, than the rite which directs the names of the dead to be mentioned. They are aided by the Prayer which is offered for them, though it may not cancel all their faults.-We mention both the just and sinners, in order that for the latter we may obtain mercy."-Her. 55. Chrysostom.--" It is not in vain that oblations and prayers are offered and alms given for the dead. So has the Divine Spirit ordained that we might mutually assist one another."Homil. 21. " Not without reason was it ordained by the Apostle, that in celebrating the Sacred Mysteries the Dead should be remembered; for they well knew what advantage would thence be derived to them."-Homil. 3. in Epist. ad Philip.* INVOCATION OF SAINTS AND OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. Origen.-"' We may be allowed to say of all the holy men who have quitted this life, retaining their charity towards those whom they left behind, that they are anxious for their salvation, * On the subject of Prayers for the Dead there occurs an interesting passage in St. Ephrem of Edessa, which appears to have escaped the notice of my friend. In a work entitled his Testament, this pious Fathel thus speaks. -" My brethren, come to me, and prepare me for my departure, for my strength is wholly gone. Go along with me in psalms and in your prayers, and please constantly to make oblations for me. When the thirtieth day shall be completed, then remember me; for the dead are helped by the offerings of the living.--Now listen with patience to what I shall mention from the Scriptures. Moses bestowed blessings on Reuben after the third generation (Deut. xxxiii. 6.;) but, if the Dead are not aided, why was he blessed? Again, if they be insensible, hear what the apostle says:--' If the dead rise not again at all, why are they then baptized for them 2'" (1 Cor. xv. 29.) 3* 30 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN and that they assist them by their prayers and their meditatio:. with God. For it is written in the books of the Maccabees, ' This is Jeremiah, the prophet of God, who always prays for the people.'--Lib. 3. in Cant. Cantic. ' I will fall down on my knees, and, not presuming, on account of my crimes, to present my prayer to God, I will invoke all the saints to my assistance. 0 ye saints of Heaven, I beseech you with a sorrow fill of sighs and tears, fall at the feet of the Lord of Mercies for me, a miserable sinner.' "-Lib. 2. de Job. Cyprian.--" Let us be mindful of one another in our prayers, with one mind, and with one heart, in this world, and in the next, let us always pray, with mutual charity relieving our sufferings and afflictions. And may the charity of him who, by the divine favor, shall first depart hence, still persevere before the Lord; may his prayer, for our brethren and sisters, be unceasing."De Habitu Virg. Athanasius.-" Hear now, oh daughter of David; incline thine ear to our prayers.-We raise our cry to thee. Remember us, oh! most Holy Virgin, and for the feeble eulogiums we give thee, grant us great gifts from the treasures of thy graces, thou, who art full of grace.-Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Queen and Mother of God, intercede for us."-Serm. in Annunt. Hilary.-" According to Raphael, speaking to Tobias, there are Angels who serve before the face of God, and who convey to him the prayers of the suppliant. It is not the character of the Deity that stands in need of this intercession, but our infirmity does.-God is not ignorant of any thing that we do; but the weakness of man, to supplicate and to obtain, calls for the ministry of the spiritual intercession."-In Psalm 129. Basil.-(In celebrating the Feast of the Forty Martyrs.) " O ye common guardians of the human race, co-operators in our prayers, most powerfil messengers, stars of the world and flowers of Churches, let us join our prayers with yours."Horn. 19. Ephrem of Edessa.--" I entreat you, oh! Holy Martyrs, who have suffered so much for the Lord, that you would intercede for us with Him that he bestow his grace on us."-Encom. in SS. Mart. " We fly to thy patronage, Holy Mother of God; protect and guard us, under the wings of thy mercy and kindness.-Most merciful God, through the intercession of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, and of all the Angels, and of all the Saints, show pity to thy creature."-Serm. de. Laud. B. Mar Virg. RELICS AND IMAGES Hi!ary.-"- The holy blood of the Martyrs is every where IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 31 received, and their venerable bones daily bear witness."-L. contra Constant. Basil.-", If any one suffer for the name of Christ, his remains are deemed precious: and, if any one touch the bones of a martyr, he becomes partaker, in some degree, of his holiness, on account of the grace residing in them. Wherefore, 'precious in the sight of God is the death of his Saints.' "-Serm. in Psalm 115. " I receive the Apostles, the Prophets and the Martyrs. 1 invoke them to pray for me, and that by their intercession God may be merciful to me and forgive my transgressions. For this reason I revere and honor their images, especially since we are taught to do so by the tradition of the holy Apostles; and so far from these being forbidden us, they appear in our Churches."Ep. ad Julian.* Ephrem.--" The grace of the divine spirit, which works mira. cles in them, ever resides in the Relics of the Saints."-IA Encom. omnium.Mart. Ambrose.-" I honor, therefore, in the body of the Martyr, the wounds that he received in the name of Christ; I honor the memory of that virtue which shall never die; I honor those ashes which the confession of Faith has consecrated: I honor in them the seeds of eternity; I honor that body which has taught me to love the Lord, and not to fear death for his sake." -Serm. 55. Chrysostom.-" Next to the power of speech, the monuments of Saints are best adapted, when we look on them, to excite us to the imitation of their virtues. Here when any one stands, he feels himself seized by a certain force; the view of the shrine strikes on his heart; he is affected, as if he that there lies were present, and offered up prayers for him. Thus does a certain alacrity come over him, and, changed almost to another man, he quits the place. For this reason, then, has God left us the Remains of the Saints."-Lib. contra Gent. "That which neither riches nor gold can effect, the Relics of Martyrs can. Gold never dispelled diseases nor warded off death; but the bones of Martyrs have done both. In the days of our forefathers, the former happened; the latter in our own."--Homil. 67, de St. Drosid. Mart. Gregory of Nyssa.-(In his Oration on the Feast of the Martyr Theodorus.) " When any one enters such a place as this, where * In quoting this Epistle to Julian, as from the pen of St. Basil, my young friend has not shown his usual accuracy. The fragment from which the above passage is taken, though extant among the Acts of the Second Nicene Council, is given up, I believe, as spurious, by the most judicious Catholic writers; and even the zealous Baronius, though he produces the fragment forbears ~autiously from laying any stress upon it, as ajthority. 32 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN the memory of this just man and his relics are preserved, his mind is first struck, while he, views the structure and all its ornaments, with the general magnificence that breaks upon him. The artist has here shown his skill in the figures of animals and the airy sculpture of the stone, while the painter's hand is most conspicuous in delineating the high achievements of the 3Martyr....... The figure of Christ is also beheld looking down upon the scene." Nilus.--( In the chancel of the most sacred temple, towards the east let there be one and only one Cross....... Let the sacred temple be filled with pictures well executed by the most celebrated artists, representing the most remarkable events of the Old and New Testaments; that the unlettered and those who are incapable of reading the divine Scriptures may, by the sight of the picture, be instructed in the virtuous deeds of those who have served the true God, according to his own will and command."-Lib. 4, Ep. 61. CHAPTER VIII. Invocation of the Virgin.-Gospel of the Infancy, &c.-Louis XI.-Bona ventura.-St. Ambrose, St. Basil, and Doctor Doyle. IN the foregoing list, containing a few of those "abominations" of Popery, which I found sanctioned by the highest authorities of the Christian Church, there is one placed under the head of SInvocation of Saints," to which I had not before adverted, namely, the devotion (or, as Protestants will have it,) idolatry paid by Papists to the Blessed Virgin. There appears no doubt that this worship, within the due bounds to which all rational Catholics would confine it, formed a part of the devotions of Christians, from the very first ages of the Church. In the Second Century we find Irenmus, the great light of that age, attributing such power to the intercession of the Virgin with God, as to suppose her the advocate, in heaven, for the fallen mother of mankind, Eve. The Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus, a work referred to the same period, and which, though mani. festly an imposture,* may, at least, be depended upon, as an echo of the tone prevalent among the orthodox of its times, in relating the circumstances which took place previously to our Lord's nativity, gives to the Virgin simply the name of" Mary," * With this Gospel another apocryphal work, of the same high antiquity, is usually joined, to wit, the Gospel of the Birth of Mary, in which it is declared that the object of her espousals with Joseph was, not that he might make her his wife, but that he might be the guardian of her perpetual Virginity; the High Priest having said to him, "Thou art the person chosen to take the Virgir of the Lord, to keep her for him." IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 33 but immediately after that event, styles her the " Divine Mary," and adds that Churches were in those times dedicated to her honor * In the irritation which, 1 own, I could not help feeling at the discovery of this fresh proof of Popery, in the early ages of the Church, I found myself secretly wishing that it might also be in my power to detect, in those times, the same extravagant follies respecting the worship of the Virgin, which, in after ages, brought such discredit upon the religion that was made responsible for them, and by which alone, indeed, most Protestants form their judgment of the Catholic faith on this subject.t 1 allude not so much to the gross extravagances of those who have installed the Virgin as a Fourth Person of the Godhead, or to such superstitious follies as that of Louis XI, who, by a formal contract, made over to the Mother of God all right and title in the fee and privileges of the Comte de Boulogne,-not so much to these blasphemous absurdities do I allude, as to that injudicious excess of zeal which led Bonaventura and other distinguished Catholics to claim for the Virgin a rank in the scale of superior beings much higher than either reason or true piety would assign to her.t So far from finding, however, in the first ages, any sanction for such pretensions, I soon discovered that though, even then, * The minister, Jurieu, contended that the claims of the Virgin to invocation or worship were not admitted till after the decision of the Council of Ephesus, which, in opposition to Nestorius, pronounced Mary to be the Mother of God. It is well answered, however, by Bossuet, that the very Church in which that Council was held bore testimony to the honors already paid to the Virgin by its having been dedicated to her name. He refers also to a circumstance which, long before the sitting of that Council, St. Gregory of Nazianzum had related of a female martyr in the third century, who prayed to the Blessed Mary " to aid a virgin who was in peril." t The Lutheran Goetzius, assuming charitably that female saints,-Mary, Anne, Catherine, Margaret, &c., (as he enumerates them,)-form the principal object of worship with the Catholics, calls their faith "a womanish Religion"--religio muliebris. See his Meletemata Annebergensia.: The absurdity of the learned Lipsius (one of those many literati, whose whole due of fame is, as it were, discounted to them while living) in bequeathing his best fur-cloak to the Virgin on his deathbed, drew down from the Netherland wits a burst of ridicule upon his memory, which the defence of the bequest by his friend Wowerius (Assertio Lipsiani Donari) was but ill calculated to extinguish. Of the lengths to which some pious enthusiasts in the cause of the Virgin have gone, many curious instances might be collected. For example, the following Thesis, put forth by the Recollets of Liege, in 1676.-" Frequens confessio et communio, et cultus B. Virginis, etiam in iis, qui gentiliter vivunt, sunt signum predestinationis;" and, still more absurd, the assertion of a Portuguese Jesuit, Francis Mendoza, " impossibile esse ut B. Virginis cultor in seternum damnetur." These are, to be sure, wretched extravagances; but if the excess or perversion of a religious belief is to be assumed as an argument against the belief itself, far more vital points of faith than the intercessorial power of the Virgin may suffer by such logic. 0 34 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN some abuses of this worship had intruded themselves, the great teachers of Christian doctrine rebuked and denounced them as idolatrous: nor could there be given, perhaps, a more faithful exposition of all that the Catholics of the present day think and feel on this subject than is to be found in the following remarks which the great antagonist of heresies, Epiphanius, directed against some female heretics of his time by whom a more than due share of honor was paid to the Virgin:--" Her body (he says) was, I own, holy, but she was no God. She continued a Virgin, but she is not proposed for our adoration;-she herself adoring him who, having descended from heaven and the bosom of his Father, was born of her flesh........ Though, therefore, she was a chosen vessel, and endowed with eminent sanctity, still she is a woman, partaking of our common nature, but deserving of the highest honors shown to the Saints of God. -She stands before them all on account of the heavenly mystery accomplished in her. But we adore no saint: and as this worship is not given to angels, much less can it be allowed to the daughter of Ann.-Let Mary, therefore, be honored; but the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost alone be adored: let no one adore Mary."---Adv. Collyridianos* HIer. 59. Precisely such, as I conceive, is the wide and essential dis. tinction which a Catholic divine of our own days would draw between adoration and honor;-between the worship due only to God, and that devout veneration which, in common with all Christian antiquity, we should offer to her whom an inspired voice pronounced "Blessed among women," and "( the Mother of the Lord." In short, looking back from the point where I had now arrived to the whole course and results of my search through those ages, I found myself forced to confess, that the Popery of the nineteenth century differs in no respect from the Christianity of the third and fourth; and that if St. Ambrose, St. Basil, and a fbw more such "( flowers of Churches," had been able to bor. row the magic nightcaps of their contemporaries, the Seven Sleepers, and were now, after a nap of about fifteen centuries, just opening their eyes in the town of Carlow, they would find in the person of Dr. Doyle, the learned Bishop of Leighlin and Ferns, not only an Irishman whose acquaintance even they might be proud to make, but a fellow-Catholic, every iota of whose creed would be found to correspond exactly with their own. * These heretics, who were chiefly women, used to offer up to the Virgin a particular kind of cakp, or bun, called in Greek Collyris. Their grand offering, however, was a loaf, which, at a stated season of the year, they pre sented to her with much solemnity, and then each of them partook of the oblation. In this ceremony the women performed the office of Priesthood. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. CHAPTER IX. IFrayers for the Dead.-Purgatory.--Penitential discipline.-Confession.Origen.-St. Ambrose.-Apostrophe to the Shade of Father O'H. * AMONG those articles of Popery which I have enumerated as pre-existing in the creed of the Primitive Church, there are two, rather implied than mentioned, namely, a belief in Purgatory and auricular Confession, concerning which I have to offer a few brief remarks. The solemn usage of praying for the Dead can he founded only on the belief that there exists a middle state of purification and suffering through which souls pass after death, and from which the prayers of the faithful may aid in delivering them. The antiquity, therefore, of the use of Prayers for the I)e.ad (and we trace them through all the most ancient Liturgies) sufficiently proves to us how ancient was the belief on which they are founded. From the Second Book of the Maccabees (taking these Books merely in the Protestant view of them, as an un. canonical but authentic record) we learn that the ancient Jews, on this point, held the same faith as the Catholics:-" It is therefore a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins." We cannot wonder that such a belief should be thus ancient, for assuredly none can be more natural; nor, on the other hand, can any thing be less consistent either with our knowledge of human nature, or our notions of the divine, than such an absence of all gradation, both in reward and punishment, as the want of an intermediate state between heaven and hell must imply. What the Protestant divine, Paley, has said on the subject of Purgatory, appears to me to be founded on such sentiments as both reason and nature approve: " Who can bear," he asks, " the thought of dwelling in everlasting torments! Yet who can say that a God everlastingly just will not inflict them? The mind of man seeks for some resource: it finds one only in conceiving that some temporary punishment, after death, may purify the soul from its moral pollutions, and make it at last acceptable even to a Deity infinitely pure." Fully agreeing with Paley on this point, it was with some pleasure I now discovered that, from Justin Martyr down to Basil and Ambrose, all the Fathers of the four first ages concur in opinion as to the existence of such an intermediate state; the greater number of them interpreting a remarkable passage of St. Paul (1 Cor. iii. 13, 14, 15) as denoting expressly some region of purgation for the soul, where " the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is," and where, as Origen explains 36 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN the passage, " each crime shall, in proportion to its character, experience a just degree of punishment." Referring to the same passage of the Apostle, St. Ambrose says, " From hence it may be collected, that the same man is saved in part, and is condemned in part;" and, again, in a Commentary on this Epistle, he remarks:-16 The Apostle said, ' He shall be saved, yet so as by fire,' in order that his salvation be not understood to be without pain. He shows that he shall be saved indeed, but that he shall undergo the pain of fire, and be thus purified; not like the unbelieving and wicked man who shall be punished in everlasting fire."-Comment, in 1 Ep. ad Cor. With similar views it was maintained by St. Hilary (and Origen seems to have been of the same opinion) that, after the day of Judgment, all-even the Blessed Virgin herself-must alike pass through this fire, to purify them from their sins. The system of Penitential Discipline,* of which Confession forms one of the most important parts, was, as we learn from the ecclesiastical historian, Socrates, observed by the Bishops of Rome from the very earliest times; and the public penance of the Emperor Theodosius, in the great Church of Milan, proves what deference continued to be paid to the same spiritual ordi. nance, after Christianity had become the established religion of the Empire. Far different, however, were the notions of Re. pentance prevailing among the early Christians from those that have since been taught by the Apostles of the Reformation, who, in abolishing Confession, Penitential Fasting, &c., and getting rid of all that slow, humbling process of self-accusation and penance, by which the Catholic Church has, through all ages, disciplined her erring children, seem to have thought of little else than consulting the comfort of the sinner, and rendering his road to salvation short and easy. c" There is yet," says Origen, " a more severe and arduous pardon of sin by penance, when the sinner washes his couch with his tears, and when he blushes * As, in this world, the abuse of all good gifts follows as naturally on their ise as shadows do on lights, it can little surpi ise us to find that the Sacra.,nent of Penance was as much perverted from its true intention and spirit by the weak Catholics of other days, as it is, and will be, perverted by the same Aescription of Catholics to the end of time. The existence of such false notions of Penance, in his own days, is thus noticed and reprehended by St. Ambrose:--" There are some who ask for penance, that they may be at once restored to communion. These do not so much desire to be loosed as to bind the Priest, for they do not unburden their own consciences, but they burden his.... Thus you may see persons walking about in white garments, who ought to be in tears for having defiled that color of grace and innocence. Others there are who, provided they abstain from the Holy Sacraments, fancy they are doing penance. Others, while they have this in view, conclude they are licensed to sin, not aware that penance is the remedy, not the tovocative of sin."-De Panit. I. 2. c. 9. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 37 not to disclose his sin to the Priest of the Lord, and to ask a remedy.* Thus is fulfilled what the Apostle says, 'Is any man sick among you, let him bring in the Priests of the Church " (James v. 14.) Of St. Ambrose it is said, by his secretary and biographei, that " as often as any one, in doing penance, confessed his faults to him, he wept so as to draw tears from the sinner. Hie seemed to take part in every act of sorrow. But, as to the occasions or causes of the crimes which they confessed, these he revealed to no c.ne but God, with whom he interceded; leaving this good example to his successors in the Priesthood, that they should be intercessors with God, not. accusers before men."-Paulin. in Vita Ambros. The writings, indeed, of that age, abound with affecting remarks upon the sacred and* delicate duty which a Confessor has to perform, and the consoling balm he may apply to wounded and repentant spirits. " Show me bitter tears (says St. Gregory of Nyssa) that I may mingle mine with yours. Impart your trouble to the Priest, as to your Father; he will be touched with a sense of your misery. Show to him what is concealed, without blushing; open the secrets of your soul, as if you were showing to a physician a hidden disorder; he will take care of your honor and of your cure."-Serm. de Penit. How often, in reading such passages, did I call to mind my own innocent and Popery-believing days, when, as the regulai season for Confession returned, I used to set off, early in the morning, to - street Chapel, trembling all over with awe at the task that was before me, but still firmly resolved to tell the worst, without disguise. How vividly do I even, at this moment, remember kneeling down by the Confessional, and feeling my heart beat quicker, as the sliding-panel in the side opened, and I saw the meek and venerable head of the kind Father O'Hstooping down to hear my whispered list of sins. The paternal look of the old man,-the gentleness of his voice, even in rebuke, -the encouraging hopes he gave of mercy as the sure reward of contrition and reformation,-all these recollections came freshly over my mind, as I now read the touching language employed by some of the Fathers on this subject; language auch as the following, from the Homilies of Origen, which, though written when Christianity was little more than two hundred years old, is as applicable to many a Catholic Confessor of our own times, as if indited but yesterday. "Only let the sainer carefully consider to whom he should confess his sin, what is the character of the physician;-if he be one who will be reak with the weak, who will weep with the sorrowful, and who * St. Augustin also writes: "Our merciful God wills us to confess in this world that we may not be confounded in the other "'-Homn. 20. 4 38 TRAVELS OF AN IRISI GENTLEMAN understands the discipline of condolence and fellow-feeling: so that when his skill shall be known, and his pity felt, you may follow what he shall advise."- Hom[l. 2. in Psalm 27. "If we discover our sins, not only to God, but to those who may thus apply a remedy to our wounds and iniquities, our sins will be effaced by him who said, 'I have blotted out thy iniquities as a cloud, and thy sins as a mist.' "--Homil. 17. in Lucam. Shade of my revered Pastor, couldst thou have looked down upon me, in the midst of my folios, how it would have grieved thy meek spirit to see the humble little visitor of thy confessional, -him whom sometimes thou hast doomed, for his sins, to read the Seven Penitential Psalms daily,-to see him forgetting so soon the docility of those undoubting days, and setting himself up, God help him, as controvertist and Protestant t CHAPTER X. The Euchanst.-A glimpse of Protestantism.-Type, Figure, Sign, &c.Glimpse lost again.-St. Cyril of Jerusalem.-St. Cyprian.-St. Jerome -St. Chrysostom.-Tertullian. IN tracing the doctrines of Popery through the third and fourth ages, I have reserved, as may have been remarked, one of the most important of them all,-that relating lo the Eucharist, -for separate consideration; and this I have done not merely on account of the great importance of the doctrine itself, but because on this point alone could I at all flatter myself with having discovered any little glimmerings of that Protestant Christianity of which I was in search. The two first centuries, I saw clearly, must be given up as desperate; the language employed upon this subject by Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Irenseus, having abundantly convinced me that, in those apostolic times, the literal or Popish interpretation of the words, " This is my body," was the accepted doctrine; and that the Christians of the Primitive Church believed not only in the Real, corporal Presence, but in the miraculous change of substance after consecration. In the present depressed state of my hopes, however,-lowered as they were to the freezing temperature,-I would have compounded gladly for a sample of Protestantism even of a much less ancient date; and it was therefore with considerable satisfaction I had discovered in some writers of the third century the use of such expressions, in speaking of the Eucharist, as " Type," "Antitype," " Figure," &c., which seemed to afford a soft of escape from the difficulties of a real Presence into the vague and figurative substitute foi IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 39 that miracle which, on the principle of believing " made easy," has been adopted by Protestants. My seif-gratulation, however, on this discovery, was but of very short duration. In the first place, I soon found that this use of the words ' Type," " Antitype," "Sign," &c., is not confined to those few Fathers to whom the Protestants look up as authority, but that the same terms have been also applied to the Eucharist by several of those writers whose real opinions respecting the nature of that Sacrament are known to have been as transubstantiatory as Popish heart could desire. Thus the great Catechist, Cyril of Jerusalem, who, in his doctrine concerning the Real Presence, goes the full lengths of all that Rome has ever asserted on the subject, yet applies to the Eucharist the word "Type," and that in a manner which seems to bear out the opinions of those who think that the term, as thus employed by the Fathers, denoted but the external appearance, or accidents, of the Eucharistic elements. " In the type of bread (says Cyril) is given to thee the body, and in the type of wine is given to thee the blood."* In the same manrner, in one of those Liturgies which go under the name of St. Basil, we find the bread and wine offered under the name of Antitypes, while in the prayer that follows, the Holy Spirit is invoked to come down and bless the gifts and " maket the bread the body and the wine the blood of Christ." If we may rely, indeed, on the authenticity of a passage, ad. duced by Bullinger from some MS. writings of Origen,-and 1 see no reason to doubt the honesty of the Reformer, in this instance,-it would appear, that Origen foresaw the heresy that was likely to arise on this point, and thus, by referring to 'he direct words of our Saviour, endeavored to guard against it.-" He did not say (observes Origen) 'this is a symbol,' but 'this is a body;'-indicating thereby that nobody must suppose it to be a type.": Another passage, still more strongly to the same purport, is quoted by the same eminent Protestant, Bullinger, from the writings of Magnes, a Priest of Jerusalem, who lourished in the third century:--" The Eucharist is not a type of the body and blood, as some men, defective in their understanding, have babbled, but rather the body and blood."~ But, whatever may be thought of the authenticity of these passages, I found, to my sorrow, that the Catholic view of the * Ev rTV7r yap aprov MLorat rat rcopa Kcat ev TVIrco Ctvov toraTi ct At pa. t Avaudsat, which, as Suicerus acknowledges, signifies here to render, or make. t Ov yap etnr rovro cart avp9oiXov, aXX' Tovr o rr oat ipa' ICLKTIK7wS, va pri voSLiLi] Tti t1,rOY V vat. ~ OvK EariV EvXapLtrrta Trvro v Tot traroa KVaL TO7V ftparo, tndTp rtVEL Eppa4cci - irlcav wErcrrtpwpevoi TOV voVV, jaXXov Jc aSLOxa Kat aItua.--Jdvers. Theosthenenm. 40 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN matter did not want the aid of any such questionable authorities So far, indeed, from considering the Eucharist to be, itseli merely typical or symbolical, the early Christians, on the con trary, held it to be the accomplishment or reality of what had been but typical, under the Old Law. In the bread and wine offered by Melchisedek, the " Priest of the Most High God," they saw the figure or shadow of that Sacrifice which was to be in stituted, from the same elements, in the Eucharist,-the type in short, of that great mystery of which the Eucharist is the reality and the verity. " That the blessing given to Abraharr (says Cyprian) might be properly celebrated, the representation of the Sacrifice of Christ, appointed in bread and wine, preceded it; which our Lord, perfecting and fulfilling it, himself made offering of in bread and wine; and thus he, who is the plenitude, fulfilled the truth of the prefigured image." (Ep. 63, ad Ce cilium.)-Conceiving the show-bread of the Temple to have been also a prefiguration of the Eucharist, St. Jerome says, " There is as much difference betwixt the loaves offered to God in the Old Law and the body of Jesus Christ, as betwixt the shadow and the body, betwixt the image and the truth." (Comment. ii Ep. ad Tit.) It having been evidently the belief of the early orthodox Chris tians that the Eucharist had been prefigured in the offerings of the Old Law, to assert that they held this sacrament itself to be typical, is to impute to them the absurdity of saying that it is btr a type of types, a mere shadow of shadows:*-thus sinking their estimate of the importance of this Institution to even s lower and more evanescent point of value than it has been re * In a certain sense, and as far as it does not affect or qualify the belief in a Real Presence, the Catholic may with perfect consistency apply the words Figure or Symbol to the Eucharist, seeing that every sacrament, as such, must be an outward sign, and consequently a Figure or Symbol. In this sense it is that Pascal understands the terms in question, used by the Fathers; and as the view taken by so great a man of an article of faith so disputed cannot but be interesting, I shall here transcribe his own characteristically clear words:-" Nous croyons que la substance du pain 6tanl changde en celle du corps de notre Seigneur Jssus Christ, it est present reel. lement au Saint Sacrement. Voila unne des vdrit6s. Une autre est que ce.acrement est aussi une figure de la croix et de la gloire, et une commdmo. ration des deux. Voila la foi Catholique, qui comprend ces deux vdritds qui semblent opposdes. " L'hedrsie d'aujourd'hui, ne concevant pas que ce Sacrement contieni tout ensemble, et la prdsence de Jesus Christ et sa figure, et qu'il soit Sacri fice, et Commemoration de Sacrifice, croit qu'on ne peut admettre l'une de ces v6rit6s sans exclure l'autre. "Par cette raison ils s'attachent a ce point, que ce Sacrement est figuratif; et en cela ils ne sont pas hdretiques. Ils pensent que nous excluons cettn v6ritd; et de la vient qu'ils nous font tant d'objections sur les passages des Peres qui le disent. Enfin, ils nient la prtsence rdelle; et en cela ils sout httr6tiques."-Pensees, Sec. Partie. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 41 luced to by modern Sacramentarians and Arminians. That the ierv reverse, however, of all this was the case, I have just clearly shown; and how precious they held the assurance that, in place of the types and shadows of old, they had, in the Sacrifice of the New Law, a reality and a substance,* will appear from the language, ever glowing, of Chrysostom on this subject.-Asserting the Eucharist to be the accomplishment of the typical Passover, he says, " How much greater holiness becomes thee, oh! Christian, who hast received greater symbols than the Holy of Holies contained;-for you have not the Cherubim but the Lord of the Cherubim dwelling in you;-you have not the Urn, and the Manna, and the Tables of Stone, and the Rod of Aaron, but the body and blood of our Lord." (In Psalm 133.) Again, Horn. 46. he says-" This blood, even in the type, washed away sin. If it had so great power in the type,-if Death were so affrighted by the shadow, tell how it must be affrighted at the Verity itself. Truly tremendous are the mysteries of the Church; truly tremendous are our altars!" The truth is, that the use of the words Type, Figure, Sign, &c., as applied to the Eucharist, is to be found neither-in the Scriptures, nor in any of the pure Christian writers of the twfirst centuries. In the Scriptures, the Eucharistic elements arc usually denoted by the words " body" and " blood;" and the same unqualified and unevasive language descended from the Apostles to their immediate successors in the Church; among whom, "to offer," " to receive," "to eat and drink the body and blood of Christ," were as familiar phrases as "to receive the Sacrament," or to administer the Communion," are among ourselves. With Tertullian may be said to have commenced that change in the public language of the Fathers on this subject,-that circumlocution, and, not unfrequeitly, ambiguity, in their notices of this mystery,-of which before there had been no example, and of which the Protestants have, in their despair, taken ad. vantage as affording some shadow of plausibility to their arguments against the true Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. The system of secresy to which such ambiguities and, as it would seem, inconsistencies in these holy writers may be traced, forms * " We have an altar," says St. Paul, " whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle."-And yet (observes St. Thomas Aquinas on this passage) those who served the tabernacle had the figure of Jesus Christ in their Sacrifices. Where, then, would be the advantage that the Law of Grace professes to have over the Synagogue? If the Manna of the desert and the Eucharist are both alike but the image of his body, wherefore does the Saviour mark out that essential difference between them: ýt the former was but a food miraculously formed in the air which gave not life, while the latter is " the bread which cometh from heaven," and which if a y man eat of, "he shall live for ever." (John vi.)-See Conferences sur Ls.Mysteres, tom. 2, p. 279. 4* 42 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN too remarkable a feature in the annals' of the early Church, and is, indeed, too closely connected with the history of this and other Christian doctrines, to be dismissed without receiving some fur. ther consideration. CHAPTER XI. Discipline of the Secret.-Concealment of the Doctrine of the Real Presence -St. Paul.-St. Clement of Alexandria.-Apostolical Constitutions.System of secresy, when most observed. THE system to which I have referred, at the close of the pre ceding chapter, as being the principal cause of that restraint and ambiguity which are observable in the language of some of tht Fathers concerning the Eucharist, is well known among the learned by the name of the Discipline of the Secret, and by maunt is supposed to have been of apostolic origin. Among those al. leged imitations of the religious policy of the Pagans with which the Primitive Christians and the Papists have alike been re. proached, one of the most striking, as regards the former, is that distinction drawn in the early Church between the initiated and the non-initiated,-or, in other words, the baptized and the unbaptized,-and the sacred care with which the latter of these two classes were excluded from all knowledge of those more recondite and awful doctrines of the Faith, in which (to use the language of the Apostle) " the wisdom of God in a mystery" lies concealed. In like manner, too, as among the Heathen Initiations, there were certain stages through which the candidate had to pass, not only for the purposes of discipline and instruction, but to stimulate also his ardor in the pursuit, before he arrived at the full and crowning close of his task, so in these Mysteries of the Church, and declaredly for the same reasons, a series of gradations was established through which the Catechumens and Penitents were obliged slowly to advance to that highest station whera they were at length thought worthy of being initiated into the Faith, and the great Mystery, the Eucharist, was for the first time communicated to them. Till this period, not only were the Catechumens prohibited from being present at the celebration of that Sacrament, but all notion of its nature was carefully with. held from them, nor was it ever suffered to be mentioned, except obscurely, in their presence. The chief object of all this secresy was to guard from the profaning scoffs of the infidel such doctrines as the ear of Faith was alone worthy to listen to; and the authority alleged for its ldoption was no less sacred a one than the injunction of Christ IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 43 himself:-" Place not holy things before dogs, nor pearls before swine." That the Apostles, in their capacity of " Stewards of the Mysteries of God," observed a similar rule of secresy, was the current opinion of the Fathers; and the words of St. Paul (1 Cor. iii, 1, 2,) are often adduced by them to prove that already, in his time, this distinction between the Catechumens and the Faithful was in force. "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal persons, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it; neither yet now are ye able." "If, therefore, (says St. Clement of Alexandria, in commenting on this passage,) Milk be said by the Apostle to belong to babes, and Meat to them that are perfect, Milk will be understood to be Catechizing, as the first kind of food of the soul, but Meat the concea'ed Theories." How strongly St. Jerome also was of opinion that St. Paul acted upon this principle, appears from his reply to his friend Evagrius, who had consulted him respecting the meaning of an obscure passage of the postle with regard to the sacrifice of Melchisedek:-" You are not to suppose (says St. Jerome) that Paul could not easily have explained himself; but the time was not come for such explanation. He sought to persuade the Jews, and not the Faithful, to whom the mystery might have been delivered without reserve." Did the curious Collection, known by the name of the Apos. tolical Constitutions, possess any such claim to a rank among scriptural writings as Whiston labors to establish for it, the apos. tolic origin of the Discipline of the Secret could be no longer doubtful;-these Constitutions having been professedly collected, under such a law of secresy, by the fellow-laborer of St. Paul, Clement, as he is himself thus made to declare:--" The Consti. tutions, dedicated to you, the Bishops, by me, Clement, in Eight Books;-which it is not fitting to publish before all, because of the Mysteries contained in them." But, though the authenticity claimed by Whiston, with such profuse waste of learning, for this book, be now generally dis. allowed, the work still furnishes a proof that, in the third or fourth century when it was fabricated, a belief prevailed that those unwritten traditions and doctrines over which the Church drew a veil of silence had descended to her, under the same religious law of secresy, from the Apostles themselves. " We receive," says St. Basil, " the dogmas transmitted to us by writing, and those which have descended to us from the Apostles, beneath the -eil and mystery of oral tradition....... The Apostles and Fathers who prescribed from the beginning certain rites to the Church, knew how to preserve the dignity of the Mysteries 44 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN by the secresy and silence in which they enveloped them. For what is open to the ear and the eye is no longer mysterious. For this reason several things have been handed down to us without writing, lest the vulgar, too familiar with our dogmas should pass from being accustomed to them to the contempt of them."-De Spirit. Sanct. c. 27. Upon the controversy which is known to have been main. tained among the learned as to the precise time when the Discipline of the Secret was first introduced into the Church, it is not my intention here to dwell. Some, as we.have seen, trace its origin as far back as the time of the Apostles,* while others suppose it to have been first practised towards the close of the second century, and others, again, contrary to all authority, date its commencement so low down as the fourth. The truth seems to be that the principle of this policy was acted upon, in the Christian Church, from its very beginning. So strongly has not only St. Paul, but our Saviour himself, inculcated a sacred reserve in promulgating the Mysteries of the Faith, that there can be no doubt the succeeding teachers of the Church would, in this, as in all things else, follow their Divine Master's precept. But though, as a principle, this reverential guard over the Mysteries was observed, doubtless, from the very first rise of Christianity, it does not appear to have been strictly enforced, as a rule of discipline, till about the close of the second century. The curiosity, and, still more, the bitter enmity excited by the rapid spread of a religion founded wholly, as it appeared, on mystery, but whose progress was, in unbelieving eyes, the greatest mystery of all, rendered increased caution necessary on the part of its ministers; and the divine precept by which they were enjoined to hide the " holy things" of the Faith from unbelievers began, about this time, to be acted upon by them with a degree of jealous strictness proportionate to the prying insolence and violence by which they were encompassed. CHAPTER XII. Doctrine of the Trinity.-St. Justin.--Irenaeus.-Apparent heterodoxy ot the Fathers of the Third Century.-Accounted for by the Discipline of the Secret.-Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius, &c. IT has been asserted by more than one learned writer, that the doctrine of the Trinity was not included among the mys. * Among moderns, Schelstrate has contended most strenuously for tih apostolic origin of the Secret, while, in opposition to him, 'cntzelius ind others refer its rise to about tb close of the second century. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 45 teries to which the protection of this rule of secresy was ex. tended.* But such an assumption is not only inconsistent with the main objects for which such a rule was established, but is also, as it will not be difficult to show, at variance with fact. It was, indeed, the pious horror of exposing such high mysteries as that of the Trinity to the scoffs and, what was still worse, the misrepresentations of the Gentiles, that formed the chief motive of the Christian Pastors for the policy which they adopted,-a policy which, on some points (such as that of the Seven Sacra. ments,t) is supposed to have led them to preserve an unbroken silence, but which, for the most part, consisted in holding such language respecting any mystery they had to mention before unbelievers, as was, at the same time, transparent enough to allow the truth to shine out to the initiated, and yet too obscure to betray either the teacher or his doctrines to the profane. In this reserved and ambiguous manner do Tertullian and some of the succeeding Fathers speak of the Eucharist; and still more evasively, from the same cause, have almost all the Fathers of the first three centuries and a half spoken of the Trinity. This latter fact I am, in a peculiar degree, anxious to impress on the reader; seeing that it is of importance to my subject to show that by an almost exactly similar fate has the progress of these two mysteries, the Trinity and the Real Presence, been all along marked; and that the same cause which produced, in some of the early Fathers, that ambiguity of language, on the subject of the Eucharist, of which the Protestants have availed themselves for the support of their schism, produced also that still greater ambiguity and inconsistency in the language of the same Fathers, respecting the Trinity, which has, with a similar degree of dexterity, been employed, in favor of their own heresy, Dy the Arians. I have already remarked how much more free from the re. straints of this singular Discipline were those writers who flour. Ashed previous to the close of the second century, than were * In defiance, as it appears to me, of all evidence, it has been maintained oy Tentzelius, Casaubon and others, that it was neither the Trinity, nor any of the other dogmas of the Faith, but merely the rites and ceremonies of the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist that were intended to be con. cealed from the non-initiated by the observance of this Discipline. t It is to the operation of the Discipline of the Secret that Catholic writers attribute the entire silence which they acknowledge has been preserved, on the subject of the Seven Sacraments, in all the authentic monuments of antiquity that remain to us. According to Schelstrate,-one of those by whom the circumstance is thus accounted for,-it is not till the seventh century that any mention of the Seven Sacraments occurs:-" Si pervolvamus omnia antiquitatis monumenta, si perscrutemur cuncta antiquissimorum Patrum scripta, si investigemus ipsa Synodorum decreta, nullum librum, nullum decretum reperiri, quod ante septimum saeculum egerit de Septer Sacramentis, eorumque ritus exposuerit."-Schelstratex. De Disciplin. Alrcan. 46 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN any of their successors for the next hundred and fifty years; and I need but mention, in proof of this fact, that the same illustrious Father, St. Justin, who, as I have shown, ventured, in his Address to the Sovereign and Princes of the Empire, to promulgate the doctrine of Transubstantiation, proclaimed also, in the same public document, the mystic dogma of the Trinity. How far the circumstance of his not being an ecclesiastic may have rendered this Father somewhat less guarded in his public writings, I will not pretend to determine; but it is plain that even he thought it prudent so far to disguise or soften down some of the more salient points of the doctrine of the Trinity as to present it to the minds of unbelievers in its least start. ling shape. Knowing well that the charge of Polytheism was lying in wait for him, as well from Jews as from Gentiles, he refrains most cautiously, in his Apology, from asserting the co. eternity of the Son with the Father, and even, in some passages, expressly declares the inferior nature of the former:-"Next after God, we adore and love that Word which is derived from the ineffable and unbegotten God." And again, in speaking of the Logos, "Than whom a more Royal and just Ruler, after God the Father, we know not one." The charge of heterodoxy which such language has drawn down upon St. Justin, would appear not to be without some foundation, had we not the Discipline of the Secret to account for it satisfactorily, and did there not occur other passages, in the very same document, where this veil of reserve is withdrawn and the true doctrine disclosed to the Initiate. Of this nature is the following, showing clearly that the pure, orthodox belief, -that which holds the Son to have been generated, not created, and to have been with the Father from all eternity,-was the belief delivered to St. Justin, and by him taught to the baptized: -" But his Son, who alone is properly called his Son, the Word, who was with him and was begotten by him before the Creatures." Another writer of the same age, Irenous, may be cited as yet more remarkable for the extent to which he has ventured to unveil both the Sacrifice in the Eucharist, and, still more fully, the great mystery of the eternal Generation of the Son. With so much bolder a hand than any of his successors has he laid open the depths of this latter doctrine, that in him alone does Whiston allow that there can be found any sanction for that high view of the Trinity, to which Whiston himself was opposed; but which, however apparently, at times, " shorn of its beams," nas been, throughout every age of the Church, her unchanging.&octrine. It was from want of attention to the operation of the Discipline of the Secret that Whiston and others have been led into exactly the same error, respecting the Trinity. that other F.N SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 47 Protestant divines have fallen into, on the subject of the Real corporal Presence. Far different, indeed, from the language of Justin and Irenaous was that held, on both these dogmas, by the Fathers of the following age, when the system of secresy had begun strictly to be acted upon, and when, amidst the storms of persecution that gathered round their heads, the ministers of the Faith found in this holy Silence a protection both for their doctrines and them. selves. Nothing, in truth, can show more strongly the difference that, in this respect, distinguished the two periods, than a comparison of the conduct of St. Justin with that of St. Cyprian, in situations very nearly similar. The former, as we have seen in his Defence of Christianity, addressed to the Princes of the Empire, did not hesitate so far to throw open the sanctuary of the Faith as to place before them its two great Arcana, the Trinity and the Real Presence; whereas St. Cyprian, when, in like manner, called upon to stand forth in vindication of his religion, ventured no further, in his public epistle on the occasion, than to assert the doctrine of the Unity of God, leaving the Trinity and the mystic Sacraments of the Church wholly unmentioned. So cautiously, indeed, are the Christians of Cyprian's age known to have shrunk from all mention of the Trinity before the uninitiated, that, in reviewing the Acts of the Martyr, St. Pontius, the chief point on which the learned Schelstrate rests his conviction of their spuriousness is their representing this Martyr as speaking openly of the Trinity before the emperors Philip, while still Gentiles,-a violation of the law of secresy, on this subject, of which no Christian would, at that time,* have been likely to be guilty. Were we to form our judgment solely on some detached passages of Tertullian, Origen and Lactantius, we must either come to Whiston's conclusion that the present accepted doctrine of the Trinity was not that of the primitive Church; or else suppose that the truth of this divine mystery, having broken out brightly and genuinely in the writings of St. Justin and Irenmus, was again, for an interval of a hundred and fifty years, eclipsed and lost. To give but an instance or two of the imperfect views, respecting the relation between Christ and God, which the Fathers of the third century suffered to glimmer through their writings, we find the following unorthodox passage in Tertullian on the subject:-" God was not always a Father or Judge, since * There occur also some instances of the same strict observance of secresy, in the second century. Thus, we find, Alexander, the Martyr, when preaching to the prisoners, made no mention of the Holy Spirit, nor of the mystery of the Trinity; and when ordered by Aurelius to explain all the dogmas of his faith, answered that he was not permitted by Christ to place 1'oly things before dogs. 48 TRAVEIS O AN IRISH GENTLEMAN he could not be a Father before he had a Son, nor a Judge be. fore there was any sin; and there was a time when both sin and the Son were not." The fear of drawing upon themselves the imputation of Polytheism from the Gentiles, appears to have been one of the chief motives with these holy men for their reserve respecting the Trinity; and how readily disposed were not only the Pagans, but some of the heretics, to found such an accusation on this doctrine, appears from the account given by Tertullian of the Sabellians of his day, whose first question, as he tells us, in meeting any of the orthodox was, "1Well, my friends, do we believe in one God or three?" It was evidently to counteract such an impression that St. Cyprian, as we have seen in his Letter to the Proconsul of Africa, contented himself with solely establishing the Unity of God; and that another learned Father, Lactantius, about half a century later, thought it prudent to put forth the following declaration:-64 Our Saviour taught that there is but one God, and that he alone is to be worshipped; nor did he ever say once himself that he was God. For, he had not been faithful to his trust, if, when he was sent to take away Polytheism, and assert the Unity of God, he had introduced another besides the one God. This had been not to preach the doctrine of one God, nor to do the business of him that sent him, but his own."--De vera Sapient. In a similar manner, with the view of removing those prejudices which were known to exist against Christianity, from a notion that, like Paganism, it sanctioned the worship of many Gods, we find Origen, in his Treatise on Prayer, going so far as almost to deny that Christ is to be considered an object of subplication or thanksgiving:--" But if we understand (says this Father) what Prayer is, care must be taken that no derivative Being be the object of Prayer,-no, not Christ himself, but only tihe God and Father of the Universe, to whom also our Saviour himself prayed, as we have before expounded, and as he teaches us to pray. For, when one said to him, Teach us to pray, he does not teach us to pray to himself, but to his Father, saying, 'Our Father which art in heaven.' " It is from attending solely to passages such as these that not only calumniators of the Fathers, like Daille and Jurieu, but even Catholics of distinguished character, such as Petau and Huet,* have been led into the error of accusing the teachers of * This learned Catholic, in referring to the heretical opinions which are lo be found in such passages as I have above cited from the Fathers, doubts wvhether to impute them to impiety or unskilfulncss. But the self-imposed restraint under which they, at times, wrote, affords the true clue to all such difficulties. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 49 the early Church of Arianism; whereas, a little more fairness in some of the theologians just named, and a little more industry in the others, would have enabled them to cite from writings of the very same Fathers,-writings produced under circumstances that left them more free to unfold the mysteries of their Faith, -passages fully asserting the dogma of the Tri-une Deity, in all its primitive, orthodox, and inscrutable grandeur. Thus Tertullian who, as we have seen, in addressing the Stoic Hermogenes, could so far shrink from the true exposition of this doctrine as to declare that there was a time when God was not a Father, and had not a Son, has yet, in his Defence of the Trinity against Praxeas, given conclusive evidence of his belief in the in-dwelling of the Word with God from all eternity; and has, moreover, in one sentence, defined the consubstantial union of the Three Persons as strictly as was afterwards done by Athanasius himself,-calling it t Una substantia in tribus cohmrentibus." In a like manner, too, Origen, notwithstanding passages such as I have above cited from him, which lower our Saviour in the scale of Being to a rank secondary and derivative, has asserted so orthodoxly, in other parts of his writings, the co-equality of the Son, in Godship, with the Father, as to have drawn from Bishop Bull, the defender of the Nicene Anathema, the praise of perfect orthodoxy. The natural working, indeed, of the wary policy which gave to these writers such an appearance of inconsistency, may be traced visibly through the course of the writings of St. Clement of Alexandria, in some of the earlier of which the equality of the Son to the Father is expressly maintained;* while, in his subsequent works, whether yielding to prudence, or to that admiration of the occult wisdom of the Greeks which he so warmly avows,- he withdraws this bolder view of the nature of the Redeemer, and represents him, almost invariably, as a subordinate and created Being. That this reserve and ambiguity on the subject of the Trinity continued to be practised to as late a period as the middle of the fourth century, appears from the following remarkable passage, in one of the Catechises of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, which is in itslf confirmatory of my view of the whole system:-" We do,wt declare the Mysteries concerning the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to a Heathen; nor do we speak plainly to the Catechu. mewt about those Mysteries. But we say many things often in * His words are, if I recollect right, Etaoe6~O rTO rarpl. f In citing the words of St. Paul, "We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden mystery," Clement remarks that the Holy Apostle here observes, "the prophetic and really ancien tconcealment, from whence the excellent doctrines of the Grecian philosophers were derived to them." D 5 50 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN an occult way, that the Faithful who know them may understand them; and that those who do not understand them may not he hurt thereby., CHAPTER XIII. Doctrine of the Ir-arnation.-Importance attached to it by Christ himself.John, vi.-Ignatius.-Connexion between the Incarnation and the Real Presence.-Concealment of the latter doctrine by the Fathers.-Proofs of this concealment. HAVING dwelt thus long upon the influence which that rule of policy, called the Discipline of the Secret, exercised so manifestly over the writings of the Fathers on the subject of the Trinity, I shall now proceed to show that the same influence,though certainly, in many instances, to a much less considerable degree,-affected the public writings of these same Fathers, on the no less vital and mysterious doctrine of the Eucharist. It may be observed to have been chiefly round those points of belief on which the Christians felt themselves most exposed to the charge of borrowing from the theology of the Heathens, that they took the most especial care to throw the protection of this sacred silence. Of this description was, as I have already shown, the Trinity; and in the same predicament, as doctrines liable to be misrepresented, were the great mysteries of the Son. ship and the Incarnation; the former of which the philosophic Gentiles exclaimed against, as originating in the same gross notions which had dictated the genealogy of the HWathen Gods; while, by such scoffers as Celsus, the Incarnation of the Eternal Word was compared to those transformations which Jupiter underwent in his multifarious love-adventures. In truth, the very first great point of the Christian scheme of Redemption which Christians themselves, in the presumptuous exercise of their judgment, dared to call into question, was the Incarnation of the Redeemer. Under the very eyes of our Lord himself there arose, as we have seen, a sect of heretics,* who, refusing to be. lieve that Spirit so pure could clothe itself in corrupt flesh, chose rather to deny his humanity, and thus, in fact, nullify his mission as a Redeemer by removing that only link between the divini and human nature through which a mediation, implying sympa thies with both, could be effected. To obviate the mischiefs of this heresy,-coeval, as it woulo seem, with Christianity itself,-and confirm the truth of the manifestation of God in the Flesh was, it is evident, one of the most anxious objects, as well of our Saviour himself, as of those * The Docetae. See page 15. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 51 who acted under his authority. Had we no other proof, indeed, of the prevalence of such an error, respecting his nature, the solicitude he showed, in his interview with the Apostles after his resurrection, to convince them of his corporeality, by making them handle his limbs and by eating in their presence, would be sufficient to prove both the doubts, as to his humanity, that prevailed, and the immense importance which he himself attached to their removal: " Handle me (he says) and see; for a Spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have:" or, as he is made to say, in an apocryphal work, cited by Origen,* "I am not an incorporeal Demon." In the First Epistle of St. John we find those heretics who denied the reality of Christ's body thus denounced:-" Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God; and this is that spirit of Antichrist whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world." It is, indeed, supposed to have been principally with the view of obviating so dangerous an error that the same Apostle wrote his Gospel; and not only the earnestness with which he anathematises this heresy in his Epistle, but also the pains taken by him, as Evangelist, to assure the world of the real death of Christ and of the issuing of real blood and water from his wounded side, render such a view of his dpsign in writing this sacred narrative, both natural and rational. It is, in fact, in the 6th chapter of his Gospel,-that remark able chapter, whose testimony to the marvellous nature and vir. tues of the Eucharist the ingenuity of Protestant Divines so vainly labors to explain away,-that we find the very strongest proof of the vital importance attached in the Christian scheme, to the establishment of the verity of Christ's flesh and blood. Nor can it be doubted that, as St. John's main object in this Gospel was to refute and extinguish that pernicious heresy which, by denying the reality of the flesh of Christ, would deprive mankind of the benefits of his Incarnation, so the stress which he here represents our Saviour as laying upon the ever blessed and life-giving effects of the Eucharist has evidently the same most momentous object in view,-showing emphatically that this miraculous Sacrament was, as it were, a sequel to the mystery of the Incarnation; and that the mighty privileges and benefits which the latter had procured for mankind were, by the former, to be perpetuated and commemorated through all time. That such was the light in which our Saviour himself represented this Sacrament, in that memorable discourse uttered by him in the Synagogue, at Capernaum, none but those who per. * The Doctrine of Peter.-Origen. de Piincip. 0Z TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN versely wrest the word of God to their own rash judgments will venture to deny. " One principal motive," says a learned Pro. testant writer, " that modern Divines have to deny that John vi is to be taken of the Eucharist is this, viz. that the effects and consequences there attributed to the eating and drinking Christ's flesh and blood (especially that of eternal life and all evangel. ical blessings annexed to it) are too great and valuable to be applied to the Communion."* Nothing can be more just or candid than this remark. Hence, in truth, all the wretched shifts resorted to by Church of England divinest for the purpose of robbing the Catholic doctrine of the support of this chapter, and enabling the Protestant to sink the miraculous character of the Eucharist down to the " low" viewt taken of it by the Socinians and Hoadleyites. But the sense of all the great teachers of Christianity is against them; and, above all, of those earliest in the field of the Faith. The apostolical Ignatius, who had been the disciple of him " who * Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice. + Thus Dr. Whitby, adopting, in matter-of-fact seriousness, that allegon cal and anagogical mode of interpretation, which Clement of Alexandria and Origen employed to mystify their hearers, had the conscience to maintain, that, by the phrases "eating his flesh" and "drinking his blood," in John vi, Christ meant nothing more than " believing his doctrines!" On this opinion Johnson remarks,-"' It must be owned, that if our Saviour, by men's eating his flesh and drinking his blood, meant nothing but so obvious a thing as receiving him and his doctrine by faith and obedience, he clothed his thoughts in most unnatural language:" and again, " We may as properly be said to eat and drink the Trinity, by believing in it, as to eat the body of Christ by bare faith." Next came Bishop Hoadley, who, rejecting all application of John vi, to the Eucharist whatever, described the discourse of our Saviour in the Synagogue as " only a very high figurative representation to the Jews then about him, of their duty and obligation to receive to their hearts and digest his whole doctrine as the food and life of their souls." Dr. Waterland, who disapproved alike of Whitby's doctrinal interpretation and Hoadley's reduction of the Sacrament to a mere commdnicative Feast, is of opinion that the Chapter in question may be applied to the Eucharist, but not interpreted of it; and brings forward a theory of his own respecting " Spiritual Eating and Drinking;" of the merits of which some judgment may be formed from the fact that, though disapproving of Whitby's notion of eating doctrines, he himself interprets a passage of St. Paul (Heb. xiii, 10,) to mean, eating the Atonement!-(Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, p. 145.) In ordei to get rid, too, of the testimony of St. Ignatius to the true meani.ng of John vi, Dr. Waterland contends that this holy man, in speaking of his enjoyment of "the Bread of Life," had no reference whatever to the Eucharist in his thoughts, but, being then about to suffer martyrdom, was merely looking forward to the prospect of eating of Christ's Flesh, in the other world! p. 153. Such are the straits to which men are always sure to be driven, who endeavor to make out a case where there is no case to be made.: " If any person think this a low character of such a rite instituted by our Lord himself, upon so great and remarkable occasion," &c. &c.-Bishop Hoadley, Plain A.ccount of the N'ature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 53 wrote these things," and had doubtless heard, from the holy Penman's own lips, their true import and spirit, understood, manitestly, by the promise of Eternal Life conveyed on that occasion, no vaguely allegorical lesson of faith or doctrine, but a clear assurance of a happy resurrection and immortality, to be derived from that communion with the body of Christ which is enjoyed by eating his flesh and drinking his blood in the Eucharist. Hence is it that the holy Ignatius speaks of this Sacrament, in language which no other part of Scripture, but this Chapter of John, justifies;-calling it, on the strength of the privileges and virtues there annexed to it, the Medicine of Immortality and Antidote against Death. How perfectly the view taken of the Eucharist by the Cath. olics,-namely, that it was part and parcel of the mystery of the Incarnation,-was understood by the Gnostic Christians themselves, is evident from their conduct. For this reason was it that the Docetue absented themselves, as we have seen, from public worship,-not that the sect, in general, entertained any objection to the Eucharist, according to their own Phantastie and spiritualizing view of it, but because they were unwilling to sanction, by joining in communion with the orthodox, that belief in the reality of the flesh present, which the latter, it was known, maintained. That the Fathers regarded this Sacrament in the same light, -viewing it not only as a continuance, but as an extension of the Incarnation,*-a great abundance of passages might be adduced to prove. Thus, for instance, St. Gregory of Nyssa draws a comparison between the two Mysteries:-" The body of Christ (says this Father) was, by the inhabitation of the Word of God, transmuted into a divine dignity, and so I now believe, that the bread sanctified by the Word of God is transmuted into the body of the Word of God. This bread, as the Apostle says, is sanc. tfied by the Word of God and prayer, not that, as food, it passes into the body, but that it is instantly changed into the body of Christ, agreeably to what he said, This is my Body. And therefore does the Divine Word commix itself with the weak nature of man, that, by partaking of the divinity, our humanity may be exalted." In like manner, we find St. Ambrose pointing out the same * By calling the Eucharist an extension of the Incarnation, they meant that, while in the latter mystery, Christ but joined himself to one individual nature, and to no one person, in the former he joins himself not only to all individual natures, but also to their very persons. "Eam quam idcirco Patres Incarnationis extensionem appellarunt. In illi enim uni individum nature sese adjunxit nulli persone; at in ista se singulis individuis, imb etiam personis adjunxit."-De Lingindes Conciones de Sanctissimo Eucharistca Sacramento. 5* 54 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN analogy between the deified flesh and the deified bread. After asserting the dogma of Transubstantiation, in its highest Catholic sense, he proceeds,--( We will now examine the truth of the mystery from the example itself of the Incarnation. Was the order of nature followed, when Jesus was born of a virgin? Plainly not. Then why is that order to be looked for here?" Many other passages, to the same purport, might be adduced from the Fathers: but it is needless to multiply citations. The very view taken by the early Christians of the miraculous change of the elements implies that they considered the Eucharist as a kindred mystery with that of the Incarnation;-as the wonderful means, in short, by which Christ perpetually renews his incar. nate presence upon earth, and continues to feed his creatures with the same flesh by which he redeemed them. CHAPTER XIV. Concealment of the Doctrine of the Eucharist.-Proofs.-Calumnies on the Christians.--Protestant view of this Sacrament--not that taken by the early Christians. WHEN SO great, as we have seen, was the solicitude and watchfulness with which the Church screened firom the eyes of the profane all her other great dogmas, with no less jealous care would she conceal, or, at least, soften down, through the medium of enigmatic language, a doctrine so mysterious and astounding as that of the Real Presence,-the test most trying of all (next, perhaps, to the Trinity) of that implicit faith, by which, as by its sheet-anchor, the whole Christian scheme of salvation holds. Accordingly, we are not only expressly told that this dogma was among the most hidden deposits of the Secret, but the ]anguage employed by the few Fathers who, in the third age, ventured to allude to it, shows with what sensitive caution they shrunk from any disclosure of its true nature. Thus Origen talks mysteriously and vaguely of " eating the offered breads which by prayers are made a certain holy body." St. Cyprian, too, in relating, with an awe that betrays his real oelief, the nmi. raculous circumstance of a warning having been given to some profaner of the Sacrament by a flame bursting forth from the box that held the consecrated bread, describes the box thus signalized, as " containing the Holy Thing of the Lord." Nothing, indeed, could show more strikingly both how awtul were the associations with which they invested this mystery themselves, and how jealous was their fear lest it shotuld become known to the infidel, than the language of another Father of IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 55 this time, Tertullian, who, in representing to his wife the con. sequences of her marrying a Pagan after his death, says,-" You would, by marrying an infidel, thereby fall into this fault, that the Pagans would come to the knowledge of our mysteries. Will not your husband know what you taste in secret, before any other food; and, if he perceives bread, will he not imagine that it is what is so much spoken of?"-Ad Uxorem, lib. ii. c. 5. In the following century we find St. Basil alluding covertly to the Eu. charist as " the Communion of the Good Thing;" and Epipha. nius, when obliged to describe, before uninitiated hearers, the Institution of this Sacrament, thus slurs over the particulars ot that astounding event: "We see that our Lord took a thing in his hands, as we read in the Gospel, that he rose from table, that he resumed the things, and having given thanks, he said, this is my somewhat." Even St. Gregory of Nyssa, by whom the great miracle of the Metastoicheiosis, or Transiibstantiation, is put forth more boldly and definitely than by almost any of his predecessors, yet, in one of his most explicit passages on the subject, and in a writing, too, intended expressly for the initiated, stops short, as if awestruck, when about to mention the word " body," and leaves to the minds of his hearers to fill up the blank.--" These things he gives us by virtue of the blessing, changing the nature of the visible things into-that." There can hardly, nerhaps, be a better proof of the extreme secresy with which this mystery was guarded, than that Arno. hius, who was but a Catechumen when he wrote upon Christianity, had been kept in such ignorance of the use made of wine in this rite, that in a passage where he reproaches, if I recollect right, the Pagans, with their libations to the Deities, he taunt.;ngly demands of them " What has God to do with wine?"* Still enough, notwithstanding this system of reserve and se. ciesy, had transpired respecting the Christian doctrine of the Eucharist, to set the imagination and malevolence of unbelievers at work. Indistinct notions of dark, forbidden Feasts, where, it was said, flesh and blood were served up to the guests, became magnified by the fancies of the credulous into the most monstrous fictions. Stories were told and believed of the dreadful rites practised by the Christians in their Initiations;-of an infant, covered with paste, being set before the new-comer, on which lie was required to inflict the first murderous stab, and then partake of its flesh and blood with the rest, as their common pledge of secresy. It is not difficult, of course, to see through all this disfigurement of calumny, the true doctrine of which the profane had caught these perverting glimpses. * " Guid Deo cum vino est?" 56 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN By such monstrous imputations was it that some of the most cruel persecutions of the Christians were provoked and justified; and yet no power of cruelty, not the agonies of death itself, could wrest their secret from them. Had they seen nothing more in this sacrament than a simple type or memorial, such as the Arminian and Socinian consider it, they had but to say so, and not only persecution would have been thus foiled of its prey, but, what was of still dearer import to them, their creed would have won more ready acceptance. But no:-far more "hard to be understood" was the secret object of their worship; and, when asked, as they were frequently by the Pagans, " Why conceal what you adore?" their answer might have been, with truth, "Because we adore it." They saw, as the Catholics see to this day, what insulting profanation such a doctrine is, in the hands of the incredulous, exposed to; in what mire of ridicule and blasphemy their " holy things" would be rolled; and accordingly, even when threatened with torments to extort from them their secret, they saw but one duty before them-to be silent, and die. Had Christian antiquity bequeathed to us, on the subject of the Eucharist, no other evidence than this solemn and significant silence,-had we not also the ancient Liturgies of the Church, and the catechetical writings of her Fathers, to bear ample testimony to the Catholic doctrine, on this point,-there still would have been, in this very mystery and silence, abundant evidence to convince any reasoning mind, that the Protestant notion of the Eucharist could not have been that entertained by the Primitive Christians. The simple history, in short, of this doctrine's reception and progress, through all its earlier stages, would be more than sufficient for such a purpose. For, to maintain that a mystery which, on its first promulgation, startled our Lord's disciples themselves,-which the Gnostic heretics of the first age shrunk from, as involving the doctrine of the Incarnation,which the Pagans, from some indistinct glimpses of its real nature, represented as a murderous repast, a feast of "abominable meats,"-which, by the Priests themselves who administered it, was seldom spoken of but as a " tremendous mystery," one to be guarded from the eyes of the infidel, at the price of life itself,-to assert, that the dread object of all this concealment and worship, this amazement, horror, adoration, alarm, was nothing more than a simple sign or memorial, a mere representation of our Saviour's body and blood under the symbols of bread and wine, a sacramental food in which Christ's presence is figurative, not real, and to which therefore, consisting as it does of mere bread and wine, to offer up any adoration is an act of idolatry,-to expect to have it believed, for a moment, by any one who has at all inquired into the subject, that such and no IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 57 more was the sense attached to this divine ordinance by the first Christians, is, on the part of the Protestants, I must say, a most gross and wholesale demand of that implicit faith, from others, of which they are so perilously sparing themselves. When again, too, after contemplating all those awful circum. stances which marked the reception and observance of this rite among mankind, we look back to the stupendous occasion on which it was first instituted; when we recollect the dreadfu) denunciations of the apostle against such as, by irreverence te:his Sacrament, are "' guilty of the body and blood of the Lord,' and remember that some, among the Corinthians, who "discerned not the Lord's body," were smitten by God with diseases and death,*-we cannot but marvel at the responsibility those Christians take upon themselves, who venture to cast off the ancient Faith, upon this most vital of its doctrines; who, first, refining away our Saviour's solemn declaration on the subject,t dispose, in the same manner, of the Apostle's tremendous comment upon that text; and, in the very face of his denouncements against those who " discern not the Lord's body" in this Sacrament, venture deliberately to deny that the Lord's body is there I CHAPTER XV. Concealment of the Eucharist-most strict in the Third Century.-St. Cyprian-his timidity-favorite Saint of the Protestants.-Alleged proofs against Transubstantiation.-Theodoret.-Gelasius.-Believers in the Catholic Doctrine of the Eucharist, Erasmus, Pascal, Sir Thomas More, Fenelon, Leibnitz, &c. FROM what I have said, in the preceding Chapter, of the sys. tem of mystery and restraint which the Fathers of the third and fourth centuries, but more particularly of the former, thought it politic to impose upon themselves in speaking of the Eucharist, it will not be deemed wonderful that there should occur pas* 1 Corinth. xi, 30. t As the Reformer, Zuinglius, took the liberty of altering Christ's language, and reads, "This signifies my body," so Bishop Hoadley, in like manner, presumes to supply a word which he thinks wanting, and makes it, "This I call my body." It is remarkable enough, indeed, that Protestants who are so much for referring to the language of Scripture on every occasion, should yet, in this important instance, question its most express and simple declaration-a declaration repeated in almost exactly the same words, by three of the Evaigelists, as well as by St. Paul, and explained exactly in the same sense, by our Saviour, in the discourse reported by St. John. "Unam perpetuo (says an obscure, but sensible writer) Scripturam clamitant; sed ubi ventum est ad earn, auditis quomodo legant. Tam aperta sunt verba; in omnibus Evangelistis sunt eadem. Omnia tamen pervertunt, omnia ad haeresim suum trahunt." 58 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN sages in their public writings and discourses, which, being in. tended by them to be ambiguous, have fully attained that object; and that, designed originally as such passages were to veil the truth from the unbeliever and the heretic, they should, to eyes wilfully blind, still perform the same office. The only wonder, indeed, is, taking all the circumstances we have here reviewed into consideration, that the number of passages affording this sort of handle to misapprehension should have been so inconsiderable; and that, notwithstanding all the fastidious caution of the Fathers, oh this subject, such a mass of explicit evidence should still be found in their writings;-evidence so abundant and convincing as, with any unbiassed mind, to place the truth of the Catholic doctrine, respecting the Eucharist, beyond all question. It was in the third century, when the followers of Christ were most severely tried by the fires of persecution, that the discipline of secresy, with respect to this and the other mysteries, was most strictly observed. "A faithful concealment," says Tertullian, " is due to all mysteries from the very nature and constitution of them. How much more must it be due to such mysteries as, if they were once discovered, could not escape immediate punish. ment from the hand of man." (Ad. Nation. L. 1.) It may be conceived with what peculiar force such a motive to secresy would be likely to act upon minds naturally timid,-such as that of St. Cyprian, for instance, whose indisposition to martyrdom. however firmly he at last met it, when inevitable, was evinced on more than one occasion, when he prudently withdrew himself from its grasp. We find, accordingly, in conformity with this timidity of character, that, among the observers of the Discipline of the Secret, he is allowed to have been one of the most cir cumspect and close. It is, indeed, curious, not only as illustrative of the character of the individual, but as part of that kindred destiny whicl seems to have attended, throughout, the two Catholic dogmas oi the Trinity and the Real Presence, that the same cautious St Cyprian who, in his public letter to the Proconsul of Africa thought it prudent to keep the Trinity entirely out of sight, should have been also the individual who, by his evasive language, concerning the Eucharist, has been the means of furnishing the opponents of a real, corporal Presence, with almost the only semblance of plausible authority by which they support their heresy.* Little did he think, good Saint, that a day would * Even St. Cyprian, however, could not help, on occasion, letting the true doctrine escape. Thus he says that, in the Eucharist, "we touch Christs body and drink his blood;" and, in an Epistle to Pope Cornelius, speaking of the victims of persecution, he says, " How shall we teach them to shed their blood for Christ, if, before they go to battle, we do not give them his blood '" IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 59 come, when this prudence, or timidity, would be made to pass for orthodoxy, and when,-sturdy a stickler as he was for the supremacy of the Roman See,-he should attain the eminence, such as it is, of being the prime Saint of Protestants! It would be amusing,-were not so awful a point of faith the subject of such trifling,-to observe the self-complacent triumph with which a Protestant controvertist sits brooding over one of these intentionally unmeaning passages of the Fathers, hatching it into an argument. It matters not that the holy writer from whom the passage is extracted has, in a hundred others, pregnant both with meaning and with truth, borne testimony to the belief of his Church in that mighty miracle,-that fulfilment of a God's express promise which takes place under the veil of the Eucharist. It matters not:-the one convenient passage is alone brought forward again and again; the professional controvertist must still show himself in the lists, however " falsified"* his armor; and though se/lfdeception is not always practicable in such cases, the great point is still gained of deceiving others. The argument drawn from the occasional application of the words "type," "sign," "figure," &c. to the Eucharist, I have already disposed of; and a large proportion of the passages cited, as favorable to the Protestant side of the question, come under this predicament. One of the most triumphant pieces of evidence, however, (as they themselves consider it,) which the champions of the Reformed Faith are in the habit of bringing forward to prove that Transubstantiation was not the belief of the early Church, is to be found in a passage or two from Theodoret and Gelasius (writers of the Fifth Century) in which it is asserted that the nature and substance of the sacramental elements remain after consecration. The extract from Theodoret I shall here transcribe, as well because it affords a curious insight into the operation of the Discipline of the Secret, as because it will show to what straits the opponents of the Catholic doctrine must be driven, when they can contrive to extract grounds for triumph from such testimony. It is necessary to premise that the passage I am about to give is from a work written by Theodoret against the Eutychians (a sect of heretics who denied the human nature of Christ;t) and *:'His shield is falsified"-a meaning of the word which Dryden attempted to introduce, from the Italian. t It cannot be said correctly that Eutyches denied the humanity of Christ, -his belief being that, after the incarnation, there was no longer any dia tinction between the divine and human natuie, but that the latter had been absorbed into the former, as a drop of honey, according to his illustration, would be swallowed up on falling into the sea. By the Council of Chalcedon which, in 451, condemned this heresy, the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity was at lcngth fully established;--the union of the two distinct natures in 60 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN that, of the two fictitious persons who discuss the question to. gether, Orthodoxus represents the Catholic, and Eranistes the Eu. tychian. Having established, in a preceding Dialogue, the reality of Christ's presence in the Sacrament, the speakers thus proceed:-" Eran. I am happy you have mentioned the Divine Mysteries. Tell me, therefore, what do you call ti F gift that is offered before the Priest's invocation?-Orth. This must not be said openly; for some may be present who are not initiated.Eran. Answer then in hidden terms.-Orth. We call it an aliment made of certain grains.-Eran. And how do you call the other symbol?-Orth. We give it a name that denotes a certain beverage.-Eran. And, after the consecration, what are they called?-Orth. The body of Christ and the blood of Christ.Eran. And you believe that you partake of the body and blood of Christ?-Orth. So I believe.-Eran. As the symbols then of the body and blood of Christ were different before the consecration of the Priest, and, after that consecration, become changed, and are something else, in the same manner we Eutychians say, the body of Christ after his ascension was changed into the divine essence.-Orth. Thou art taken in thy own snare, for, after the consecration, the mystical symbols lose not their proper nature; they remain both in the figure and appearance of their former substance, to be seen, and to be felt, as before; but they are understood to be what they have been made; this they are believed to be, and as such they are adored." We have here (in a conference, be it remembered, supposed to have passed before the non-initiated) three no less important points acknowledged than,-first, a change into " something else" of the symbols after consecration,*-secondly, a Real Presence of the body and blood of Christ, and, thirdly, adoration paid to the Sacrament, in consequence. The only doubt the passage admits of is, whether, contrary to the Catholic doctrine on the subject, Orthodoxus means to assert that the substance of the bread and wine remains after consecration; or whether, as the Catholic writers answer, the word " substance," as here used, neans merely the external or sensible qualities of the elements, --those which, as Theodoret says, may be " seen and felt as before." The phrase "former substance," which seems to imply that a second substance has taken the place of the first, might certainly warrant the assumption that the whole passage was neant orthodoxly; but the fairest conclusion, perhaps, to come Christ, and its correspondence with that of the three persons in the Godhead, tning then definitely laid down. * The same writer, in another place, asserts it to be Christ's "will that we should believe in a change, made by Grace" in the symbols:--e8ovX4O9.. a riarsvev rq e8K X rns xapL yEYCEVAvr ptsra,3oXr. IN SEARCH O' A RELIGION. 61 to (and the Catholic can well afford to be candid on this head,) is that Theodoret may have had some such vague notion, as Luther, afterwards, contrary to the sense of all Christian antiquity, adopted, of the presence of the substance of Christ's body and blood, in the sacrament, together with the substance of the bread and wine. On turning, indeed, to the volume of this Father's works, edited by Gamier, I find it to have been the opinion of that learned Jesuit-after an impartial inquiry into the exact belief of his author respecting the modus of Christ's presence,-- that Theodoret had, on the whole, a leaning to the Consubstan. tial heresy. Such, taken at its very worst, is thle full extent of that lapse from orthodoxy into which, at most, two Fathers, out of the whole sacred band of the five first centuries, can be said to have fallen on this subject,-the apparent deviations of others being, as I have shown, easily accounted for,-and such the quantum and quality of that evidence against the doctrine of the ancient Catholic Church which every successive champion of Protestantism brings forward, each triumphing in the discovery of the same worn out Fools' Paradise. The true view of such insulated in. stances of heterodoxy is to be found in the following remarks which the subject has drawn forth from the editor of that valuable compilation, "The Faith of Catholics:"-" Should it be conceded that there is ambiguity in these expressions, or that even the authors of them meant to convey a sense, in our estimation, heterodox, how light must their authority be, when balanced against the massive evidence of so many writers of their own age, and of the preceding centuries!-' Since the ancients,' says Erasmus, 'to whom the Church, not without reason, gives so much authority, are all agreed in the opinion, that the true substance of the body and blood of Jesus is in the Eucharist; since, in addition to all this has been added the constant authority of the Synods, and so perfect an agreement of the Christian world, let us also agree with them in this heavenly mystery, and let us receive, here below, the bread and the chalice of the Lord, under the veil of the species, until we eat and drink him without veil in the kingdom of God.' " To this citation from Erasmus, I shall add another from a writer worthy to be named along with that great man, the pious and powerful Pascal, by whom the views of the Eucharist presented in the above sentences are thus more fully unfolded:-- " The state of Christians, as Cardinal du Perron, in accordance with the opinions of the Fathers, remarks, holds a middle place between the state of the Blessed and that of the Jews. The Blessed possess Jesus Christ really, without figure and without veil. The Jews possessed of Christ only the figures and thp 6 62 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN veils,-such as were the Manna and the Paschal Lamb; and the Christians possess Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, veritably and really, but still covered with a veil......... Thus is the Eucharist comp!etely suited to the state of faith in which we are placed, since it contains Christ within it really, but still Christ veiled. Insomuch that this state would be destroyed, were Christ not really under the species of bread and wine, as the heretics oretend; and it would be also destroyed, did we receive him unveiled as they do in heaven; seeing that this would be to confound our state, in the former case, with that of Judaism, in the latter, with that of Glory." The reader who has thus far accompanied me from the beginning of my inquiries, and who knows the dogged resolution to turn Protestant with which I set out, will feel anxious, perhaps, to be informed whether, at the period where we are now arrived, any traces of my original resolve still lingered in my mind; or whether, with proofs clear as daylight, before my eyes, of the true holiness of my "( first love," I had still lurking in my heart any desire of apostasy to another. Alas, so humiliating would be the confessions and explanations, which an attempt to answer this inquiry must draw from me, that most willingly do I reserve them for some future opportunity; and, in the meantime, shall only say that it was not from any blindness to the light,-from any want of a deep conviction of the truths that had opened upon me, if, at the bottom of my heart, some worldly longings still lingered. There even were moments (such as I experienced on reading the passages just cited) when the unworthy " spirit of the world" died away within me,-when such a flood of religious feelings came over my heart as would not suffer any baser thoughts to live in their current, and when 1 was, in soul and mind, all Catholic, without a " shadow of turning." In this mood was it that, after closing the pages of the two great men I have just mentioned, I went to my pillow, pondering over the long list of illustrious sages,-the Erasmuses, Pascals, Fenelons, Leibnitzes, Sir Thomas Mores,-who have each, in turn, bowed, with implicit faith, before the miracle of the Eucharist, till, elevated above my own conscious nothingness, by the contemplation of such men, I found myself, as I laid down my head, fervently saying, " Let my soul be with theirs!" IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 63 CHAPTER XVI. Relaxation of the Discipline of the Secret, on the subject of the Trinity.Doctrine of the Real Presence still concealed.-The Eucharists of the Herctics.-The Artoturites, Hydroparastatae, &c.-St. Augustin a strict observer of the Secret.-Similar fate of Transubstantiation and the Trinity. ABOUT the beginning of the fourth century, the Discipline of the Secret had been, on some important points, considerably relaxed; and though the Eucharist still continued to be guarded with some strictness, the doctrine of the Trinity was, by degrees, suffered to escape from behind the veil. The Edict of Toleration which was, at that period, issued by Constantine, gave to the Christians full security in the promulgation of their opinions; while the schism of Arius, by calling into question the divinity of the Saviour, not only rendered a declaration of the Church's doctrine on this subject necessary, but led naturally, from the sifting controversies to which it gave rise, to a more definite marking out of the frontiers of Trinitarian orthodoxy, than had yet been attempted. Still it was but by slow and cautious degrees that the entire dogma, in its perfect form, as acknowledged now, was developed. I have before quoted a passage from a Father of this age, where he says, " Of the Mysteries concerning the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we do not speak plainly before the Catechumens;" and, according to the learned Huet, (himself a Catholic,) " it is certain that the Catholics durst not plainly own the divinity of the Holy Spirit so late as the days of Basil." In the meantime, the doctrine of the Real Presence,-following, for once, a fate different from that of its fellow mystery, the Trinity,-continued, as usual, to be whispered, in the inner shrines, to the neophyte, while, as Gregory of Nyssa informs us, the Eternal Sonship was become a topic of dispute among the lowest mechanics. Had any schism respecting the Eucharist taken place within the Church, the necessity of defending the doctrine would have led, doubtless, as in the case of the Trinity, to the divulging of it. But no such schism had occurred. Those among the Gnostic sects who adopted the Eucharist, though they denied the, real humanity of Christ's body, did not question its presence in the sacrament, while some of them even believed, with the orthodox, in a change of the elements, by the power of the Holy Spirit. " The things," says the heretic, Theodotus, " are not what they appear to be, or what they are apprehended to be; but by the power (of the Spirit) are changed into a spiritual power."* * '0 aPOro aytaýcraL rrl Jvvaurl rov 7rvvlpator, ov ra avra ovra Kara ro 0viLvoetsvor ta cA0i'pbOr, aXXa Juvaeat Kt~ dva vLY 7rrsvpaTLKrll v pEralc/Xrlrat. 64 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN One of these sects, indeed, proceeded so far, in rivalry of the Catholic Eucharist, as to contrive, by some mechanical process, to produce the appearance of blood flowing into the chalice,* after the words of consecration,-thereby outdoing, as they thought, the orthodox in, at least, the outward show of the miracle. In thus counterfeiting, by means of real liquid, that blood of which they, at the same time, denied the reality, these heretics were, of course, as absurd as knavish; but the testimony which their trick bears to the antiquity of the Catholic doctrine is not the less valuable. Were any additional proof, indeed, wanting of the prevalence, in those times, of a belief in the transubstantiation of the wine into blood, this effort of the Marcionite heretics to outbid, if I may so say, the orthodox altar in its marvels, would abundantly furnish it. There were also some other sects, besides the Gnostic, that adopted peculiar notions of their own respecting this sacrament. The Artoturites, for instance, a branch of the Montanists, offered bread and cheese in-their religious rites. The Hydroparastate, from a regard to sobriety, used only water in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Among the Ophites, who worshipped the serpent that tempted Eve, the sacrament consisted of a loaf, round which a serpent, they kept always sacredly in a cage, had been suffered to crawl and twine himself; and there was a sect of Manichmeans who, holding bread to be one of the productions of the Evil Principle, kneaded up the paste of which they composed their Eucharist in a way too abominable to be mentioned. These heresies, however, though on so vital a point of doctrine, yet, having been engendered out of the pale of the Church,t and being, all of them, with the exception of that of the Phantastics, limited and obscure, were not thought important enough to break the silence of the Church respecting this mystery. The doctrine of the Real Presence, therefore, undisturbed by dissent and sacred from controversy, was left, partly through policy and partly through habit, inshrined in all its forms of mystery during the whole of the fourth century; and how well the secret was still guarded from the Catechumens, as late as the time of St. Augustin, may be seen from the following remarkable passage: * "I (Marc) avoit deux vases, un plus grand et un plus petit; il mettoit le vin destine a la celdbration du sacrifice de la Messe dans le petit vase, et faisoit une priere: un instant aprhs la liqueur bouillonnoit dans le grand vase, et l'on y voyoit du sang au lieu du vin. Ce vase n'6toit apparemment que ce que lon appelle communement la fontaine des nbces de Cana; c'est un vase dans lequel on verse de l'eau, Peau versde fait monter du vin que 'on a mis auparavant dans ce vase et dont il se remplit."--.Mlmoires pour servir a 'Illistoire des Egaremens de I'Esprit Humain, Stc. 4c. t St. Cyprian, on being consulted respecting the nature of Novitian's errors, answers, " There is no need of a strict inquiry, what errors he teaches, while he teaches out of the Church." IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 65 --" Christ does not commit himself to Catechumens. Ask a Catechumen, Dost thou believe?-He answers, I do, and signs himself with the Cross of Christ;-he is not ashamed of the cross of' Christ, but bears it in his forehead. If we ask him, however, Dost thou eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man? he knows not what we mean, for Christ hath not com. initted himself to him. Catechumens do not know what Chris. tians receive."* St. Augustin himself, from the peculiar circumstances of his position, was induced occasionally, on this subject, to adopt a reserve and ambiguity of language which are not to be found, in the same degree, in any of the writers of his period. Living, as he did, in Africa, where the population was still, for the greater part, Pagan, he deemed it prudent, evidently, to follow the ancient practice of the Church, and in the presence of all but the Faithful, to speak of this Mystery with caution. Hence is it that, though in none of the other Fathers are there to be found passages more strongly confirmatory of the ancient and Catholic Faith,t on this point, he has, in some instances, employed language of whose vagueness and ambiguity the Sacramentarians have, as usual, taken advantage for the bolstering up of their desperate cause.t How barefaced, however, must be the assurance that would claim St. Augustin as a Protestant authority on this head, will appear by the following extracts from his writings:-" When, committing to us his body, he said, This is my body, Christ was held in his own hands. He bore that body in his hands."-Enarrat. 1. in Psalm 33.-Again, in another Sermon on the same Psalm, he thus, in the mystic language of the Secret, expresses himself:-" How was he borne in his hands? Because, when he gave his own body and blood, he took into his hands what the Faithful know; and he bore Him. * Interrogemus eum, Manducas carnem Filii Hominis et bibis sanguinem? Nescit quid dicimus, quia Jesus non se credidit ei. Nesciunt Catechumeni quid accipiant Christiani."-Tractat. in Joann. t Alger, who defended the doctrine of Transubstantiation against B6renger, refuted him chiefly, if not entirely, by passages out of St. Augustin. f Even by Zuingle, however, it is not asserted that St. Augustin was against transubstantiation, but merely that he would have been so, could he have ventured to express his opinion freely. This he was forced, says Zuingle, in some measure to conceal, on account of the very general prevalence which the beliefin a real fleshy Presence had, at that time, obtained.De ver. etfals. religione. And here, we may be allowed to ask, how is this admission of Zuingle, with respect to the prevalence of such a belief in the time of St. Augustin, to be reconciled with that other favorite theory of the Protestants, which supposes the doctrine of Transubstantiation to have been first introduced by the monk Paschasius, in the ninth century? But it is useless to ask such questions,-there being, in fact, no end to the inconsistencies and contrarieties of Protestants on this subject. ~ " Quod n6runt fideles."-These words, or, as expressed in Greek, twaa E 6* 66 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN self in a certain manner, when he said, ' This is my body.' "In his Exposition of the 98th Psalm, he says, "Christ took upon him earth from the earth, because flesh is from the earth, and this flesh he took from the flesh of Mary: and because he here walked in this flesh, even this same flesh he gave us to eat for our salvation;-but no one eateth this flesh without having first adored it; and not only we do not sin by adoring, but we even sin by not adoring it." It was my intention, originally, as the reader possibly recollects, not to include the Fathers of the fifth century,-to which period Augustin more properly belongs,-within the range of these inquiries; but ar. exception, in favor of so important an authority, will without difficulty be admitted. The brief history, too, which I have atterrpt~d to give of the Eucharist, through the " aurea secula" of le t hurch, would have been left imperfect without the testi.,LnN which the passage, just cited, furnishes; a testimony va a uh e, as proving the general belief of a Real Presence in this Sas" v.-nent, by that best practical evidence, the adoration paid to it,-the belief and the practice implying reciprocally each other. I have already intimated that most of the writers contemporary with, or just preceding St. Augustin, have, as compared with him, spoken frankly on the subject of the Eucharist. It was not possible, indeed, that such a development as, about this period, took place of a doctrine hitherto so inshrined in obscurity as was the Trinity, should not encourage by degrees a bold. ness of language and thought which would show itself in the assertion of the other great mysteries. ~ Accordingly we find,not only in the catechetical discourses of this time, but even in writings more intended for the public eye,-a far more explicit testimony to the doctrine of the Real Presence and of the change of substance, than had been ventured on since the days of St. Justin and St. Irenseus. It is worthy of remark, too,-as addAng another illustration to the many I have already noticed of the similar fate that has, in most instances, attended these twin mysteries, Transubstantiation and the Trinity,-that the same eminent men who, in the fourth century, carried the latter dogma to that high region of orthodoxy where it stands fixed at OL rennvrpvor, formed what may be called the watchword of the Secret, and occur constantly in the Fathers. Thus St. Chrysostom, for instance,-in whose writings Casaubon remarked the recurrence of this phrase, at least fifty times,--n speaking of the tongue (Comment. in Psalm 143) says, "Reflect that this is the member with which we receive the tremendous sacrifice,-the Faithful knoo what I speak of" Hardly less frequent is the occurrence of the same phrase in St. Augustin, who seldom ventures to intimate the Eucharist in any other way than by the words, " Quod nbrunt Fideles." IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. Of present, were also those who asserted most boldly the entire Catholic doctrine respecting the Eucharist;-the same Gregory of Nyssa who held that " the bread sanctified by the Word of God was transmuted into the body of the Word of God," having been also the strenuous maintainer of the doctrine, " that there was a whole Son in a whole Father, and a whole Father in a whole Son;" and the same Gregory of Nazianzum, who desired his hearers " not to stagger in their souls, but, without shame or doubting, to eat the body and drink the blood," having likewise told them that " whoever maintains that any of the Three Persons is inferior to the others, overturns the whole Trinity." CHAPTER XVII. Fathers of the Fourth Century.-Prcofs of their doctrine respecting tne Eucharist.-Ancient Liturgies. HAVING now laid before my reader the whole process of thought and inquiry by which that phantom of Protestantism which had, as I fancied, beckoned to me out of the pages of St. Clement and St. Cyprian was again explained away into " thin air," I shall now select a few of the innumerable passages that abound throughout the writings of the fourth century, bearing testimony incontrovertible to the true nature both of the Blessed Eucharist itself, and of all the rites and doctrines connected with that mystery,-the altar, the oblation, the unbloody sacrifice, the real presence of the victim, the change of substance, and, as the natural consequence of all, the adoration. St. James of Nisibis.*--" Our Lord gave his body with his own hands, for food; and his blood for drink, before he was crucified."t--Serm. 14. * A distinguished Bishop who assisted at the council of Nice, in 325, and was, as Cave describes him, " doctrinae orthodoxa vindex primarius." This Father, indeed, deserves to be included among those mentioned in the preceding chapter as having maintained an equally high tone of orthodoxy in both the great Christian mysteries, the Trinity and the Real Presence. 1 " Christ offered himself as a priest, before his crucifixion."-See Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice.-This learned Protestant, who, like Grabe, Chillingworth, and other ornaments of the same Church, was sufficiently open to the light of truth to adhere to the ancient Catholic doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, thus expresses himself on the subject in another part of his work:-" I suppose all Protestants will allow that Christ's sacrifice was intended for the expiation of sin; and, if so, they cannot think it strange that it was offered before it was slain, and that by the Priest himself;-for it is clear this was the method prescribed by Moses of old."-And, again, "We may safely conclude that he did then offer himself, while alive; especially since sacrifices of expiation and consecration were, of old, thus ofifred by the Priest before they were slain." 68 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN " Abstain from all uncleanness, and then receive the body and blood of Christ. Cautiously guard your mouth, through which the Lord has entered, and be it no longer a passage to words of uncleanness."-Serm. 3. St. Ephrem of Edessa.--" Consider, my beloved, with what fear those stand before the throne, who wait on a mortal King. How much more does it behoove us to appear before the heavenly King with fear and trembling, and with awful gravity? Hence it becomes us not boldly to look on the mysteries, that lie before us, of the body and blood of our Lord."-Parcen. 19. " The eye of faith manifestly beholds the Lord, eating his body and drinking his blood, and indulges no curious inquiry.* You believe that Christ, the Son of God, for you was born in the flesh. Then why do you search into what is inscrutable? Doing this, you prove your curiosity, not your faith. Believe, then, and with a firm faith receive the body and blood of our Lord."--De Nat. Dei. St. Cyril of Jerusalem.t--" The bread and wine which before the invocation of the Adorable Trinity were nothing but bread * The counsel here given, not to pry curiously into the mysteries of the Faith, is inculcated frequently in the writings of the Fathers. Thus St. Ambrose says-" Manum ori admove;-scrutari non licet superna mysteria." (De Abrah. Patr.) St. Cyril, of Alexandria, lays it down, too, with equal solemnity, that all curiosity is to be refrained from in matters of faith:-ro rlttrE irapaecrKov aroXvirpayliovrlrov ivai Xpri.-Had the Fathers themselves somewhat more attended to this caution, much of the trifling speculation into which they have entered, touching the manner in which Christ's body unites itself with the bodies of those who receive it, would have been, with advantage, avoided. St. Cyril, of Alexandria, compares the union which thus takes place to that of lead with silver; while another Father sees in it a resemblance to the mixing up of leaven with paste. A third says it is like the melting of one piece of wax into another; while, by some, an illustration of the mystery is sought for, in the manner in which medicine passes into tle entrails. Such attempts to solve what is inexplicable but afford triumph to the infidel and the heretic; and, accordingly, in the controversy which gave rise to the celebrated work " De la Perpetuit6 de la Foi," we find the Reformed Ministers profanely reproaching the Catholics with believing that the body of Christ is received " comme on mange des pilules." f The Discourses of St. Cyril, from which these extracts are taken, were addressed to those Christians who were newly baptized, and who had therefore but recently been admitted to the Mysteries. The learned and Protestant author of a very useful work, lately published, (Clarke's Succession of Ecclesiastical Literature,) expresses strong doubts as to the authenticity of these Discourses of Cyril, but omits to assign any reasons for his doubts. We have against him, indeed, high Protestant authorities. "To question," says Cave, "whether these Discourses be Cyril's (as some have done) is foolish and trifling; when they are not only quoted by Damascen, but expressly mentioned by St. Jerome, and cited by Theodoret, the one contemporary with him, the others flourishing but a few years after him." The distinguished theologian, Bishop Bull, contends also most strenuously against those who would contest the authenticity of these Catecheses, and the opinions of Vossius, Whitaker, and other learned Protestants may be cited on the same side, IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 69 and wine, become, after this invocation, the body and blood of Christ."-Catech. Mystag. 1. " The Eucharistic bread, after the invocation of the Holy Spirit, is no longer common bread, but the body of Christ."-Catech. 3. " As then Christ, speaking of the bread, declared, and said 'This is my body,' who shall dare to doubt it? And as, speaking of the wine, he positively assured us, and said ' This is my blood,' who shall doubt it and say that it is not his blood?"-Catech. Myst. 4. "Jesus Christ, in Cana of Galilee, once changed water into wine by his will only; and shall we think him less worthy of credit, when he changes wine into blood?"-Ibid. "< Wherefore I conjure you, my brethren, not to consider them any more as common bread and wine, since they are the body and blood of Jesus Christ according to his words; and, although your sense might suggest that to you, let faith confirm you. Judge not of the thing by your taste, but by faith assure yourself, without the least doubt, that you are honored with the blood and body of Christ:-this knowing, and of this being assured, that what appears to be bread is not bread, though it be taken for the bread by the taste, but is the body of Christ; and that which appears to be wine, is not the wine, though the taste will have it so, but the blood of Christ."--Ibid.* St. Basil.--" About the things that God has spoken there should be no hesitation nor doubt, but a firm persuasion that all is true and possible, though Nature be against it.t Herein lies the struggle of faith."-Regula viii. Moral. " The words of the Lord, ' This is my body, which shall be delivered for you,' create a firm conviction."--Ibid. in Reg. brev. St. Gregory of Nyssa.--" What is this medicine? No other than that body which was shown to be more powerful than death, and was the beginning of our life; and which could not otherwise enter into our bodies than by eating and drinking. Now, we SSt. Cyril of Alexandria, who lived in the succeeding century, is, if alny thing, still more express and emphatic in asserting a real, corporal Presence, than his namesake of Jerusalem. Thus, in his Homily on the Mystic Supper, he pronounces Christ to be " both Priest and Victim, him that offers and that is offered."-In his Commentary on St. John, too, we find the following passages:-" And what is the meaning and the efficacy of this Mystic Eucharist? is it not that Christ may corporally dwell in us by the participation and communion of his holy flesh?"-"By the mediation of Christ, therefore, we enter into a union with God the Father, receiving him within us, corporally and spiritually, who by nature truly is the Son, and consubstantial with him." Another Holy Father, Isidore of Pelusium, who lived at the commencement of the same age and was one of the Disciples of St. Chrysostorn, thus, in writing against Macedonius who denied the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, brings as a proof of the Spirit's Divine nature, the miracle of Transubstantiation:-" Since it is he who, on the mysterious table, produces from common bread the very body of Jesus Christ incarnate."-Ep. ad Marathon. Monarch. f Hav oD)pa O~ov aXqrOg tiva KaL SJvvoaov, Kay 4 vaZg paxlyral. TO TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN must consider, how it can be, that one body, which so constantly, through the whole world, is distributed to so many thousands of the faithful, can be whole in each receiver, and itself remain whole.* This bread, as the Apostle says, is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer,-not tht, as food, it passes into the body, but that it is instantly changed into the body of Christ, agreeably to what he said, ' This is my body.' "t-Orat. Catech. St. Gregory of Nazianzum.--" The law puts a staff in your hand, that you may not stagger in your souls, when you hear of the blood, passion and death of God: but rather without shame and doubting, eat the body and drink the blood, if you sigh after life, never doubting of what you hear concerning his flesh, nor scandalized at his passion."-Orat. 42. St. Ambrose.--" Perhaps you will say, why do you tell me that I receive the body of Christ, when I see quite another thing? We have this point, therefore, to prove. How many examples do we produce to show you that this is not what nature made it, but what the benediction has consecrated it; and that the benediction is of greater force than nature, because, by the benediction, nature itself is changed. Moses cast his rod on the ground, and it became a serpent; he caught hold of the serpent's tail, and it recovered the nature of a rod....... Thou hast read of the Creation of the world: if Christ, by his word, was able to make something out of nothing, shall he not be thought able to change one thing into another?"t-De Mysteriis. * Bonaventura illustrates this miracle by the example of a mirror, which, when broken, repeats, in each several fragment, the same entire image which it had reflected, when whole. t "The thirty-seventh Chapter (of Gregory of Nyssa's Great Catechetical Discourse) treats of the Eucharist, where he fully and clearly avows the doc trine of the Real Presence-KaXou ovv Kcai vvv rov rco Xoyp roy Oeov aytaropc vov aprov ets caroa rov Oeov Aoyov peraTrois~tOate nrevopat."-Clarke's Succes sion, f-c. It is, in like manner, acknowledged by the learned Protestant, Dr Grabe, that Gregory of Nyssa and Cyril of Jerusalem both assert, in theii writings, that the substance of bread in the Eucharist is transferred into the flesh of Christ which he took of the Virgin. I Of this Discourse of St. Ambrose, the writer, referred to in the preceding note, says-"Had a work been now written on the Roman Catholic practice and doctrine of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, it could not more fully assert the Papal creed on these points than this Discourse."-( Clarke's Succession of Sacred Literature.) After such admissions as this,-and no Protestant, with candor and knowledge, will gainsay its truth,-what becomes, I again ask, of the old wives' tale, still harped upon occasionally by a few wornout controversialists, which would represent Transubstantiation as an invention of the ninth century? In the Treatise d'Sacramentis, attributed to St. Ambrose, we find equally strong and clear proofs of this Father's belief in Transubstantiation. As, for instance, " Though they may seem to be the figure of the bread and wine, yet, after the consecration, they must be believed to be the flesh and blood and nothing else." In noticing the doubts that have been raised as to the authenticity of this particular Treatise, Mr. Clarke observes, SThe arguments seem strong against it; but, however it may be, it is cleat, IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 71 St. Jerome.-" Moses gave us not the true bread, but our Lord Jesus did. He invites us to the feast, and is himself our meat: he eats with us, and we eat him."-Ep. 150. ad Hedib. St, Gaudentius of Brescia.--" In the shadows and figures of the ancient Pasch, not one lamb, but many were slain, for each house had its sacrifice, because one victim could not suffice for all the people; and also because the my#~ry was a mere figure, and not the reality of the passion of the Lord. For the figure of a thing is not the reality, but only the image and representa. tion of the thing signified. But now, when the figure has ceased, the one that died for all, immolated in the mystery of bread and wine, gives life through all the churches,* and, being consecrated, sanctifies those who consecrate......... He who is the Creator and Lord of all natures, who produces bread from the earth, of the bread makes his own proper body, (for he is able, and he promised to do it) and who of water made wine, and of wine his blood."- Tract. 11. de Pasch. St. John Chrysostom.--" Let us believe God in every thing, and not gainsay him, although what is said may seem contrary to our reason and our sight.t Let his word overpower both. Thus let us do in mysteries, not looking only on the things that lie before us, but holding fast his words; for his word cannot deceive; but our sense is very easily deceived. Since then his word says,' This is my body,' let us assent and believe, and view it with the eyes of our understandinag."-Homil. 82. in Matt. "As many as partake of this body, as many as taste of this blood, think ye it nothing different from that which sits above, and is adored by. angels."-Homil. 3, in c. 1, ad Ephes. " Wonderful!-the table is spread with mysteries, the Lamb of God is slain for thee, and the spiritual blood flows from the sacred table. The spiritual fire comes down from heaven; the blood in the chalice is drawn from the spotless side for thy purification. Thinkest thou that thou seest bread? that thou seest from the ascertained productions of this author, that the doctrines contained in it are in accordance with his opinions; and the Real Presence, and the forms and ceremonies, &c. of Baptism, are just such as St. Ambrose would have delivered." * Such passages as this, which abound in the writers of the fourth age, attributing a life-giving effect to the participation of the Eucharist, prove nmot clearly that the sixth chapter of St. John was understood by them as referring to that Sacrament. In this sense, Julius Firmicus, a writer of the fourth age, calls the Eucharistic chalice "proculum immortale," and adds that it bestows upon the dying the gift of eternal life. " And what do they hold (says St. Augustin) who call the Sacrament of the Lord's Table, Life, but that which was said, 'I am the Bread of Life, and except ye eat of me, ye shall have no life in you?' " f The same Father defines the signification of a Mystery to be, "when we see one thing but believe it to be another"--repa bowue, 7r pa TrtcrrLUovv. S TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN wine? that these things pass of as other foods do? Far be it from thee to think so. But, as wax brought near to the fire loses its former substance, which no longer remains; so do thou thus conclude, that the mysteries (the bread and wine) are consumed by the substance of the Body."-Hom. 9, de Pcenit. " But are there many Christs, as the offering is made in many places? By no means: it is the same Christ every where; here entire, and there entire, one body. As then, though offered in many places, there is one body, and not many bodies; so is there one sacrifice."-Hom. 17, in c. 9, ad Hebr. St. MJaruthas.-'- As often as we approach and receive on our hands the body and blood, we believe that we embrace his body, and become, as it is written, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones. For Christ did not call it the figure or species of his body, but he said, this truly is my body and this is my blood.'" -Com. in Mat. In addition to the decisive testimony of all the Fathers on this subject, there is yet another body of evidence, still more ancient and precious, to be found in those Liturgies of the early Churches, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Syriac, &c., which, like the Apostles' Creed, and for similar reasons, were handed down unwritten,* and preserved, in the memories of the Faithful, from age to age. It was not till Christianity had found a refuge under the roofs of Kings that these depositories of her sacred rites, prayers, and dogmas, were published to the world; and, whatever interpola. tions they may have, some of them, suffered in their progress, it is not doubted, among the learned, that, in those parts where they are found all to agree, they may be depended upon as au. thentic monuments of the apostolic times.t Their entire agree. ment, therefore, in the sense of those prayers which were used in consecrating the elements of the Eucharist,: is a proof more remarkable, perhaps, than any other that has been adduced, of the apostolical date of the Catholic doctrine on that subject. An * The Apostles' Creed is supposed to have been one of the Signs of the Secret, by which the Initiated, or baptized, knew each other, and to have thence derived the designation of Symbol.-See Hist. of.postles' Creed. t It can hardly be doubted (says Archbishop Wake) "but that thoss prayers in which the Liturgies all agree, in sense, at least, if not in words, were first prescribed, in the same or like terms, by those Apostles and Evan gelists" whose names they bear.--.postolic Fathers. I "I add to what has been already observed the consent of all the Chris tian Churches in the world, however distant from each other, in the holy Eucharist, or Sacrament of the Lord's Supper; which consent is indeed wonderful. All the ancient Liturgies agree in this form of prayer, almost in the same words, but fully and exactly in the same sense, order and method; which whoever atteui'vely considers must be convinced that this order of prayer was delivered to the several churches in the very first plantation and settlement of them."-Bishop Bull, Sermons on Common Prayer. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 73 extract or two from some of the most ancient of these Liturgies shall conclude this long Chapter. Liturgy of Jerusalem, (called also, the Liturgy of St. James.) -"( Have mercy on us, 0 God! the Father Almighty, and send thy Holy Spirit the Lord and giver of life, equal in dominion to thee and to thy son-who descended in the likeness of a dove on our Lord Jesus Christ-who descended on the holy Apostles in the likeness of tongues of fire-that coming he may make this bread the life-giving body, the saving body, the heavenly body, the body giving health to souls and bodies, the body of our Lord, God and Saviour, Jesus, for the remission of sins and eternal life to those who receive it.-Amen........ Wherefore we offer to thee, 0 Lord, this tremendous and unbloody sacrifice for thy holy places which thou has enlightened by the manifestation of Christ, thy son," &c. &c. Liturgy of Alexandria, (called also, the Liturgy of St. Mark.) -" Send down upon us, and upon this bread, and this chalice, thy Holy Spirit, that he may sanctify and consecrate them, as God Almighty, and make the bread indeed the body and the chalice the blood* of the New Testament of the very Lord, and God, and Saviour, and our sovereign King, Jesus Christ," &c. &c. Roman Liturgy, (called also, the Liturgy of St. Peter.)"We beseech thee, O God, to cause that this oblation may be, in all things, blessed, admitted, ratified, reasonable and acceptable; that it may become for us the body and blood of thy beloved Son, our lord Jesus Christ." At the Communion, bowing down in sentiments of profound adoration and humility, and addressing himself to Jesus Christ then present in his hand, he says thrice, " Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof; but say only the word and my soul shall be healed." Liturgy of Constantinople.-" Bless. O Lord, the holy bread -make, indeed, this bread the precious body of thy Christ. Bless, O Lord, the holy chalice; and what is in this chalice, the precious blood of thy Christ-changing by the Holy Spirit."... Then, dividing the holy bread into four parts, the Priest says "The Lamb of God is broken and divided,-the Son of the Father, he is broken, but not diminished; he is always eaten, but is not consumed; but he sanctifies those who are made partakers." * "I find," says the Protestant Grotius, "in all the Liturgies, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Syriac, and others, prayers to God that he would consecrate, by his Holy Spirit, the gifts offered, and make them the body and blood of his Son. I was right, therefo e, in saying that a custom so ancient and universal that it must be considered to have come down from the primitive times, ought not to have been changed."--Votum Pro Pace. 7 74 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN CHAPTER XVIII. Visit to T- d-street Chapel.-Antiquity of the observances of th Mass.-Lights, Incense, Holy Water, &c.-Craw-thumpers.-St. A.i gustin a Craw-thumper.-Imitations of Paganism in the early Church. IT was, I recollect, late on a Saturday night, when my task of selecting the extracts given in the preceding chapter was corn. pleted; and so strong, I confess, was the yearning with which 1 found myself drawn back to old Mother Church, by so many irresistible proofs of her pure Christian descent, that, on the fol lowing morning, for the first time since I had ceased to be a boy, I went to attend the celebration of mass in T- d-street Chapel. It was as a sort of peace-offering to the manes of my venerable old Confessor, Father O'-, that I thus chose the chapel to which he had belonged, as the scene of the Prodigal's Return, and,-like those mariners of old who used to hang up their votive tablets in the temple, after escaping from shipwreck, -went to offer up a short prayer on my arrival, safe and sound, from this long and adventurous cruise after that phantom-ship, primitive Protestantism. But, though returning thus to the mansion of her who had nursed me, was I, indeed, "worthy to be called her son?"-Though my reason had been so fully, so abundantly convinced, was that worst source of error, " the blindness of the heart," yet removed? My readers themselves will know but too well how to answer this question, when I confess, that so ashamed did I feel even of the slight hankering after my former faith, which this visit to the chapel betrayed, that I took care to place myself where I should be least likely to meet with persons who knew me; and even there cowered in my corner so as to be, as much as possible, concealed. Though it is evident, from all this, that my feeling of religion had gained but little by my late course of sacred studies, my stock of knowledge on the subject could not be otherwise thal considerably increased. Far different, indeed, were the thoughts with which I now witnessed the ceremonies of that altar from those which they had awakened in me in my boyish days. I had then blindly revered all its forms, without knowing what they meant; I was now book-learned in their history and their import, but-where was the feeling? It was, I blush to own, far more with the zeal of an antiquary, than of a Catholic, or Christian, that, as I now peeped from my corner, I took pleasure in tracing, through every part of the service, some doctrine or observance of the primitive times, and admiring the watchful IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 75 'defity with which Tradition had handed down every little cer. emony connected with that dawn of our faith. In the use of lights and incense,-a practice sneered at by the Protestant, as pagan,-I but read the touching story of the early Church, when her children, hunted by the persecutor, held their religio'ls meetings either at night, or in subterranean places,* whose gloom, of course, rendered the light of taperst necessary, and where the fumes of the censer, besides being familiar to the people among whom Christianity first sprung, were resorted to as a means of dissipating unwholesome odors. In sprinkling the Holy Water on my forehead, I called to mind the far period, -as early as the beginning of the second century,-when salt began to be mixed with the blessed water, in memory of Christ's death; or, as others will have it, as a mystic type of the hypos tatic union of the two natures in the Redeemer. At that period of the Mass when the mysterious Sacrifice begins, I found myself reminded of the form of words, " Foris Catechumeni," in which, invariably, as long as the Discipline of the Secret continued to be observed, the Catechumens, or unbaptized, were dismissed from Church, before those Mysteries, which none but the initiated were allowed to witness, commenced. By the words " Per quem huec omnia, Domine,"~ my thoughts were recalled to the simplicity of the first ages, when the young fruits of the season used to be laid on the altar, and receive, in these words, the blessing of the Priest, before the Communion. Again, when I heard the Priest say " Lift up your hearts," and the people respond to him " We have lifted them up to the Lord," could I help remembering with reverence that in the very same phrases did St. Cyprian and his flock commune before their God,II no less than fifteen hundred years since,-that is, twelve whole centuries before any of those Protestants, by whom the Mass was abolished, existed! But there occurred to me yet another proof of the high an. * Clampini, in his curious work on the remains of ancient buildings and Mosaics, denies that the primitive Christians performed their worship in crypts, and asserts that their meetings were held in houses built over, or near, the cemetries. This laborious antiquary numbers up a list of no less than eighty churches built by the Christians from the year 33 to 275. t Thus we are told, in some notes on Eusebius, (De Die Dominico,) " Quod Christiani mane quondam congregati, Synaxes suas ad lumina accensa celebrarint quae deinceps, etiam interdiu retenta sunt." I According to Tertullian, the sprinkling of the Holy Water was "in memoriam dedicationis Christi." ~ By Calvin, Basnage, &c., an attempt has been made to turn this formula of the Ancient Mass into an argument against the doctrine of the Real Presence,-but the explanation given above is a sufficient answer to their cavils. II De Orat. Domin.-St. Cyril of Jerusalem also makes mention of this tormula, Catech. IMyst. 5. 76 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN tiqcity of the religious observances of the Catholics, which struck me the more forcibly, inasmuch as it related to one of their most ridiculed practices, that of beating the breast with the clenched hand, at the Confiteor, and other parts of the service;-a practice which, in Ireland, has drawn down on the Papists the well-bred appellation of craw-thumpers. When I looked round, however, upon the humble Christians, thus nicknamed, and remembered that St. Augustin himself, the pious and learned St. Augtrstin, was also a craw-thumper, I felt that to err with him was at least erring in good company, and proceeded to join the " tundentes pectora"* (as the Saint describes them) with all my might. The charge brought against the Catholics of being copyists of the Pagans is one regularly renewed by every tour-writing parson who returns, horror-struck with images, &c. from Rome and Naples. So far from denying, however, their adoption of some Pagan customs, the early Christians would have avowed and justified such a policy, as calculated to soften down that ap. pearance of novelty in their faith which formed one of the most startling obstacles to its reception with the Heathen, and thus to enable them, by borrowing some of the forms of error, to win over their hearers to the substance of truth.t The numerous vestiges, indeed, of Paganism, which partly from this policy, partly from the force of habit and imitation, were still retained in the ritual, language, and ceremonies of the early Church, would take far more space than my present limits can afford to enumerate them. Not to dwell on such instances as the adoption of the words " Mystery" and " Sacrament"T from the religious language of the Romans and Greeks,-the form of dismissal addressed to the Catechumens, at the commencement of the Sacrifice, " Depart, ye who are not initiated," in which we recognize the " Procul este, profani," of the Pagan mysteries,-the confession of sins, and abstinence from particular foods required by both religions of the candidates for initia. tion,~ and the different stages or ranks through which they * "Si non habemus peccata, et tundentes pectora, dicimus ' Dimitte nobis peccata nostra,' &c. &c."-Serm. 35. t The advantage of such a mode of proceeding is put acutely in the following words of Bede:-" Pertinaci Paganismo mutatione subventum est, quum rei in totum sublatio potiius irritasset." I By Doctor Waterland the application of the word " Sacrament" to the Eucharist is traced to so early a date as that of the letter of Pliny respecting the Christians, in which he says, " Seque Sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere, sed ne furta, &c." But it is evident that Pliny here employs the word, in the Roman sense, as meaning an Oath; nor is there, I believe, any recorded instance of its application to the Eucharist before the time of Ter tullian. ~ After confessing their sins, the Heatlhen candidates were asked, "Have you eaten of the lawful food, and abstained from the unlawful?"-ro crirov acu ro Utr aTrov JE eys'Evo. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 77 were, in each, gradually promoted,*-the special selection by the Christians of those days, for the Festivals of their Church, which had been before dedicated to some superstitious solemnity by the Pagans,t-not to dwell upon these and many other such striking points of resemblance, we can trace, even in the Liturgic service of the early Church, both the forms and language of the Pagan worship. Thus that species of Psalmody, called Antiphony, first introduced into the Church by St. Ignatius, wherein the anthem was sung alternately by two choirs, was the mode of singing, according to Casaubon, that had been practised in the temples of the Gentiles; and the responses of the people to the Priests found a precedent in some of the ancient Bacchic rites:-" Praise God," said the Daduchus, or lHig Priest, and the people answered, " Oh son of Semele, bestower of wealth." The very words, indeed, Kyrie Eleison, " Lord have mercy on us," which have kept their place in all Litanies to the present day, were, as appears from Arrian (who wrote in the second century,) the ordinary form of prayer to the Deity among the Pagans. " We pray to God (says Arrian, himself a Pagan) in the words Kyrie Eleison. " So far from denying, I repeat it, the source from which these forms have been derived, the Catholics are themselves among the first to avow it;~ well knowing, however the Protestant. may wish to blink such a conclusion, that these occasional resemblances to the forms of Paganism, in the ceremonies of their Church, form one of the countless proofs she can give of the high antiquity of her descent,-even the outward formulary of her devotions being thus traceable to that bright dawn of Christianity, when truth gained upon error gradually, like light upon darkness; and when, if any such lingering mists femained from the night, they were but to be made subservient to the glory of the day. * The last and highest stage of initiation was by the Heathen Mystagogues called Teletcs, or the Consummation; and in the same manner, the admission of the Christian neophyte to communion is styled frequently by the Fathers eXGOiv eri rO r7Teov. t "Our Lord God," says Theodoret, "hath brought his dead (viz. the Martyrs) into the room and place of your Gods whom he hath sent about their business, and hath given their honor to his Martyrs. For, instead of the feasts of Jupiter and Bacchus are now celebrated the festivals of Peter and Paul," &c. I Toyv teor E7iKaXovpIvot JeopeOa avroi-, Kvpte,EXreov.-Dissertat. Epictet. ~ The learned Brisson (one of the victims of the League) says expressly of the words Kyrie Eleison, in his work on the Forms of the Catholic Church, SFontem hujus precationis esse k Paganorum consuetudine." 7* TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN CHAPTER XIX. Rumninations.-Unity of the Catholic Church.-History of St. Peter's Chair. -Means of preserving Unity.-Irenneus.--Hilary.-Indefectability of the one Church. SURELY, thought I, as, ruminating, I sauntered homewards from the chapel,-were there even no other evidence in favoi of the authenticity of her claims, this adherence, on the part of the Catholic Church, through all changes of time and circum stance, to every, even the minutest point of discipline or worship on which the seal of her primitive teachers was set, would be, of itself, a sufficient assurance, without any further testimony, that she had kept equally scrupulous watch over the great doc. trines bequeathed to her, and handed them down, even unto our own times, as they were "delivered by the Saints." Though nothing less, of course, than the superintendence of a Divine Providence can be held sufficient to account for this great standing miracle of a Church upholding itself through the lapse of eighteen centuries, unchanged and, as it would appear, unchangeable,-it may yet be permitted to inquire how far, as a subordinate instrument, human policy may have had its share in producing this result; and there can be no doubt that the zealous watchfulness with which the pastors of the Catholic Church have ever acted upon, themselves, and prescribed urgently to their flocks the precept of St. Paul, " Be ye of one mind," has been, of all the human means employed to keep the strong fabric of their faith unbroken, the most sagacious and powerful. What importance they attached to Unity, and how great was their horror of schism, appears from the earnest language of all the Fathers on the subject. " Unity cannot be severed," says St. Cyprian, " nor the one body by laceration be divided. What. ever is separated from the stock, cannot live, cannot breathe apart: it loses the substance of life."-De Unitat. Eccles. " The ancient Catholic Church alone (says St. Clement of Alexandria) is one in essence, in opinion, in origin, and in excellence, one in faith."-Strom. 1. 7. In a still more Popish spirit, St. Optatus (a bishop of Milevis in the fourth century) thus writes:-" You cannot deny that St. Peter, the chief of the Apostles, established an Episcopal Chair at Rome. This Chair was one, that all might preserve Unity by the union which they had with it: so that, whoever set up a chair against it, should be a schismatic and an ofender."-De Schism. Donat. The history, indeed, of this " one Chair," presents, in itself, such a phenomenon and marvel as no other form of human power, in any age of the world, has paralleled. Through a IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 79 course of eighteen centuries, amidst the constant flux and reflux of the destinies of nations, while every other part of Europe has seen its institutions, time after time, broken up and reconstructed, while new races of kings have, like pageants, come and disappeared, and England herself has passed successively under the sway of five different nations, the Apostolic See, the Chair of St. Peter, has alone defied the vicissitudes of time,-has remained as "a city seated on a mountain," a rallying point for the church of God throughout all time, and counting an unbroken succession of Pontiffs* from its first occupant, St. Peter, down to the present hour. To return, however, to the more directly human means by which the stability of the Catholic Church has been thus won. derfully preserved,-we have seen that to the maintenance of entire and changeless unity among her children, all the energies of her most enlightened pastors have, in all times, been directed: and such a system of union being, in fact, indispensable both to the peace and durability of their Church, it is of importance tc inquire by what means they so well succeeded in effecting it Was it by throwing open the Scriptures to the multitude? Wat it by leaving, like modern Reformers, the right of judgment un fettered, and allowing every man to interpret the Sacred Volume as he fancied? Far from it;-they were as little Protestant on this point as on all others. They asked, with St. Paul, "Are all Prophets? are all Teachers?" They knew, with St. Peter, that there are, in the Scriptures, " things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction." They saw the consequences of the first steps of dissent in the random course of all the heretics of their day; and the language employed by them in speaking of these vagrant sectaries was but an anticipation of what the Catholics of after-times have had to apply to Protestants. Thus St. Irenaeus, who lived, if I may so say, in the very sunset of the apostolical age, and had its light fresh around him, after remarking the uncountable varieties of doctrine into which heresy had even then branched, adds:" When, therefore, they shall be agreed among themselves on what they draw from the Scriptures, it will be our time to refute them. Meanwhile, thinking wrongfully, and not agreeing in the meaning of the same words, they convict themselves. But we, having one true and only God for our master, and making his words the rule of truth, always speak alike of the same things."-Adv. Her. 1. 4.t * In speaking of the first links of this chain,-from St. Peter down to Elmuthorins, the twelfth Bishop of Rome,-Ireneus says, "In this very order and succession has the Tralition swhich is in the Church, and the preaching of the truth, come to us from the /postles." SIn th3 same spirit is another remarkable passage of the same Fathce: 80 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN Two centuries later we find the great Trinitarian, St. Hilary, describing the Arian creed-mongers of his own time in terms no less appropriately applicable to the Luthers, Zwingles, and Calvins of the Reformation, and to all those succession crops of Creeds that sprung up so rankly under their culture. 6" When once they (the Arians) began to make new confessions of faith, belief became the creed of the times rather than of the Gospels. Every year new creeds were made, and men did not keep to that simplicity of faith which they professed at their baptism. And then, what miseries ensued! for soon there were as many creeds as might please each party; and nothing else has been minded, since the Council of Nice, but this creed-making.New creeds have come forlh every year, and every month: they have been changed, have been anathematized, and then re-established; and thus, by too much inquiry into the faith, there is no faith left. Recollect, too, that there is not one of these heretics who does not impudently assert that all his blasphemies are derived from the Scriptures."-Ad Constant. lib. 2. Having, from the earliest times of the Faith, such examples to warn them, and adhering firmly to the principle of oneness enjoined by Christ himself, the heads of the church continued invariably to act upon the system of requiring all within the fold to follow the one Shepherd; and if any resisted or dissented, cast them forth from the flock. To this exclusion, no less awful a penalty was attached than the forfeiture of eternal salvation;* and, however stern and tremendous such a decree must appear, they who had been taught that there was but "one Lord, one faith, and one baptism," and who held, therefore, that he who was not in the ark must perish by the deluge, could not, with any sincerity, pronounce a more lenient sentence. Under the shelter of such guards and sanctions, human as well as divine, has the Catholic Church been enabled to hold on her changeless course, and exhibit an example of permanence, indefectibility, and unity, to which the whole history of human systems afford no parallel; sustaining herself, unblenched and "Paul said, 'IWe speak-wisdom among the Perfect, but not the wisdom of this world.' Every one of these men (the heretics) affirms that this wisdom is in himself; that he findeth it of himnself,-namely, the fiction which he hath invented. So that, according to them, the truth is said to be sometimes in Valentinus, sometimes in 1iarcion, sometimes in Cerinthus, and, after that, in Basilides. When again we appeal to that tradition, which is delivered from the Apostles, and which is preserved in the Church by a succession of Elders, they then turn against tradition." * The Synodal epistle of the Council of Zerta, drawn up by St. Augustin, thus tells the Donatists:--" Whoever is separated from this Catholic Church however innocently he may think he lives, for this crime alone, that he is separated friom the Unity of Christ, will not have life, but the anger of God remains upon him." IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 81 unbroken-with the single exception of the partial schism of the Eastern Church-through a period commensurate with the existence of Christianity itself, and, amidst all the changes, eclipses, and wrecks of all other institutions, delivering down the same doctrines from father to son, through every age; while of all the leaders of sects opposed to her, from Simon Magus down to Luther, not a single one has been able to frame a creed for his followers, the articles of which have remained unaltered beyond his own lifetime. CHAPTER XX. A Dream.-Scene, a Catholic Church-time, the third century.-Angel of Hermas.-High Mass.-Scene shifts to Ballymudragget.-Rector's Sermon.-Amen Chorus. Tiis train of thought into which I had been led by the ceremonies of the morning, and which continued, more or less, to occupy me during the remainder of the day, was doubtless the cause of a strange dream by which I was visited that night, and which, for the benefit of all those who have any fancy for such " children of the idle brain," I shall here relate. I found myself seated, as I thought, in the middle of a great church, in some foreign land, and, according to the impression I had on my mind, in the Third or Fourth Century. From the lights, the incense, and the sounds of psalmody that rose around, I could not doubt that I stood in some temple of Catholic worship, and, by a still greater miracle of fancy, was reconverted into a good, orthodox Catholic myself. On looking round, however, through the crowd of fellow-believers that encircled me, I was filled with astonishment at the varieties of hue and habit which they exhibited;-the Roman, the Carthaginian, the Gaul, the citizens of Athens and of Jerusalem, of Corinth and of Ephesus, the Alexandrian and the Spaniard, all seated round, arrayed in the different garbs of their respective countries, and waiting, in solemn silence, the opening of the Mass. I now, for the first time, perceived, by my side, a youth of divine aspect, who regarded me with a smile of benevolence, that came, like sunshine, into my heart. He was habited in the manner of a shepherd of the old pastoral times, and on considering his features more closely, I recognized in him the same friendly Angel who, in the garb of a Shepherd, had led Hermas through his series of Visions.* An exchange of salutations having passed between us, I was about to inquire after his old * See page 16 of this volume. F 82 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN pupil's celestial health, when he pressed his fore-finger on his lip, as a warning of silence, and, almost at the same moment, the first words of the service broke on our ears. The venerable Priest who officiated seemed to my fancy a sort of compound being, made up from the descriptions I had read of some of the celebrated Fathers of the Church,-having the bald, Elisha-like head of St. Chrysostom, the upright eyebrows of St. Cyril, and " the beard prolix" (as Dr. Cave terms it) of the great St. Basil. Sometimes, too, as my dream shifted, like a morning mist, it appeared to me as if the holy personage ministering at the altar was no other than my good old confessor, Father O'H---himself. The public part of the mass being now ended, the moment had arrived when, by the solemn form of words, "( Depart in peace," those who had not yet been initiated by baptism were warned to retire, and the Faithful left to perform the dread Sacrifice among themselves. But who shall worthily describe that rite which followed? Never shall 1 forget the effect, as it then presented itself to my fancy, of the still and unbreathing silence* of that vast multitude of Christians,-till, at the awful moment of communion, when, as the Priest, raising the sacred Host, pronounced it " the Body of Christ," the whole assembly fell prostrate, in adoration, before it, and the word " Amen,"t as if with one voice and one soul, burst from all around. It was like a sweet and long-drawn peal of music, a concert of sounds, unbroken by a single breath of dissonance, from every quarter of this earth which the wind visits,-all blending in the belief of an incarnate God, who by his flesh hath redeemed, and with his flesh still feeds, his creatures. So overpowering was the effect of this sound upon me that I had nearly waked with emotion;-but the interruption was only momentary. Though the web of my dream had been broken, the thread was not altogether lost; and, after a short interval of entanglement, I found myself again in company with the AngelShepherd, in the very act ot proposing to him, that, in return for his condescension in thus procuring me a peep into a church of the third century, he would allow me the honor of treating him to a similar glimpse into one of our new-fashioned churches, or conventicles, of the nineteenth. Scarcely had the words passed my lips, when by a sudden * When the Priest, says St. Chrysostom, stands before the Table, stretching out his hands to heaven, invocating the Holy Spirit, that he would come and give the contact, all is stillness and silence--,roXq ) avXta, xronXXl 7yr?. t " In the very form of communion, the whole primitive Church made a solemn and public profession of the truth of the body of Christ in this Sacrament. The Priest, in giving it, spake these words, Corpus Christi, that is, the body of Christ, and the communicant answered J.men, that is, it is true." Rutter on the Eucharist. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 83 shift of scene, we were, at once, transported away to the Parish Church of Ballymudragget, and arrived just as the rich and roseate Rector of that place was ascending the pulpit, to read over to his half-a-sleep flock the last ready-made sermon he had purchased. The church appeared to me to have been, in some marvellous manner, enlarged for the occasion, and was nothronged with a dense multitude of persons whom, by that intu itive knowledge given only to dreamers, I knew to consist of ah the various sects and denominations into which-with a vitality as infinitely divisible as that of the polypus itself-English Protestantism has been subdivided; and as, in the first stage of my dream, we had witnessed the spectacle of a variety of nations with one religion, so we now had before us the Reformed fashion of one nation with a variety of religions;-there being collected there (to mention but a few of the diversities of faith that presented themselves) Calvinists, Arminians, Antinomians, Independents, Baptists, Particular Baptists, Methodists, Kilhamites, Glassites, Haldanites, Bereans, Swedenborgians, Quakers, Shakers, Ranters, and Jumpers. It was said of the great St. Ambrose that he had a peculiar talent for smelling out dead martyrs;* and no less quick a scent did my friend, the Angel, appear to have for live heretics. For, perceiving instantly the difference between these moderns and the old, regular Christians he had been accustomed to, he beg ged, in a whisper, that I would explain briefly to him the particular form of heresy to which they belonged. The task was puzzling:-just as reasonably, indeed, might he have inquired of me the particular form and color of the motes in a sunbeam. Not liking, however, to appear uncommunicative, I at once in. vented a generic name for the whole assembly, and told him the people he saw around us were Suists,t-so called, from following each his own way in religion, and only taking care in forming his peculiar creed, that it should as little as possible resemble the creed of his neighbor. Unluckily for this definition of mine, the discourse of tho Reverend Rector happened to turn upon the one, only point on which his auditors were entirely unanimous,-namely, contempt and detestation for the ancient Catholic Church, its doctrines, observances, traditions, and teachers. To describe the astonish. * "Idem Praesul (says Daille, gibingly, in speaking of the great Bislop of Milan's discovery of the two buried Saints, Gervasius and Protasius) quo nemo fuit in odorandis ac cernendis sub terra quantumvis alta Reliquiis sagacior et acutior." f " No common name being to be found, fit to comprehend our sectaries, but that of a Suist, one that follows his own dreams or fancy in choice of Scripture, and interpretation of it."-Dr. Carier's Motives for Conversion to the Catholic Religion, 1649. 54 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN mont of the Angel at the specimen of Ballymudragget Christianity now presented to him would be a task beyond my powers. When he heard the solemn words of our Lord in instituting the Eucharist, ' Hoc est corpus," &c., profanely travestied into " Hocus Pocus;"* when he was told gravely by the preacher that to maintain the corporal presence of Christ in the Sacrament is as absurd as to declare " an egg to be an elephant, or a musket-ball a pike,"t-I saw his celestial brow darken, at once, with sorrow and disdain, and he was only roused from the thoughtfulness into which such blasphemies plunged him, on hearing the preacher mention Luther as the Apostle of this new Gospel he was ex. pounding to them.: " Luther," muttered the Spirit to himself; and then, turning quick round to me, exclaimed, " Luther!who is he?" Somewhat startled to find the illustrious author of Protestant. ism so entirely unknown to my angelic friend, I proceeded to inform him of the few particulars I myself, at that time, knew of the great Reformer;-viz., that he was a monk of the order of St. Augustin who, about the year 1520, undertook to bring back the primitive purity of the Gospel;-that one of his first steps towards this object was to renounce his vows of chastity and marry a runaway nun whose views of reform, it appeared, co incided with his own;-that, still in furtherance of the same pious design, he struck up, as he himself informs us, an intimacy with the Devil; by whose friendly advice he pronounced the ancient Sacrifice of the Mass to be a nuisance, and abolished it accordingly;~ that- I was thus, to the infinite wonder and horror of my companion, proceeding, when we both perceived that the portly Preacher had concluded his discourse; and all further communication between us was put an end to by the scene that followed. Immediately on the conclusion of the Reverend gentleman's * It is no less a person than Tillotson who, in one of his writings, has descended to this ribaldry. t "It might well seem strange, if any man should write a book to prove that an egg is not an elephant and that a musket-ball is not a pike."-Tillotson on Transubstantiation. t The'Reverend Preacher, however, had done injustice to Luther, who, as far as a belief in the Real Presence went, (and without considering the modus,) was perfectly orthodox. ~ See Luther's own account of this famous conference, which he evidently believed himself to have held, with the Devil, on the subject of Private Masses, and the result of which was as above stated.-De abrog. Miss. priv. Had we not the recital of this strange illusion from the Reformer himself, who describes all particulars of the Devil's tone of voice, his off-hand manner of arguing, &c., such an instance of mental drivelling in so great a leader of human opinion would have been altogether inconceivable. He tells us, too, that his scenes of this kind, with the Devil, were frequent.--" Multas noctes mihi satis amarulentas et acerbas reddere ille novit." IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 85 sermon, an Amen Chorus,-got up, it would appear, in direct opposition to the symphonious strain we had heard some fifteen centuries before,-broke forth from the whole motley mass of Protestantism around us. Heavens, what a crash!-Not that celebrated pig-instrument, invented for the special amusement of Louis XV, could, with all its scale of grunts and squeaks mulltiplied a million-fold,* come, in the least degree, into comparison with the varieties of discord in which this general and prolonged Amen was uttered forth;-the deep, damnatory growl of the Calvinist, and the exclusive shriek, of the Particular Baptist (shrill as the screaming of a sea-fowl in the storm) forming the treble and base of this most discordant scale. Every moment, too, some new subdivision of dissonance was added to the original stock, till, at length, to so loud a pitch did the charivari swell, that no powers of sleeping, however dogged, could withstand it. In an instant, the whole visionary assemblage was put to flight; and, on awaking, I found myself lying, with one of the contro. versial volumes of the Rev. G. S. Faber, Rector of Long Newton, resting heavily on my chest. I had been employed in reading the volume when I dropped off to sleep, and its influence and superincumbence more than sufficiently accounted both for the long and deep slumber into which I was thrown, and the sort of Protestant nightmare under which I had awaked. CHAPTER XXI. Search after Protestantism suspended.-Despair of finding it among tne Orthodox.-Resolve to try the Heretics.-Dead Sea of Learning.-Bal ance of Agreeableness between Fathers and Heretics. I HAD, by this time, as my readers will easily believe, got not a little sick and weary of my search after Protestantism; a search hopeless, I found, as that of the Bramin, in ths Eastern Tale, whose wife sent him all over the world, on a fool's errand, to look for the Fifth Volume of the Hindoo Scriptures,---there * A sort of instrument, played with keys like a harpsichord, or organ, invented, it is said, by some Abb6, for the amusement of Louis XV, in which pigs of different ages and tones, from the youngest to the oldest, were placed so as to form the treble and bass of the scale. According as the performer played, a spike at the end of each key produced the tones desired, while a muzzle was so contrived as to act the part of damper, and stop the mouth of each pig as soon as his note was uttered. The whole was then covered in, so as to appear like an instrument, and the Abb6, it is stated, performed upon it, in the presence of the Court. t The Tirrea Bede, or Fifth Veda.-See, for this lively story, (a part of which closely resembles Chaucer's January and May,) the collection called the Bahardanush. 8 86 TRAVEL OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN never having been but Four. Tired of my learned studies, and mortified to think how much time I had lost with them, I, for some weeks, gave up sullenly all thoughts of conversion, and was fast relapsing into what the Abbe la Mennais calls Indifferent. ism, on the subject. It happened just then, however, that some circumstances connected intimately with that domestic secret to which I have so frequently alluded, but which must a little longer remain veiled in mystery, occurred to rouse me out of the listless apathy into which I had sunk, and make me feel that-- no matter what my scruples or convictions,-I must take to Protestantism, of some description or other, immediately. The thought of finding, among the orthodox of the early Church, any creed but that of Popery, was now, of course, out of the question. I had still, however, a fond hankering after those primitive ages, and knowing what power there is in antiquity to lend a grace to error, thought that if, even among the heretics of that venerable p'eriod, I could discover a little of the primeval Protestantism I had been looking for, it would be, at all events, no upstart heresy of a few centuries, but would, at least, have that degree of hoary heterodoxy about it which, if my conscience must give way, would throw dignity round its fall. Nor had I much fears of being disappointed in this object of my now crest-fallen ambition; for thus did I argue:-if the Catholic Church (as has been but too clearly demonstrated) held, in those early ages, the very same doctrines which she holds at present, those who, at that period, dissented from, or protested against, her doctrines, musi have been, in so far, Protestants; and though it does not always follow that two parties who differ with a third will agree with each other, yet was it natural to hope that among the grounds on which the Anti-Catholics of that time bottomed their heresies might be found some of those which have since furnished the basis of Protestantism. This glimpse of hope again awakened all my inquisitive energies; and, like a return of lost scent to the beagle, sent me once more, in full cry, after my game. I have already remarked that thtte persevering Unity of Faith, which the Catholic Church has, through all ages, in pursuance of the Divine injunctions, maintained, could by no other device of human policy have been preserved than that which the See of Rome, as visible Head of the Christian world, has ever adopted,-namely, the repression of all private interpretation of Scripture, and the assertion to herself of the right of being at all times, and on all points of faith, the guide to truth, the expounder of Scripture, and the judge of controversy. "Truly," says Gregory of Nazianzum, in speaking of the mischiefs that arose from the exercise of private judgment,-" there should have been a law IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 87 among us, whereby (as, among the Jews, young men were not allowed to read certain books of Scripture) not all men, and at all times, but certain persons only, and on certain occasions, should be permitted to discuss the points of Faith."-Orat. xxvi. St. Jerome, too, in a passage whose just sarcasm will be found to fit some of the Bible-expounders of the present day as closely as if they had been measured for it, thus speaks:-" In all menial arts there must be some one to show the way:-the art of understanding the Scriptures alone is open to every reader! Here, learned or unlearned, we can all interpret. The tattling old woman, the doting old mi,:, the wordy sophist, all, all here presume; they tear texts asunder, and dare to become teachers before they have learned.-Ep. L. T. iv. Pars. 11. To look for Protestantism-whose very corner-stone is the right of private judgment-in a Church whose system it has been, from the first, to acknowledge no such right, was, I now perceived, a gross mistake,-a mistake into which nothing but my entire ignorance of the Rule of Faith prescribed to the Primi. tive Christians could have led me. For, after all, in this point, -in the latitude given to private interpretation,-lies the broad and essential distinction between the Catholic Church and her opponents, under whatever forms or at whatever periods such opponents may have appeared. The test, indeed, is as true and as applicable to the respective parties in the first century as in the nineteenth; and in whatever age, however early, we find professed Christians questioning or rejecting the authority of the Church, and grounding their opposition to her rites or doctrines upon the Scriptures, as interpreted by themselves, we may be assured that there is already at work the spirit of Protestantism. Having come to this conclusion, I now, once more, betook myself to my folios,-once more plunged into that Dead Sea of Learning which is so little suited to a diver of light bulk, like myself,* and over which never hath the wing of Fancy been known to fly without drooping. It is true, my present course of study lay through a far more varied line of road than that by which 1 had before travelled. In my researches hitherto, I had kept chiefly to what the Fathers call " the Royal Road of Orthodoxy;"-whereas I was now about to track Heresy through het by-lanes and cross-ways; to beat up, as it were, the haunts of Heterodoxy, and ascertain to what extent Protestantism had burrowed among her coverts. As far as amusement goes, my readers will be, I should hope, gainers by this change of route: * In explanation of these metaphors of my young friend, I may as well state, that the difficulty of diving into the Dead Sea was noticed as far back as Strabo's time; and that the effect of its exhalations on birds that fly over it, is a common but, I believe, unfounded notion. 88 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN Good company, says a French roue, is a good thing, but bad to better; and just so did I find the balance of agreeableness be. tween my Fathers and my Heretics,-the respectability being all of course, on the former side, while the amusement is on the latter; there being, in fact, no conceivable freak or vagary of opinion into which, at the early periods of the Church I am about to speak of, that will-o'-th'-wisp, Private Judgment, did not lure his weak followers. CHAPTER XXII. The Capharnaites the first Protestants.-Discourse of our Saviour at Capernaum-its true import.-Corrfirmatory of the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. IT is melancholy to think how soon Heresy intruded itself into the Christian fold; and how, in the same manner as the blessed abode of our first Parents was scarce called into existence before the Spirit of Evil contrived to enter and darken it with his doubts, so Christianity had hardly opened her second Eden to mankind, before the same Evil intruder, with the same tongue of reasoning and heart of guile, came to question her mysteries and throw a blight over her blessings. One of the first instances, and by far the most signal, that occur in the History of Christianity, of this sort of questioning spirit, this rising up of the judgment against Faith, to which all the Heresies and Schisms that have occurred since owe their rise, is to be found in the memorable speech of the Jews of Capernaum, when our Saviour first announced the great mystery of the Eucharist:--( How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' We have here, I repeat, one of the first recorded protests of Private Judgment against the mysteries of the Church of Christ. It is, therefore, of importance to examine a little into the details of the great transaction it refers to; and we shall find, I think, that could the various texts of Scripture levelled against "L the wisdom of this world" have left us any room to doubt of the infinitely low estimate at which human reason and its conclusions are rated in the eyes of heaven, the little deference paid by Christ, on this occasion, to the reasoning powers of his auditors would be, in itself, a sufficient evidence of the humbling truth; would, of itself, sufficiently teach the presumptuous Spirit of Private Judgment how sacredly the precincts of Faith are meant to be guarded from its intrusions. Our Saviour had told them, "the bread which I will give you is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." Had the hearers of these words understood them to have been used TN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 89 metaphorically by the speaker, neither wonder nor scandal could possibly have resulted from them. But it is evident the whole assembly understood his language literally, and while the Apostles were silent and, with implicit faith, "believed on him that God had sent," the Jews and many even of his own disciples murmured at such hard doctrine. We can even imagine, at that juncture, some Capharnaite divine, some Tillotson of the Syna gogue, thus addressing his flock:-" Surely, my beloved brethren, it can never enter into any of our minds that this man will literally hold himself in his hand, and give away himself, from himself, with his own hands."* With ftr more grounds and decency, indeed, might the Capharnaites have urged such an objection, seeing that they interpreted the promised eating of the Lord's body in a carnal sense; even so much so (says St. A ugustin) as to suppose that he meant to cut up his own flesh in bits and distribute it among believers.t The Redeemer saw what was passing in their minds~ as well as in those of his disciples,t-who, however less gross and car. * See Tillotson, on Transubstantiation, whose words are hern repeated verbatim. It is not a little curious that the representation which TIiliotson gives of this miracle, for the purpose of throwing ridicule on it, is the same that the Fathers did not hesitate to put foward as an enhancement and proof of its stupendous nature. Thus St. Augustin, in a passage already cited,-" When, committing to us his body, he said, This is my bodr, Christ twas held in his own hands." "Our Lord gave his body (says St. James of Nisibis,) with his own hands, for food." f "Many who were present, not understanding this, were scandalized; for, hearing him, they thought of nothing but their own flesh. He therefore said, 'the flesh profiteth nothing;' that is, it profiteth nothing, as they understood it; for they understood it to mean flesh, as it is in a dead body, or as it is sold in the market, not as animated by life."-.3mugust. Tract. 27. It is supposed by other divines that these words, " the flesh profiteth nothing, it is the spirit that quickeneth," had reference rather to the agency of the Holy Spirit, by whose descent upon the elements, according to the belief of the early Church, their transformation into the body of Christ was effected, and the vivifying virtue communicated to them. v In remarking upon the exclamation of the Jews-" How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Cyril of Alexandria says, "They reflected not that nothing is impossible with God. But if thou, 0 Jew, continuest yet to urge this How, I will ask thee how the rod of Moses was changed into a serpent? how the waters were changed into the nature of blood?....... For our parts,.st us derive great instruction from the iniquity of others; and cherishing a firm faith on these mysteries, let us never, on so sublime a point, either in words express, or in thoughts entertain, this Hiow."-Com. in Joan. The following declaration, drawn up by St. Cyril and approved by the Third General Council, may be considered as conveying the belief of the Catholic Church on this subject:-" We receive it (the Eucharist) not as common flesh: far be this thought from us; nor as the flesh of a sanctified man, and united to the Word by an equality of honor, or as having obtained a divine inhabitation; but we receive it as the truly vivifying and own flesh of the Word made man. For as the Word, as God, is essentially life, the moment it became one with its flesh, it imparted to this flesh a vivifying virtue. Wherefore, although Christ said-' Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and S* 90 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN nal might have been their notion of the mystery, not the less murmured at its incomprehensibility, and, in consequence, meditated that secession from their Master, of which they were afterwards guilty." Here then was the important momentimportant to all eternity,-when, the divine teacher and his disciples being confronted with each other, the question between Reason and Faith, between Private Judgment and Authority, was, for the guidance of future ages, to be brought solemnly to a decision. Here assuredly was the moment when, if Christ had not truly and really meant what he had spoken,-when, if there had been any figure of speech or allegory in his words, on whose correct interpretation no less a stake than the eternal life of mankind depended, he had not only an opportunity, but, if I may venture so to say, was bound by the conditions of his high mission, to explain away any such perilous ambiguity; nor, mysterious as was the nature of the sacrament itself, to leave also the needless mist of metaphor hanging over it. If, in short, to conciliate human reason, by smoothing away difficulties which must, to the end of time, he knew, startle and alienate the " weak in faith,"-if any such deference to human doubts and judgments ever entered, but in the remotest degree, into his purposes, then, I repeat, would have been the moment for him to evince such deference, and by so doing authorize the jurisdiction of Reason over Faith for ever after. But did our Lord thus act? did he, indeed, show any such consideration for the judgment of his hearers, or attempt, in the slightest degree, to explain or soften down his own startling announcement? Did he (as has been done for him, in modern times,) confess that, on so solemn an occasion, he had made use of a most forced and unnatural metaphor, and that, by eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he meant nothing more than believing his doctrine? Did " the great Proclaimer" of this miracle endeavor to fritter away its wonders, and bring them down to the low level of the faith of his hearers, by averring, in the language of the Sacrameutarians, that the bread and wine were but the signs or symbols of his body, or by assuring them, with the Calvinists, that it was by a mere act of faith they were to partake of his flesh, while the body itself would be, at the time, as remote from them as heaven was from the altar? Did our Saviour, I ask, do thus? Let the sacred text answer the question. So far from offering such explanations,-any one of drink his blood, you shall not have life in you,' (John vi, 54,) we are not to imagine that it is the flesh of a man like to ourselves, but truly the flesh of him (,ltav aXrOw, yevo~sevrv) who for us was made and was called the Son of Man." * " From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him."--John vi, 66. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 91 which would have sufficiently diluted away the difficulties of the doctrine to render it easy and palatable to the stubborn judgment of his auditors,-the Divine Master, as if to show how easily he could " bring to nothing the understandings of the prudent," deigned no otherwise to answer their objections or their murmurs than by repeating, in still more emphatic language, the declaration that had so astounded them:-" Verily, verily,* 1 say unto you, except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." The whole conduct, indeed, and language of our Saviour, throughout this most memorable scene, stands as an eternal rebuke to the presumption of human Reason, in its vain attempt to fathom such " heavenly things;" while the awful announcement then made of the miraculous Feast about to be instituted,4 followed up, as it was, on the solemn night of Institution, by those simple and irrefragable words, " This is my Body,": form the grounds of that implicit Catholic belief, which the Church of Christ has, at all times, maintained, and which, however Capharnaites may still scoff, and loose disciples still murmur, will never, as long as the one Catholic Church endures, pass away. * It is supposed by some that the word Amen, as repeated here, is a positive oath; and Basnage is, if I recollect right, one of the authorities for its having been employed in that sense by the Jews. However this may be, the word, doubtless, imports a very high degree of asseveration; and " to suppose (as Johnson remarks) that our Saviour used it only to justify a very catechrestical expression, is to suppose that a wise and humble teacher was so fond of a figure as, for the sake of it, to give occasion to his hearers to desert him." In the curious Conference represented to have passed between Charles I and the Marquis of Worcester at Ragland, the latter, in remarking on the opinion of those who suppose Christ to have spoken figuratively on this occasion, says justly, " There would not have been so much difficulty in the belief if there had not been more in the mystery; there would not have been so much offence taken at a memorandum, nor so much stumbling at a figure." I So far were the ancient Christians from supposing that our Saviour instituted so momentous and wonderful a rile without any announcement, any preparation of the minds of his followers for such an event, that they accounted naturally for the calmness with which the Apostles heard the awful words of institution by the previous knowledge of the nature of the Sacrament which Christ had, in his discourse, (John vi,) communicated to them. Thus St. Chrysostom:-" He transferred them to another banquet; a banquet most tremendous, saying, 'Take, eat, this is my body.' How was it that they were not seized with terror, when they heard this? Because he had previously discoursed with them at large upon the subject."--Iomil. lxxxii, in JMatt. 1 "Let us not break (said Gaudentius) that most solid bone, 'This is my body-this is my blood;' but if any thing remain in it which individuals do not understand, let it be burnt away by the ardent fire of Faith."-Tractal. ii, de Pasch. 92 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN CHAPTER XXIII. The Doceta, the earliest heretics.-Denial of the Real Presence.-Simon Magus and his Mistress.-Simon a Protestant.-Delight at the discovery -The Ebionites.-The Elcesaites. THus far I had been as fully successful in my new line of search as 1 could desire,-having found that great and leading iprinciplle of Protestantism, the right of private judgment, starting, as it were, into existence almost coevally with the birth-hour of our faith, and making the first trial of its strength against the living words of our Saviour himself. We have next to consider the workings of the same headstrong principle, as manifested in the various heresies that rose against his Church; and it is not a little remarkable that the very first sect of heretics we meet with, the first instance of dissent from Catholicity on record, should turn on the same trying point that had already called forth the " How" of the Capharnaites,-that point which, as from the first it has been a stone of stumbling to the weak in faith, so will it continue, I have no doubt, to be a test of the true believer in Christ's words to the last. The sect with whom this Mother Heresy originated, was that of the Docets, already mentioned,a branch of the Gnostic Christians, nearly as old as Christianity itself, who gave as their reason for refusing to join in worship with the orthodox, that they could not acknowledge the bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist.* Thus do errors, like comets, come and go, while Truth, like the sun, remains always stationary. Though the grounds on which these heretics denied the Real Presence were different, of course, from those on which it was rejected by Protestants fifteen hundred years after, yet was the result they arrived at precisely the same;-insomuch, that could one of those Gnostic Christians now reappear upon earth, he would find nothing in the unreal and figurative presence, maintained by Church of England * It was but by some branches of the Docetae that the Eucharist was rejected; the greater number of them appear to have celebrated it, but only in the Protestant sense, as a mere type or emblem:-" Professant tous le Doketisme, les Gnostiques qui conservoient la Cene n'enseignerent jamais l'union rdelle de l'homme avec la chair eu le sang du Sauveur; cet acte qu'ils celebraient en presence de leurs catdchumenes et qu'ils rangaient dans la catdgorie des choses exoteriques, n'etoit pour eux que l'embleme de leur union mystique avec un etre appartenant au Plerome."-Hist. du Gnosticisme. To the Marcionites of the next age, who had also their Eucharist,-though believing, with the Docete, that Christ's body was but apparent,-it was urged as an argument, both by Irenaeus and Tertullian, that in owning the Sacrament of the body and blood, they confuted their own opinion. Will it still, after all this, be contended that the ancient Christians did not believe in the Reality of the Presence? IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 93 divines, that could, in the slightest degree, offend his most anticorporeal notions, or prevent him from being conscientiously a partaker of their Sacrament. At last, therefore, I had the pleasure of finding myself in something like good Protestant company; and, knowing that to the heretic, Simon Magus, is attributed the high honor of being the head of the whole family of Gnostic Christians, I proceeded forthwith to inform myself of all such particulars as are known concerning the parent of so worthy a progeny. Undoubtedly, wherever the presumption of human judgment is the theme, this Arch-Heretic has a paramount claim to be remembered,-seeing that he pretended to understand Christianity better than Christ himself. There are, indeed, some curious coincidences between his career and that of the Arch-parent of the Protestant Reformation, to which, though at the risk of appearing illiberal, I cannot help adverting. One of his first steps, for instance, in setting himself up against Christ, was to take a young female companion to be the enlivener of his ministry,-declaring (with a flight beyond Luther) that he himself was the incarnate Power, and his mistress the incarnate Wisdom, of God.* Another point, in which it may be said that the two Reformers resembled each other, lay in the alliance formed by both with "the nether em. pire;" Simon Magus being well known to have had demons for his familiars,t" and the famous conference between Luther and his Devil, on the subject of the Mass, being, as is well known, one of the most memorable events of that great Reformer's life.4 Having satisfied myself thus far, as to the practice of Simon, I lost no time in inquiring into the nature of his doctrine; and it may be imagined with what pleasure, on opening the pages of the historian, Theodoret, I discovered the following passage:" He (Simon Magus) ordered those who believed in him not to * This lady's name was Helena; and, among the various steps of that descending scale of transmigration through which she was represented to have passed, before she sank into the capacity of Simon's concubine, she had had the honor, it was said, of being, in her time, no less a personage than that celebrated Helen whose beauty provoked the War of Troy. f Hence the Magia Demoniaca, or Black Art, is traced to Simon as its inventor. It is but fair, however, to say that some learned persons have doubted whether the Simon mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles was the same with the Heresiarch of the Gnostic Sects. Among others, the learned Frieslander, Vitringa, is of opinion that they were two different persons. 4 It is amusing to observe the irritation which any allusion to this famous colloquy is sure to produce in the temper of most Protestant controvertists. Unable to get rid of Luther's own statement of the matter, all that they have for it is to deny stoutly that this conference had any influence on his opinions concerning the Mass. We are, indeed, assured gravely by Claude and others, that Luther had both written and spoken publicly against the sacrifice of the Mass two years before any of these suggestions of the Devil were made to him. 94 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN attend to the Prophets, nor to fear the threats of the Law, but to do, as free persons, whatever they wished; for that they would obtain salvation, not by Good Works, but by Grace."* Here was, at last, Protestantism, in its fullest perfection,-the very principle, in fact, on which the authors of the Reformation first started. however their followers, and even some of themselves, saw rea son to shrink from its consequences afterwards;-here was the same Antinomian spirit which dictated the declaration of the Lutherans in 1557, that good works are not necessary to salvation;t-and here was the basis also of Calvin's inamissible grace, which renders even the worst works no obstacle to the eternal blessedness of the Elect. So rejoiced was I to light, at last, on a sample of genuine Protestantism,-from the same source, too, where the denial of Christ's bodily Presence originated--that I could not help breaking out in the language of Ulysses, when he, at length, found himself in sight of Ithaca, after all-his wanderings,Xatp' IOaKrl, per' asOXa, per' aXyea rtKpa AcTrUo't TrOV ovvags [K(avopat. or, as I translated it at the moment in my rapture,Hail, Faith of Protestants -thou home To which so long I've sigh'd to come. To seek thee need no longer plague us, Thou'rt found, at last, in- Simon Magus. It may be suspected, perhaps, that one of the chief ingredients oif my satisfaction at this discovery was the malicious pleasure it gave to certain Popish feelings, still stirring within me, at being thus able to trace two of the most elemental and vital doc trines of Protestantism to such a source as Simon Magus; and I had, myself, I confess, certain misgivings as to the mixture of some such leaven with my joy. Resolving, therefore, to be generous, I repressed at once all unworthy triumph, and thinking it better even to go without Protestantism altogether than to come by it in this suspicious and disreputable manner, I dismissed Simon Magus entirely from my mind, and hastened on in quest of some more respectable creed-master. Never yet has there been an extreme opinion started in this world, that there was not an opposite extreme ready to start at * Ov tia 7rpa~wov ayaluv aXXa JLa Xap7ro; rtsv~QOai rTr aclrrpeas.-~Her. Fab. t At the conference held, by order of Charles V, at Worms. We know that Amsdorf, a warm disciple of Luther, even went so far as to maintain that Good Works were an obstacle to salvation. ( From Simon the doctrine of the Docete, or Phantastics, took its origin: -" Quoniam Christum Dominum (says Le Grand, under the head of Simon) non veram carnem assumpsisse, nec ejusdem cum nostra naturn esse profitebatur, ejusdem in Eucharistia presentiam confitcri nolebat.-Ignatius ap. Theodoret. Dial. 3. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. Uf the same time. Thus, to the Docetm, who held that Christ was entirely divine, there was opposed a counter-heresy, that of the Ebionites, who held, with the Protestant Unitarians, that he vas merely human. It was, indeed, by dividing the double nature of our Saviour between them that these two sects contrived to make out their two heresies,-the Docetw allowing that he was God, but not man,* and the Ebionites contending that he was Man, not God. Akin to the Ebionites,t in maintaining the simple humanity of the Saviour, were the Elcesaites, a sect of heretics, half Jews, half Christians, and (if not very much misrepresented) entire maniacs. As if to make up to Christ for depriving him of his divinity, they attributed to him a human form ninety-six miles long, and twenty-four broad; and this measurement they considered themselves authorized to make by the words of St. Paul, (Ephes. iii, 18,) where he exhorts Christians to be < able to comprehend, with all Saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height," of Christ. The Holy Ghost they supposed to be a female, and of much the same dimensions as Christ; and the learned reason they gave for this peculiar notion of the Spirit's sex was that Raouah, the term in Hebrew for the Holy Ghost, is of the feminine gender; besides (added these reasoning Chris. tians,) the inconvenience of having two Fathers for Christ is, by this interpretation, avoided. Notwithstanding these blasphemous absurdities, the descendants of the man, from whom the sect was named, continued through a long course of time to be honored as "the Blessed Race," and, so late as the reign of Valens, we hear of two sisters of this hallowed breed being held in such extravagant veneration by the people, that not only the dust from their feet but even the spittle from their mouths were caught up with enthusiasm by the crowd and preserved in boxes as a charm against all ills. * Some of those Gnostics who held that Christ wore only the appearance of man, got ovgr the difficulties of the crucifixion, as they thought, by saying that, on the way to Mount Calvary, he changed shapes with Simon of Cyrene, who carried the cross, and that Simon was the person really crucified by the Jews, while Christ stood by, invisibly, laughing at their mistake. f It was the opinion of the Ebionites that God had given the empire of all things to two persons, Christ and the Devil; that the Devil had full power over the present world, and Christ over the world to come.--Fteury, Hiist. Ecclesiast. 96 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN CHAPTER XXIV. Scriptural learning of the Gnostics-their theories.-Account of the system of the Valentinians.-Celestial Family.-Sophia--her daughter.Birth of the Demiurge.-Bardesanes. To those who have observed how invariably, throughout the history of Christianity, the multiplication of heresies, schisms, and innovations in faith has been, at all times, in direct proportion to the diffusion of the Scriptures among the people, it will afford no surprise to learn that the Gnostic heretics, by whom such a flood of fantastic errors was let loose in the first ages, were of all the Christians of that period the most versed in Scripture, and the most laborious in quest of texts to suit ther mischievous purposes.* So industrious, indeed, are they known to have been in this line 6f research, that, notwithstanding the blasphemies and extravagances with which their writings abounded, Erasmus mourns, as a biblical scholar, over the loss of the works, on account of the wonderful stores of scriptural knowledge which they contained. To such as hold, in direct opposition to the Catholics, that the Sacred Volume cannot be too widely thrown open,-who call out for the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible for all classes of readers, it may not be uninstructive to produce some examples of the use heretofore made of this privilege, and more particularly to show what were the recondite truths and mysteries which those learned searchers of the Sacred Volume, the Gnostics, professed to find in i's pages. To enter into any detailed exposition of the various systems which these heretics put forth,-each new system but presenting a different modification of the same Magian theory of the Two antagonist Principles,t-would be a task far beyond my present purpose. The solution of the great problem of the Origin of Evil was the object at which all these elaborate and, in some few instances, poetical inventions aimed; and, in most of them, the theory of a Good and an Evil Principle is combined with the notion, also Eastern, of certain spiritual existences or XEons, supposed to have proceeded by emanation from the one Supreme Fountain of Being.4 In the system of Valentinus, however, of which I am about to give some account, this process of Emana* "Il n'est guere d'opinion dans leurs riches thdories qu'ils n'aient tache d'appuyer de quelques passages, des Ecritures."--Histoire du Gnosticisme. t These principles they called the Two Roots: 6vo pia; oird, irovnpav Kai ayaOiv.-Dial. de recta fide. $ This perfect Eon, existing before all things, they described as dwelling on some "invisible and unnameable heights:" ev aoparout Kai acarovopaacroi,ltwuact.-Irenlcus. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 97 tion was, under the sanction of the doctrine of Christ's Sonship, exchanged for that of Generation; and how prodigal was the use made by the heresiarch of this orthodox precedent, the following sketch of his system, collected from Irenaeus and other writers on ancient heresies, will show. He supposed the unknown and inaccessible Father to have dwelt, from all eternity, in silence and repose, accompanied only by a certain Power, or Intelligence, that served him as consort, and by which, or whom, in the fulness of time, he produced a son and daughter, bearing the names of Nous and Aletheia. This pair, in their turn, gave being to another couple called Logos and Zoe, and these again to a fourth pair, Anthropos and Ec. clesia. All these eight Jons he pretended to find expressly named in the opening verses of the Gospel of St. John. This process of spiritual procreation having been thus carried on, couple after couple, through fifteen generations, the number of Thirty spiritual beings, or 3ons, came at last to be collected, forming altogether that Pleroma, or Plenitude, of spiritual existence, to wh1ich St. Paul, said thes3 heretics, clearly alludes in the Epistle to the Colossians, i, 19.-" For it pleased the Father that in him all Fulness should dwell." The exact number, too, of Thirty _Eons is, said they, manifestly figured by the thirty years of his life during which Christ remained concealed from the world. Of the last born of the fifteen couples that composed this celestial family, the female, whose name was Sophia, or Wisdom, happened, by some accident or other, to slip out of the Pleroma into infinite space; and there, alone and bewildered, would infallibly, it is supposed, have been lost, had not Horus, who seems to have acted as a sort of watchman of the Pleroma, gone in quest of the stray Spirit and brought her safe back again. She aad, however, during her short absence from home, given birth tc a daughter, who, though spiritual like her mother, was, from he peculiar circumstances under which she was born, and her exclusion from the bright region of the Pleroma, unformed and Jegenerate. The fall of this twelfth LEon (Sophia) is, they allegc, marked out in the fall of Judas, the twelfth apostle, as well as by the disease of the woman, in Matthew ix, 20, which had lasted twelve years, and which the power of Christ, like that cf lHorus, stopped and healed. In the meantime, Nous,-by the especial foresight of the Father, who wished to guard against any diminution of the AEon family by the occurrence of such another accident as had happerned to the Sophia,-added a new couple of Beings, male and female, to their community, namely, Christ and the Holy Ghost, by whom the security of the Pleroma and the union of its heaG 9 98 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN venly occupants was ratified. From Christ they all learned to know the Father, or, rather, were taught to content themselves with knowing that he is incomprehensible; while by the Holy Spirit they were instructed how to laud this great Being and to dwell together in perfect unity and repose. In testimony of their gratitude for this state of blessedness, the XEons agreed, with the full consent of the Father, to produce, among themselves, by joint contribution, Jesus, or the Saviour,-each furnishing towards the production of this new Being whatever was most exquisite in their own natures, so as to render him the flower )f the whole Pleroma,-and hence is it (said the Valentinians) ihat St. Paul declares of Jesus, the Saviour, that "-in him dwelleth all the Fulness of the Godhead." While within the Pleroma all this joy prevailed, in the dismal egion without, the poor offspring of Sophia (herself distinguished!)y the name of Sophia-Achamoth) was left, a formless abortion, to wander through the void. Once, pitying her distress, Christ stretched forth his cross to aid her; but though his touch gave form and life, it imparted not science, and, accordingly, still was the lone outcast abandoned to her fate, experiencing all the misery of desire without knowledge, and left a prey to the various passions of sadness, fear, and anguish, which have since become the lot of the humanity that sprung from her. In this state of suffering she, at last, turned to him who gave her life, and that one movement of conversion changed her whole fate. Sent graciously down by Christ to her aid, the Saviour came attended by his angels, and releasing her from the yoke of the passions, without altogether extinguishing them, bestowed upon her at last the long-desired gift of knowledge. Her look of joy, we are told, at this deliverance, was felt through all Chaos, and from that first smile of Sophia-Achamoth the origin of light is to be dated. From this moment, too, began that series of creative and procreative operations by which this world and all that it contains was produced. The various off' springs, spiritual, psychic, and material, to which Sophia and her new friends, the angels, gave birth between them, it is nAo easy to describe and still less so to understand. Suffice it tc say, that out of this commerce sprung that inferior God, or De miurge, by whom, according to all the Gnostic sects, this visible world was created. Such was the fanciful account given by Valentinus of the events that happened, as he supposed, in the world of the Un. known Father, before the creation of this:-such the wild tissue of fiction which its inventor boasted to have derived from the secret communications of Christ himself to his apostles, and which was, strange to say, adopted by a large portion of the IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 99 Christian world, extending even into Gaul and Spain, during th. second and third centuries.* Had we only the vague and forced applications of Scriptur, by which the Valentinians supported this fantastic theology t< assist us in judging of the Gnostics,t as interpreters of Holy Writ, our opinion of their ingenuity in this line must have fallen far short of their reputation. Of the speculations, however, of some of their other sects enough has been preserved,-more par. ticularly of the Marcionites, on the subject of the Old Testament, -to show that, in applying their wild theories to Scripture, they were at least sufficiently acute to be mischievous; and, above all, to show at what an early period an opening was made for infidelity by the adoption of that proud, Protestant principle, the right of Private Judgment, and the desertion, in consequence, of those only true and safe guides, the Apostolical Traditions and the Authority of the Church. Through all the other Gnostic sects the same system of _Eonogony prevailed, the points of difference between their theories lying more in the details than in the principle. Thus Bardes. anes, though adopting the same notion as to the succession ot the 1Eons by syzygies or couples, yet so far changed the order of their genealogy as to make Christ the immediate son of the Father, by that companion whom he had, in the silence of his solitude, created unto himself. Next after Christ, too, in the order of being, came the sister and spouse of Christ, the Holy Ghost; and a union having taken place between these spiritual personages, two daughters, we are told, named Maio and4Sab scho, were their offspring. CHAPTER XXV. The Gnostics, behevers in Two Gods.-The Creator and the Unknowi Father.-Their charges against the Jehovah of the Jews.-Marcion-hi' Antitheses.-Apelles.-Belief in TWo Saviours.-Hatred of the Jewist Code.-Ophites.-Marriage of Jesus with Sophia Achamoth. HOWEVER differing from each other in the superstructures of their respective theories, there was one fundamental princillc * It was not till towards the beginning of the fifth century, that the Valdn tinians may be said to have dwindled away. Gregory of Nazianzum, who died towards the close of the fourth, represents them as then among the almost extinguished sects. f " Ces allegories et ces personifications se comprenaient encore parfaitement au second siecle de notre ere; cependant, des que les docteurs orthe doxes se furent s6pares distinctement des partisans de la Gnose, ils leur ei firent des objets de reproche; et S. Ephrem ne rapporte qu'en tremblant I blaspheme de Bardesanes, qui osoit donner deux filles au Saint Esprit."Histoire du Gnosticisme. 100 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN upon which Valentinians, Marcionites, Basilidians, &c., all built, namely, that the God of the Old Testament, whom they held to be the Creator of this world, is a wholly different being from the God of the New;-the latter being, according to them, the Un. known and unapproachable Father, of whom Christ was the son, and by whom, in his mercy and goodness, Christ was sent down to earth, to repair the evils which the Demiurge, or Creator, had caused. In support of this bold theory they refer to the contrast, both in spirit and precept, which is so strikingly, they allege, exhibited between the Law and the Gospel, and maintain it to be impossible to believe that both could come from the same hand. While the Being revealed by the Saviour, said they, is a God of Mercy and Love, the Jehovah, or Demiurge, was a God ignorant, unjust, vindictive, and inconsistent. Of the ignorance of the Jehovah, one of the instances they give is his not knowing where Adam was, when he sought him in the garden, nor whether he had yet eaten of the forbidden tree. " And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?..... hast thou eaten of the tree?" But, though most of their articles of impeachment against the Creator are either thus frivolous, or fanciful, there are some that have appeared sufficiently acute and searching to be thought worthy of revival by modern infidels. For instance, his incapacity, they say, as a Creator, was manifestly proved by his having so illperformed his task, in creating Man, as to be forced to repent him of his work, and even to resolve on destroying all living things (Genesis, vi, 6, 7.) The advice given by him to his chosen people, on their departure from Egypt, to despoil the Egyptians of their valuables, under the pretence of borrowing them, was the ground of another of those daring charges against the God of the Jews, in which these heretics but anticipated the profane scoffs of Voltaire and his followers. In ridiculous consistency, too, with the name Kaacpoi, or Puritans, which, like some mod. ern Protestants, a few of these sects assumed, one of the minor fiults they objected to the Jehovah was, his habit of swearing, and-what appears to have been, in their eyes, an aggravation of the offence--swearing by himself. The only merit, indeed, they seemed inclined to allow to this Being was that of candor as to his own evil-doings,-he himself having, as they said, ac. knowledged, through his organ, Isaiah (xlv, 7,) that darkness and evil were the work of his hands. It was in support of this peculiar view of the two dispensations that the Gnostic chief, Marcion, exerted particularly, as I have already said, his acumen and zeal. To show how opposite were the characters of the Jewish and the Christian God, and how much at variance with each other, in spirit, are the Law and IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 101 the Gospel, this heretic drew up what he called "Antitheses,"" in which the precepts of the two codes are brought in contrast with each other. Observe, said he, the dififrence;-by the Cre ator the principle or fierce retaliation is inculcated, " eye for eye and tooth for tooth," (Exod. xxi, 24,) while by the Saviour we are forbidden to return even an insult (Luke, vi, 29.) Jesus cured the blind (John, ix;)-David, on the contrary, hated and ill-treated them (2 Samuel, v, 8.) The Messenger of the Supreme God suffered little children to come unto him, and blessed them (Mark, x, 14, 16;)-the messenger of the Creator cursec them, and gave them to be devoured by bears (2 Kings, ii, 24.) With some ingenuity, too, he cited, as confirmatory of hi. doctrine, the.following verse from St. Paul's Second Epistle t( the Corinthians:-" In whom the God of this world hath blindec the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine untc them." By " the God of this world" is to be understood, said Marcion, the Demiurge, or Creator, in contradistinction to the good God, or Father of Jesus Christ, who is the God of the Christians. So dangerously strong in his favor was this passage considered, that, in order to evade its force, Tertullian and Ire. nweus were for putting a comma after " God," so as to separate it from the words, " of this world," and thus strain the structure of the sentence to the following meaning:-" In whom God hath blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this world." That Christ himself meant to establish an opposition between the old and new order of things appears clearly, this heretic said, from his discourses against the Law and the Prophets, and such allusions to the incompatibility of the two dispensations as are conveyed in those sayings, " no man putteth wine in old bottles," and " no man can serve two masters." A similar allusion to the the Law and the Gospel he professed to find in the words of the Apostle, " the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life," which mean clearly, he maintained, that the code of Moses left man in death, ignorance, and vice, while the sublime revelation of the Christos imparts the Pneuma, or breath, of Divine life. He found also, as he thought, a precedent for his antithetical theory in the language held by St. Paul to the Judaizing Chris. tians, and in the contrast drawn by that Apostle between the Jewish and Christian Dispensations, as being, the former but a * It would appear that this sort of antithetical comparison was a favorite weapon with the heretics, even in St. Paul's time, who warns Timothy to avoid thb artLOrersOe rris rpnS Fwvoov yvcosew-" the antithesis of the falselynamed Gnosis, or Gnosticism;" for such, it appears to me, ought to be the translation of the words, and not, as now, " oppositions of science falsely so called." 9* 10 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN type, the latter the substance;-the one transitory and peculiat the other un;versal and permanent. When orce, in religion, a departure from the right line com. rnences, each succeeding step but increases the deviation;-anc this was remarkably exemplified in the course of all the succes. sors of these ancient heresiarchs. Apelles, one of the disciples of Marcion, improved upon the daring criticism of his master and in a work similar to the Antitheses, to which he gave tho name of Syllogisms, not only brought forth again all the alleged contradictions between the Old and New Testaments, but labored to point out such inconsistencies and contrarieties between dif. ferent parts of the Hebrew Scriptures themselves as, if proved, must have considerably weakened, if not entirely overturned theii authority.* One of the most instructive lessons we learn, perhaps, from history, is to know that the same principles, whenever acted upon, will be found, almost invariably, to lead to the same consequences. Just such results as we see here brought about by the presumption of individual judgment and the rejection of authority again flowed from the unbridled outbreak of the same restive principles at the Reformation; heresy being, in both cases, the pioneer of infidelity, and the fancied triumphs of reason but ending, at last, in the death of all faith. Having thus established two Gods, these Gnostic heretics could not be long in finding out that their system would be incomplete and inconsistent without having also two Saviours;-the attributes of the promised Messiah of the Jews being, according to their view, wholly different from those that characterized the Son and Messenger of the Supreme Father. The one had been announced as a conqueror, and as the restorer of the Jewish Empire, while the other came to bring peace and salvation to all people.t The Saviour of the Demiurge was (according to the Creator's prophet, Isaiah,) to be called Emmanuel, which was hot, said they, the name of Christ; and while the former had been promised as the Son of David, the latter altogether disclaimed the relationship. The solution which they gave of the whole difficulty was, that the real Saviour, unknown and unan. * The very same system has been pursued by Voltaire, in his attacks on the Old Testament (See Diction. Philosoph. &c.):-"En effct (says the author of the Histoire du Gnosticisme) Marcion articula contre les codes et les institutions Judaiques plus d'accusations ou, si Pon veut, plus de blasph6mes qu'il n'en est sorti de la bouche des libres penseurs ou des esprits forts du ISe siecle." f The Rabbins supposed, in the same manner, that there would be two Mesciahs: the one poor, miserable, and devoted to death; the other, th& restorer of the Jewish Empire. To Josephus, too, has been attributed the absurdity of believing that Christ was one Messiah, and the Emperor Ves. pasian the other. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 103 nounced as he had been to the world, was notunwilling to take advantage of the hope of a Messiah which the Prophets of the Crea!or had didTused among mankind, in order that by passing himself oJf as the Deliverer expected so long, he might the more effectually perform the great mission intrusted to him and emancipate this world from the yoke of the Demiurge. Leaving, therefore, the supreme Heavens of his Father, and traversing tlhose of the Creator, lie assumed, on approaching earth, the outward semblance of a man (without having recourse, said they, to the unworthy expedient of human parentage and an incarnation) and made his appearance, for the first time, among men, in the syn. agogue of Capernaum, in the fifteenth yearof the reign of Tiberius. Entertaining notions so dark of the God of the Israelites, and of his Code, it was but consistent in these heretics to hold all connected with the Jewish Dispensation in the utmost horror. To such a length was this antipathy carried by them that the Marcionites, who made it a rule to fast on a Saturday, professed to do so from a mere feeling of spite to the Creator who had commanded the Jews to hold a feast on that day; and a branch of the Gnos:ics, called Antitac:fe, did not hesitate to acknowledge that they infringed the cormnands of the Jewish God, solely be. cause they were his. But the sect which most systematically, and, considering the principle on which it was founded, most consistently followed up these views of the Old Testament, was that of the Ophites, or Serpentinians, by whom all persons who had, since the creation of the ivorld, been known to have saffered for their opposition to the Creator's will, were regarded with affection and venera. tion as victims of an unjust God, and as martyrs to the hope of a better order of things under the Supreme Being and his son. Cain, for instance, was revered by them with peculiar fervor, and over the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah they mourned most religiously. But the great object of their worship, and that from which they derived their name, was no other than the original Serpent himself, who, so far from being, as the world supposes, a tempter and deceiver, was, according to these dreamers, man's earliest and best benefactor. The command given to our tirst parents not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge was but a de. vice, said they, planned by the jealous Jehovah to detach man from his protectress, the heavenly Sophia, and debar him from all knowledge of celestial things. That good jEon,* however, * Amoni the titles civen by the Valentinians to their Sophia was that of KvpotL, or Lord; and Tertullian ridicules them with, perhaps, somewhat more tacetiousness than beseems a (rave Father of the Church, on the confusion which, in this and in other instances, they fell into, respecting her sex:-"Ita," he says, "omnoem illi honorem contulerunt fwjmina puto et barbamn.-ne dixeimr caetera."--./Jr. Valentin. 104 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN ever watchful over her charge, resolved to baffle the Creator and sending Ophis, one of her Genii, in the form of a serpent, into Paradise, ordered him to persuade Adam to break this capricious law, and to eat of the fruit that would open to him all heavenly knowledge. According to some of the Ophites, too, this Serpent was no other than the Saviour himself,-as was manifest, they said, from the life-giving effects attributed to the brazen serpent in Numbers, xxi, 9, and the application of that type to Jesus, in John, iii, 14. On the same principle, and with no less daring absurdity, did a branch of this sect single out Judas from all the Apostles of our Lord, as the only one sufficiently deep in the counsels of Heaven, to know of what infinite importance it was that Christ should be sacrificed by the Jews. Apprised secretly, said they, by the heavenly Sophia, that the consequence of this death would be the downfall, for ever, of the Zabaoth, or Jewish God, he felt himself bound to accelerate so blessed a result, and thus, by betraying his Master, helped to save mankind.* For this insight into the true nature of the transaction, they professed to be indebted to a Gospel written by Judas, which had descended to their sect, and was the only one, in their opinion, worthy of any credit.f With respect to the ultimate result that was to arise out of all this complex agency which the Gnostics supposed to be at work in the supernatural world, the consummation to which the Valentinians looked forward, as the crowning of the whole, was that finally all spiritual creatures shall be restored to their primitive nature, and, reaching at last the full maturity of perfection, shall ascend together into the Pleroma, there to dwell with the spiritual mates allotted to them, following, in this respect, the example of the zEon, Jesus hinmelf, who shall then resume his high station in the celestial abode, linked for ever witj his beatified bride, Sophia Achamoth!' * These were also among the opinions held by the Cainites, or venerators of Cain, who proceeded exactly upon the same principle, and, in most points, agreed with the Ophites. As all of these sects pretended to some special sources of information, the Cainites professed to have founded their peculiar tenets upon certain revelations made to them of those unutterable things which St. Paul had seen in his flight, or rapt, to the Third Heaven. SThe sect of the Ophites is said to have been in existence so late as the sixth century; and that they were numerous and flourishing in the time of Ephrem Syrus, appears highly probable from the pains taken by that Saint to denounce and curse them. I In the Acts of the Apostle Thomas (one of the apocryphal books of the Encratitm and other heretics,) we find an Ode expressly relating to this celestial marriage. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 105 CHAPTER XXVI. Catalogue of Heresics.-The Marcosians, Melchiscdecians, Montanists, &c.-Why noticed.-Clemens Alexandrinus inclined to Gnosticism.Tertullian, a Montanist.-St. Augustin, a Manichaan. HAVING dwelt so long on these few branches of the luxuriant stem of Gnosticism, I have but little claim on the reader's pa. tience for more than a hasty glance at some of the other forms of this and its kindred heresies; and the most compendious way, perhaps, will be to lay before him a short catalogue rai:onnee of a few of the most remarkable of these sects that occur to me.* The Marcosians, as if to outdo the Trinity, established a sort of Quarternity in the Supreme Father, and maintained that the plenitude of Truth was to be found in the Greek alphabet,t grounding their fancy upon these words in the book of Revelation-" 1 am Alpha and Omega." Their founder, Mark, too, not only asserted that God had had several children, but spoke of these children (says St. Ireneus) with as much confidence as if he had been present at all their births. The lMelchisedecians, as their name imports, selected Melchisedec as the object of their worship, holding that he was a Dynamis, or divine power,-superior to Jesus Christ, as being mediator between God and the Angels, whereas Christ was only mediator between God and Man. The Messalians, having read in Scripture that ( the Devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour," and not content with a single prowler of this kind, imagined that the whole atmosphere was brimful of devils, and that people inhaled them with the vital air. In consequence of this idea * To those who are curious in the study of ancient heresies, I beg to recommend a work which, though compiled by a man of but little soundness of judgment, as regards his own opinions, is rich in information and references respectipg the opinions of the heretics,-the Elenchus Hcereticorum omnium of Prateolus. For a more concise account of the different sects, Le Grand's Historia Hceresiarcharum may be consulted; and those who prefer seeing the subject treated in a Protestant sense, will find it ably done by the.carned Ittigius, De Hceresiarchis cevi dpostolici, &c. t Allowing his fancy to be carried away by a false notion of the Logos, or Word, the founder of the Marcosians supposed those emanations from the Deity which composed the heavenly Pleroma to have proceeded from him originally as Words, consisting each of a certain mystic number of letters. Thus the first word which the Supreme Being pronounced was a syllable ef four letters, every one of which became a distinct being, and composed what Mark called the first Tetrad. The second word was also of four letterr, and formed the second Tetrad, completing that amount of spiritual entities to which the Valentinians gave the name of the Ogdoad. The third word was often letters, and so on,--through an infinite series of arithmetical and inconceivable nonsense. 106 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN their whole time was passed in spitting and blowing their noses, in the intervals of which latter exercise, they imagined that they caught glimpses of the Trinity. The Pereans, with -a prodigality of divine means not very philosophical, established in their system three Fathers, three Sons, and three HRly Ghosts; and it is supposed to be against these sectaries that the Athanasians of the present day are called upon to protest when they say that " there is but one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; and one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts." The Montanists, a most numerous and long flourishing sect, took it on the word of their founder that he was the very Paraclete promised by the Redeemer to perfect his new Law of the Gospel. These heretics (who are not to be accounted any branch of the Gnostics) held that God had already made two unsuccessful attempts to save mankind, first through the medium of Moses and the Prophets, and, secondly, by his own manifestation in the flesh. Both these plans, however, having failed, he was at last obliged to descend by the Holy Ghost, and divide himself, by a sort of triple inspiration, between Montanus and two ladies of quality, of no very reputable characters, who lived with him.* A particular branch of this sect, the Ascites, used to place near their altar a kind of bladder, well blown up, and dance round it, regarding the bladder as an emblem of that spiritual inflation with which they themselves had been favored by the Holy Ghost. Another branch, the Tascodrugite, or Pattalorinchitle, made it a point of devotion to.put their fingers upon their noses, or into their mouths, during prayer, professing therein, says St. Augustin, to imitate David;-" Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips."t (Ps. cxli, 3.) The MIanichees.-a-On the heresy of Manes, which began to flourish towards the end of the third century, the departing Spirit of Gnosticism seems to have let fall its dark mantle. In imita. tion of Christ, the founder of the Manichees professed to have been born of a virgin, and also attached to himself twelve apostles, by one of whom false Acts were fabricated, and fathered on the Apostles of our Lord. It may appear to some persons but an idle task thus to rake up such blasphemous follies; but, as showing the wantonness with which Private Judgment has, in so many instances, ca * Prisca and Maximilla. Montanus boasted, that to himself and his two Prophetesses had been given the fulness of God's spirit; whereas to St. Paul it had been but imperfectly communicated,-that Apostle himself having.ontfssed, (1 Cor. xiii, 9,) that he but " knew in part and prophesied in part." t Another wise sect, the Discalceati, in order to show the accuracy of their piritual knowledge, always weni without shoes,-God having said to Moses ih:xod. iii, 5,) " Put off thy shoes from off thy feet" IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 107 reered through Scripture, and the " fantastic tricks before high heaven" which, in these moods, it plays, such historical examples cannot be deemed unuseful. It should be recollected, too, that follies, however gross, become, when adopted by large portions of the human race, matters of grave import; and there is hardly one of the wild, senseless systems I have here enumerated that did not occupy the boasted reason of mankind, whether in sup. porting or refuting it, through a lapse of many centuries. The Gnostic sects had each their special Gospels, either forged, or corrupted from those of the Evangelists;* and each also adopted a peculiar Canon of Scripture, rejecting (as did Luther after. wards, in the case of the Epistle of St. James,) whatever hap. pened not to suit their respective purposes. The Marcionites, too, of whose wild system of Christianity I have just given some account, were able to boast not only martyrs, but a long suc. cession of bishops. Nor can we wonder that light, ordinary minds should have been whirled into these great Maelstroms of heresy, when, even among the Catholic Fathers themselves, some of the ablest were sucked into the vortex. In the Clementine Homilies, a work which, though not of that high parentage its assumed name imports, seems acknowledged to have been the production of some eminent Christian of the second age, it is said of the Sophia of the Gnostics, that God himself rejoices in her alliance. The language in which Clement of Alexandria speaks of the Gnosis breathes all the spirit of that sect;t and, so late as the beginning of the fifth century, we find in the Odes of the Bishop Synesius such a display of Gnostic thoughts and phrases as renders them lar more like the compositions of a Valentinian or Marcosian than of a Catholic Pastor. Of the catching influence of some of the other great heresies, we have yet more signal examples. The shrewd Tertullian was induced to believe in Montanus as the Paraclete promised by Christ, and, for a time, surrendered his strong mind to the gross delusions of that impostor and his two inspired women of quality St. Augustin remained attached to the sect of the Manichee. * Thus the Ebionites made use of the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew keaving out, however, as contrary to their belief in the simple humanity of Christ, the three first Chapters. Marcion composed a Gospel for himself bi mutilating and altering that of St. Luke: and a question as to which was the most authentic, Marcion's Gospel or St. Luke's, has long been contested among the German Rationalists. The heretic Tatian, instead of choosing,!ike the rest, some one of the four Evangelists, or some apocryphal relation, nade a Code out of the four Gospels, which he called the Harmony of the Grospels. t The author of L'Histoire du Gnosticisme goes so far as to assert that, Plus on examine les opinions des premiers siecles plus la Gnosis y apparait coime philosophie dominante." 108 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN till his thirtieth year; and through him has the dark infection of this heresy been transmitted to succeeding ages,-even to the tinging of the sacred waters of Catholicity with its stain. A history, indeed, of the errors and extravagances of heresy* is but too closely connected with that of the human mind itself, as showing what derangement even the soundest intellects are exposed to by such extravasations of the life-blood of Faith out of those regular channels in which God designed it steadily and healthily to flow. CHAPTER XXVII. Discovery, at last, of Protestantism among the Gnostics.-Simon Magus the author of Calvinism.-Calvinistic doctrines held by the Valentinians, Basilidians, Manicheans, &c. THOUGHI I may have been tempted, in the preceding chapters, by the curious nature of my subject, to indulge in somewhat more lengthened details, respecting the Gnostic sects, than the immediate purpose of these pages required, it must also, I think, have been observed that, in those apparently excursive inquiries, the main object of my pursuit has been seldom, if for an instant, forgotten. Nor, even thus far, had I any reason to complain of a want of success in my researches; since, as furnishing precedents for the free exercise of that great Protestant privilege which entitles every man to interpret the Scriptures according to his own judgment and fancy, the worthy believers in Sophia Achamoth had come up to the full pitch of all that my most indepen. dent tastes could desire. Promising, too, as all this looked, it was but the dawn of what I had yet to discover among these heretics. In taking thus such independent and self-willed views of Scripture, they but started on a principle common to all man iers of heresies;-but I soon found that, as models for my pur. pose, their example did not stop here. In short, I discovered, te iny great joy, that, in some of their leading doctrines, the Gnostics were essentially and radically Protestant.t * How curiously, if not always usefully, an investigation of this kind may ýe made subservient to the illustration of the Sacred text itself, has been ~hown in those elaborate researches into the history of Gnosticism, with which Dr. Burton has, in his Bampton Lecture, enriched the learned world. Ir. looking over this laborious work, I find a remark which I have hazarded some pages back, p. 249, (respecting the allusion contained in 1 Tim. iii, 20, to Gnosticism,) anticipated and confirmed. t I can answer confidently for my young friend, that at the time when thie discovery presented itself to him, he was not, in the least degree, aware that the late Bishop Tomline had, in his Refitation of Calvinism, put forth the same curious fact;-one of the Chapters of the Bishop's work being entitled IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 109 My readers, no doubt, will remember the exceeding joy and surprise with which, at the close of my long search after Protestantism in the first ages, I at length stumbled on a stanch Calvinist in the person of Simon Magus. " Not by virtuous actions (said this heretic) but by Grace is salvation to be attained." It will also, perhaps, be recollected that, from certain generous scruples, I then hesitated to take advantage of such disreputable authority; and, though long foreseeing that my Protestantism must be of heretical descent, yet felt anxious, for the honor of all parties, that it should be of some better breed. To say the truth, too, I was not quite sure that this glimpse of genuine Calvinism might not be, after all, but a chance sparkle, and that I should see nothing more of it. On passing on, however, from the Archheretic to the numerous sects that sprung from him, I found this feature of the parent faithfully reproduced in all his offspring; I found that they all, in some point or other, anticipated the Reformed lights of Geneva and Wittemburgh; and that if I had, at once, designated Simon Magus as the fount and wellspring of some of the most boasted of the Protestant doctrines, I should have asserted no more than it was now in my power indisputably to prove. The utter depravity of Man's nature,-the insufficiency, or rather nullity of good works towards salvation,-the powerless ness of the human will,-the doctrines of election, reprobation, and perseverance,-such are the great points of what is now called " Vital Christianity" on which I found the very spirit of the Reformation reigning throughout these sects; and could 1 have been content to receive my Protestantism at the hands of Christians who believed in two Gods, two Saviours, and a maternal Holy Ghost, I might from these Evangelical repositories have provided my self to my heart's content. In each of these Gnostic sects, for instance, there was a dis. tinct class of persons, who alone were thought sufficiently spiritual to be certain of salvation, while all others were considered re. 9robate and incapable of saving themselves. These chosen few he Valentinians called the Elect Seed, holding that their faith lid not come by instruction, but by nature and election. "They affirm," says Irenmus, " that they themselves shall be entirely as iollows: "Opinions of earliest Heretics bearing resemblance to Calvinism." The fact, however, of Calvinism being but a reproduction of the Gnostic and other heresies, is too obvious not to have struck learned observers long before the time of Bishop Tomline. The illustrious Dutch divine, Lindanus, in his Dialogues on the revival of ancient heresies, enforced ably and incontrovertibly the same point; and by the celebrated scholar Petavius, in the Preface prefixed b.y him to the works of Ep;phanius, it is no less strongly asserted. 10 110 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN and completely saved, not by their own conduct, but because they are spiritual by nature."* The same doctrine of Election was maintained also by Basilides,-coupled with that other Calvinistic doctrine which necessarily results from it, the slavery of the human will:--" He tells us (says St. Clement of Alexandria) that faith is not the rational consent of a mind endowed with free-will. The precepts then, both of the Old and New Testament are superfluous, if any one be saved by nature, as Valentinus maintains, and if any one be faithful and elect by nature, as Basilides thinks." By another also of these heresiarchs, Bardesanes, it was, in like manner, asserted, that man can do nothing of himself, being a creature wholly without freedom, and impelled by irresistible decrees.t The high Calvinistic tenets of the inamissibility of Grace and the Perseverance of the Elect were maintained as resolutely by the Valentinians as by the Synod of Dort itself.:4: "Gold," said they, "though fallen in the mire, is still gold, and loses nothing of its original lustre or nature. Even so is it with the Elect;let their conduct be what it may, they can never forfeit their high distinctive privilege."-(lrenceus.) The natural consequences of such dangerous doctrine showed themselves then, as on its revival, at the Reformation. " Wherefore," says the same writer, " those of them who are the most perfect do without fear all things which are forbidden." " I speak," says Clement of Alex andria, " of the followers of Basilides, who lead incorrect lives, as persons authorized to sin because of their perfection;~ or who will certainly be saved by nature, even though they sin now. because of an election founded in nature." The Manichaeans, from whom more directly was transmitted to our heretics the gloomy doctrine of the utter depravity of man, * AvrVTO Je p7r ia 7rpaýEsw aXXa r ta ro TQEvoi 7nrCVLUaTiKovS EvOSL 7ravrrT rTe Ka ar.a os 7 'ylJaro tovaT iv atrcjOreOatap.-Iren. f In the accounts given of the opinions of this heretic, there is some appa rent inconsistency. Though he was the author (as we know from Eusebius) of a work against Destiny, he is yet represented as having been an advocate for the doctrine of fatality. The truth seems to be, that he considered sou!s as exempt from the laws of destiny, but looked upon all connected with bodies as under the control of fate and the stars. 1 " Such as have once received that grace by faith can never fall from i; finally or totally, notwithstanding the most enormous sins they can commit.' Synod of Dort, drt. 5. Even the canting phraseology of our modern Saints s manifestly derived from the same source. Thus, St. Justin tells us of some of these Elect persons who said of themselves that, "though they were sinners, yet if they knew G'd, the Lord would not impute to them sin." SSome of these sects, not unworthy forerunners of the Anabaptists, teclared that a community of goods and of wives was the just and true hap. piness of their Elect:--'H raCaw ovTunwv ai yvva1KWV rriyrl Trlr OLa;C ~Eat JtKa:. oevvaJs:-which words form the commencement of one of those curiois Inscriptions, said to have been found near Cyrene, and first published by the aarned Rationalist, Gcsenius. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 111 held also many of the other precious tenets that have descended with this bequest. ' Manicheus asserts (says St. Jerome) that his Elect are free from all sin, and that they could not sin if they would." The same Father says, " Let us briefly reply to those slanderers who reproach us, by saying that it belongs to the Manichmeans to condemn the nature of man and to take away free-will." Here, then, had I, at last, accomplished the discovery, not only of a single sect, but of whole tribes and generations of Protestants;-a discovery as unlooked for, and certainly far more au. thentic than that of the snug nest of Presbyterians, which Ledwich found out among the wilds of Tipperary, in the middle of the sixth century.* Could I have detected but a millesimal part of this high Protestantism among the orthodox of the first ages, how my heart would have rejoiced! how my conscience would have been soothed by the discovery! One particle, one drop of such true Geneva doctrine would have sent me to my pillow in comfort. But, no-base, indeed, was the resource to which I now found myself reduced; and accordingly, urgent as were my motives for conversion, I came sturdily to the resolution that, rather than exchange the bright, golden armor of the old Catholic Saints for this heretical brass, lackered over by modern hands, I would submit to the worst doom my worldly fate could have in store for me. CHAPTER XXVIII. Another search for Protestantism among the orthodox as unsuccessful as the former.-Fathers the very reverse of Calvinists.-Proofs.-St. Ignatius, St. Justin, &c.-Acknowledged by Protestants themselves. ON returning again to the train of thought which had thus occupied me, and reflecting how lucky I should have accounted myself, could I have detected, among the orthodox of the Primitive Church, any such specimens of Protestantism, as I was here furnished with by the Gnostics, I could not help asking myself, with some anxiety, was 1, after all, so sure that no such specimens could be found? had I, in fact, sufficiently examined into the dogmas of the early Church to have been fully satisfied that no such opinions as I have been detailing were among them; or could it, indeed, be possible that the doctrines of election and reprobation, of the inefficacy of good works towards salvation, the slavery of the human will, the utter inability of man to do the will of God,-that all these doctrines, now dignified with the * The Culdees. 112 TRAVELS OF AN IRISII GENTLEMAN name of " vital Christianity," so far from being sanctioned by the authority of the early lights of the Church,* are to be found only in the distempered dreams of those heretical sects against which the Church had, from the first dawn of her existence, to combat? Such were now the questions I put to myself, and, strange to say, unsuccessful as I had hitherto been in all my exploratory journeys into the region of orthodoxy, a last, feeble hope sprung up, that possibly, on a little further search, I might discover that the Gnostic heretics had not kept all the Calvinism to themselves, but that some foretaste of this sour fruit was to be found also among the Fathers. Seldom, I will do myself the justice to say, has any instance occurred of a chase followed up, through all reverses, with such unbaffled ardor;-but, alas, this new hope was as fallacious as any of its predecessors. Instead of finding, in the works of the Fathers, the least shadow of a sanction for the horriblet notion, assumed alike by Gnostics and Calvinists, that a select portion of mankind has been singled out for salvation, while all the rest of the human race has been created but to be damned, I read in those authorized expounders of our Faith the very reverse of all this. I found in the excellent St. Justin the far different assurance that the seeds of the Divine Word are implanted equally in all men, and that all who have the will to obtain mercy from God are gifted also with the power. Still earlier did I read in the apostolic St. Ignatius that " if any one be pious, he is a man of God; but if any one be impious, he is a man of the Devil, being made so, not by nature, but by his own will." Instead of the picture drawn of human nature by Bardesanes and Calvin, who describe man as a chained slave of destiny, without power or free-will, I saw him repre* "What is that to us of the Church (says Origen) who condemn those who maintain that there are some persons formed by nature to be saved, and others formed by nature to perish."-Contr. Cels. t The very epithet which Calvin himself applies to his doctrine of Reprobation:-" Decretum horribile fateor." "Is it not wonderful (says Bishop Tomline) that any one should ascribe to the God of all mercy a Decree which he himself confesses to be horrible?" That the weapons of most modern heresies are but those of the old ones refurbished, is a remark which has been more than once suggested in these pages; and, as an illustration of it, we may observe that the very same texts now relied upon by the Calvinists, for the support of their favorite doctrines of election and reprobation, were those referred to, for the very same purpose, by their predecessors, the Gnostics, no less than sixteen or seventeen hundred years ago. After quoting several of these texts (Gal. i, 15, 16; Rom. i, 1; Jerem. i, 5; Ps. li, 5, xxii, 10, Iviii, 3,) St. Jerome says: "The Heretics who pretend that there are different natures, and that the one is saved and that the other perishes, maintain from these passages that no one would be understood to be just before he did some good, or would be hated as a sinner before some crime was committed, unless there was a different nature of those who perish and of those who are to be saved." IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 113 sented in the pages of these same Fathers, a free, responsible agent, endowed with a self-determining power towards good or ill,* and having eternal happiness or misery dependant on his choice. " I find that man (says Tertullian) was formed by God with free-will, and with power over himself, observing in him no image or likeness to God more than in this respect..... The law also itself, which was then imposed by God, confirmed this condition of man. For a law would not have been imposed on a person who had not in his power the obedience due to the law; nor would transgression have been threatened with death, if the contempt also of the law were not placed to the account of his free-will." Again, instead of depreciating,-as Simon Magus, and, after him, Luther and Calvin have done,-the efficacy of Good Works, thus triumphantly did I find a contemporary of the apostles extolling their high value. "Let us hasten with cheerful. ness and alacrity to perform every good work..... Let us observe that all just men have been adorned with good works. And even the Lord himself, having adorned himself with good works, rejoiced. Having therefore his example, let us fulfil his will; let us work the work of righteousness with all our strength. We must ever be ready in well-doing: for from thence all things are derived."-St. Clement. But it is unnecessary to refer any further to the numerous citations I had collected to prove that, in none of the Fathers of the Church, before the time of St. Augustin, is any trace of those Protestant doctrines, now called Evangelical, to be found;t but that, on the contrary, while Simon Magus and his followers were engendering that dark brood of fancies which, in later ages, were to be again quickened into life by Calvin and Luther, the Catholic Church was, through the tongues of her great orators and teachers, asserting eloquently the Universality of the Redemption by Christ, the Freedom of the Human Will,4 the precious efficacy of Good Works and Repentance, and the ability of every Christian to work out his salvation. It is unnecessary, I repeat, to take any pains to prove this fact, as * "He (St. Justin) speaks of a self-determining power in man (avreovo'v) and uses much the same kind of reasoning on the obscure subject of free-will as has been fashionable w ith many since the days of Arminius."-Milner's History of the Church. f From a passage in the Institutes (Lib. ii. c. 5, sect. 15.) it is evident that Calvin himself considered Augustin to be the only one of all the ancient Fathers that could be cited as favorable to his doctrine. 1 "The Soul is endowed with free-will, (says Origen) and is at liberty to incline either way." To prove that "man has a free-will to believe or not to believe," St. Cyprian quotes Deuteronomy (xxx, 19): "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that thou and ihy seed may live." I 10* 114 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN already a host of Protestant divines, of all schools of divinity, have conceded it. The Lutheran, Flacius, for instance, accuses those Fathers, who wrote soon after the Apostles, of being totally ignorant of man's natural corruption, and other such mysteries since dis. covered in the Gospel;* while the Calvinist, Milner, pretending to find, in the first century, some glimpses of his own doctrines, confesses that, after that period, these evangelical truths faded away, and were by almost all the succeeding Fathers denied or forgotten. Of Iren~eus and St. Justin, who wrote in the second century, he says:-" They are silent, or nearly so, on the Election of Grace; and defend the Arminian notion of Free-will." After taxing St. Clement of Alexandria with a similar want of vital Christianity, he thus (with the arrogance so hereditarily characteristic of a sect of which Simon Magus, the self-constituted rival of Christ, was the parent) cavalierly dismisses that learned Father:--' On the whole, this writer, learned, laborious, and ingenious as he was, may seem to be far exceeded by many obscure and illiterate persons at this day in true scriptural know ledge and in the experience of divine things." Well might the judicious Lardner, in noticing some similar instance of presumptuous judgment upon the Fathers, with happy irony, exclaim,-" Poor ignorant Primitive Christians, I wondei how they could find the way to heaven. They lived near the times of Christ and his Apostles. They highly valued and diligently read the Holy Scriptures, and some of them wrote Commentaries upon them; but yet it seems they knew little or noth. ing of their religion, though they embraced and professed it with the manifest hazard of all earthly good things, and many of them laid down their lives rather than renounce it. Truly, we of these times are very happy in our orthodoxy; but I wish that we did more excel in the virtues which they and the Scriptures likewise, I think, recommend as the distinguishing properties of a Christian." CHAPTER XXIX. Return to Heretics.-Find Protestantism in abundance.-Novatians, Ag noeta, Donatists, &c.-Aerius, the first Presbyterian.-Accusations of Idolatry against the Catholics.-Brought forward by the Pagans, as now by the Protestants.-Conclusion of the Chapter. I HAD now taken my last, positively last, trip into the old orthodox world in quest of Protestantism; and weary as I was * In the same manner Basnace, too, complains (Hist. des Eglises Ref.) that the ancient Christians expressedthemselves "maigrement" on these subjects IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 115 ot so fruitless, so wild-goose a chase, it was with an ill zest, again returned to the study of my heretics, of whom I now began to be as much ashamed as Falstaff was of his regiment. Having imposed upon myself, however, the task of tracing Heresy through the Four first Ages, I was resolved to go through with my work; and the same run of good luck in finding Protestants,-if good luck it could be called to find them where I did not want them, -among the heterodox and schismatic, still continued to attend me. Far less amusing, however, were these later acquaintances than my old Calvinist friends, the believers in Sophia Acha. moth; and, whatever indulgence I might have been inclined te feel towards Private Judgment in her skittish moods, I now found that to be dull, as well as heterodox, is a sort of superelogation not to be tolerated. I shall content, therefore, myself with singling out, from the heresies of this period, a few of those which, from their peculiarly Anti-Catholic doctrines, may be regarded as the chief channels through which the elements of Protestantism have been transmitted, in full Gnostic perfection, to modern times. And first, to begin with the Novatians:-these sectaries, who flourished about the middle of the third century, and whose founder is described by St. Cyprian as " a deserter from the Church, a teacher of pride, and a corrupter of the truth," were nevertheless, in their way, as good Protestants as need be, seeing that they denied stoutly to the Church the power of absolving penitent sinners, refused peremptorily to acquiesce in her au. thority and traditions, and made their appeal, as all other heretics have done, before and since, to Reason. The language, indeed, of St. Pacian,* in addressing one of these sectaries, may, with the simple substitution of the words placed between brackets, he applied with equal point by a Catholic of the present day to Protestants. "Who was it (he asks) that proposed this doctrine? was it Moses, or Paul, or Christ? No; it was Novatian [Luther.] And who was he? was he a man pure and blameless, who had been lawfully ordained Bishop?..... And what of all this, you will tell me;-it suffices that he has thus taught. But when did he thus teach? was it immediately after the passion of * Of this writer, who flourished in the fourth century, Mr. Clarke (Succs sion of Ecclesiastical Literature) pronounces that he "was no less pious than eloquent;" adding, that "there are more errors of the Romish church, supported irr a holder way and with more direct evidence, in this Father, than perhaps in any other of double the bulk." With all these " blushing" errors "thick upon him," how comes it, let me ask, that St. Pacian was not considered as an innovator by his contemporaries, but, on the contrary, had the reputation of being one of the most acute and orthodox divines of his day? The solution is not difficult. 116 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN Christ? No; it was nearly three hundred [sixteen hundredl years after that event. But did this man follow the Prophets was he a prophet? did he raise the dead? did he work miracles? did he speak various tongues? for to establish a new Gospel he should have done some of these things." The Saint then stating explicitly the Protestant principle upon which these heretics proceeded, " You say, we do not acquiesce in authority; we make use of reason," adds, " As to myself, who have been hitherto sa.isfied with the authority and tradition of the Church, I will not now dissent from it." Our next sample of good Protestantism is found among the Eunomians, a branch of the Arian heresy, and infected, as was Arius himself, with Gnosticism. The founder of this sect held also, with Valentinian, Basilides, &c., the convenient doctrine of the Perseverance of the Elect, maintaining that all who em. braced the truth (meaning thereby his opinions) would never fall from a state of grace. Among these saving opiniois the principal was, that Christ is not consubstanial with the Father.* This excellent Protestant opposed himself also to the old Catholic practice of paying reverence to relics, and invoking the inter. cession of Saints; calling, as St. Jerome tells us, by the facetious name of " Antiquarians," all those who attached any value to the bones and relics of Martyrs. The Agnoetae, or Ignorants, (as from their peculiar opinion they were called,) afford another strong example of that sort of heir-loom of error which heretics transmit to their successors, from age to age;-our Saviour's professed ignorance of the time of the Day of Judgment (Mark, xiii, 32) on which these sectaries founded their cavils against his Godhead,t having also furnished * The shrewd argument, as Cave pronounces it, by which Eunomius supported this position, is as follows:-a simple Essence, such as is the Divine Being, cannot contain within itself two principles, of which one is begetting and the other begot; or, (as I take to have been his meaning, in somewhat plainer terms,) a simple Being, like God, cannot be at once the Begetter and the Begotten. t Among those texts which the dangerous ingenuity of Private Judgment has contrived to wrest into evidence against the Divinity of the Saviour, this referred to by the Agnoetae seems to have been found by the Fathers the most difficult to unravel. Some answered that the Son of God meant only that he had no experimental knowledge of the matter. St. Augustin endeavors to get rid of the difficulty by the very forced explanation that, by not knowing, in this passage, is meant his not making others to know. Some more modern theologians have contented themselves with the very simple solution, that " when Christ told his apostles he did not know on what day precisely the general judgment would take place, he very possibly did not give any actual attention to the circumstance."-(Forbes, Inst. Theolog. 1. 3, c. 21.) The distinction of the two natures, established by the Council of Chalcedon, affords the only explanation of this and other such difficulties. While as God, Christ knew all things: there was much of which, as.lan, he may be supposed to have been ignorant. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 117 to that large class of Protestants, called Unitarians, one of the most plausible arguments for their still more extensive unbelief. And such is the cycle which errors seem ever destined to perform,-vanishing away, from time to time, and then darkly reappearing. The very same arms with which the detracters of Christ's divinity assailed the Catholic Doctors of other times, are Dut again furbished up by the Priestleys and Belshams against the Trinitarian Divines of our own. The sect of the Donatists, which may be accounted rather a schism than a heresy, and which laid claim to exclusive orthodoxy for Donatist Churches,-saying that " God was in Africa, and Hot elsewhere,"-have in so far a claim to be mentioned honorably in Protestant annals that they were the first Christians, I believe, who conferred upon the Catholic Church the polite title of" Whore of Babylon." We next come to a worthy precursor of the Presbyterians, Aerius, who, having in vain tried to be appointed a Bishop himself, took his revenge by making war on all Bishops whatsoever,* declaring that they had no right to any superiority or jurisdiction over Presbyters. This early champion of the Kirk opposed also the Catholic practice of praying for the dead, and denied to the Church the power of instituting Fasts, saying that every one had a right to choose his own time of fasting. In the reason given by him for this latter claim of independence, namely, that it might be thus shown we were no longer living under the Law, but under Grace, may be observed the workings of that same antipathy to the Law and its precepts, which has been transmitted, through a regular succession of heretics, from the Christian Gnostics down to our modern Antinomians. My chief motive, however, for referring to the sect of the Aerians has been for the sake of the valuable testimony which their heresy affords to the antiquity of the solemn Catholic rite of prayers for the dead,their dissent from which, in the middle of the fourth century, could never have drawn upon them, so decisively and generally, the brand of heresy, had not this practice descended to those times hallowed by ancient recollections, and sanctioned by the traditions of the Primitive Church. The same remark will be found applicable to some of the doctrines of Vigilantius, who, though belonging properly to the commencement of the Fifth Century, may be allowed as a single ex* In disappointed ambition may most frequently be found the source of those movements by which restless spirits have agitated mankind. Thus Marcion became a heretic, on being denied Church preferment; and, with the same feeling, Vanini wrote to the Pope that, if his Holiness did not give him a benefice, he would, in twelve months from that time, overturn the Christian religion. 118 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN ception to the rule I have imposed upon myself of not extending these researches beyond the close of the Fourth. This heretic, who holds a high rank among the Protoplasts of Protestantism, was a writer of what, in the present day, would be called smart anti-popery pamphlets,-laughing, with some degree of humor, at the reverence paid by Catholics to Relics, and at the prayers ol' Invocation which they addressed to their Saints. " They light up," says he, "large tapers at midday, and proceed to kiss and adore a small handful of dust. It must, no doubt, be a mighty service to the Martyrs, thus to light up a few bad candles for those whom the Lamb, seated upon his throne, illuminates with all the splendor of his majesty."* We may here see how far from modern is the disingenuous trick of charging Catholics with being adorers of Relics and Images, in the very teeth of their own repeated disclaimers of such idolatry. The flat denial given by St. Jerome to the ribald charge of Vigilantius was, no doubt, as little listened to by the followers of that heretic as are similar declarations of thd Catholics of our own days by the implicit readers of the lucubrations of the Rev. G. S. Faber and Co.-," We do not worship," says the Saint, "( We do not adore either the relies of Martyrs, or Angels, or Cherubim, or Seraphim,-lest we serve the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for evermore. But we honor the relics of the Martyrs, that our minds may be raised to Him whose Martyrs they are. We honor them, that this honor may be referred to Him who says, " He that receiveth you, receiveth me," (Matt. x, 40.) Again, he exclaims indignantly, "Thou madman! who ever yet adored the Martyrs? who ever yet fancied that a mortal was a God?" But this unfair policy of the adversaries of the Catholics is of a still more ancient date than even the times of St. Jerome; and, like almost every other point in the relative position of the two parties, may be traced back as far as the Apostolic age. Even then was the same spirit of misrepresentation alive; even then was the homage offered to the enshrined relics of an Ignatius or a Polycarp, denounced by scoffers at the Faith as being an idolatrous transfer of that worship to the creature which belongs only to the Creator. That this was the case, in the instance of Poly. carp, appears by a letter from the Church of Smyrna, of which he was Bishop, giving to the Faithful an account of all the cir. cumstances of his martyrdom. "( It was suggested," say they, "that we would desert our crucified Master and begin to worship * In his answer to Vigilantius, St. Jerome says-" The Bishop of Rome, then, does wrong, in offering sacrifice to God over the venerable bones 4f those dead men, Paul and Peter, (according to you, but vile dust,) ani *a regarding the tombs of those Saints as altars." IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 119 Polycarp. Foolish men! who know not that we can never de sert Christ, who died for the salvation of all men, nor worship any other. Him we adore as the Son of God; but we show deserved respect to the Martyrs, as his disciples and followers. The Centurion, therefore, caused the body to be burnt. We then gathered his bones, more precious than pearls and more tried than gold, and buried them. In this place, God willing, we will meet and celebrate with joy and gladness the birthday of his Martyr, as well in memory of those who have been crowned be. fore, as by his example to prepare and strengthen others for the combat."-Euseb. Hist. Eccles. 1. 4, c. 15. Thus it is, as I have already observed, that the relative position of the two parties,-the Catholic Church on one side, and the protesters against her doctrine on the other,-has been, from the first, and through all ages, virtually the same; the old truths remaining still unchanged, and the old errors, like often-detected delinquents, reappearing again and again, under other names, so that, in fact, the Calvinism, Antinomianism, &c. of modern times are little else than aliases of the Gnosticism and Manichaeism of times past. Still more evident might this remarkable fact be made to appear, by a yet further inquiry into the history of past heresies; but I have already sufficiently tried my reader's patience on this subject. Enough too has, perhaps, been said to show what fantastic gambols the various and ever-teeming spawn of Heresy have, at all times, played around the venerable ark of the Church in her majestic navigation through the great Deep of Ages;while in vain attempting to sully or perplex her path, shoal after shoal of these monsters have descended into darkness, leaving the one, bright, buoyant Refuge of the Faithful to pursue uni armed, to the end of time, her Saving way. CHAPTER XXX. Bnef recapitulation.-Secret out, at last.-Love affair.-Walks by thl river.-" Knowing the Lord."-Cupid and Calvin. I HAD now closed my vain search after Protestantism through;ne first ages; and the whole process and results of my inquiry may, in a very few sentences, be recapitulated. As Protestants profess to have restored Christianity to its primitive purity, it was but natural to expect that among primitive Christians I:hould find the best Protestants. Accordingly, betaking myself, as has been seen, to the Apostolical era of the Church, I con. 120 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN tinued my search from thence downwards, through those four first ages which, like the steps of Jacob's ladder nearest heaven, may be said to have caught most directly and freshly upon them the effusions of divine light. And what, after all, were the fruits of this most anxious and conscientious search? where, let me ask through that whole pure period, did I find one single Protestan' -where even the smallest germ of anti-Catholic doctrine? Wa, it in the Good Works and Weekly Fasting of Barnabas and Her mas, or in the Corporal Presence and change of the element maintained by St. Ignatius and St. Justin? Was it in the rever ence paid by the former to the oral Traditions of the Church, o the veneration in which his ashes and those of Polycarp wen held by the Christians who immediately succeeded them? Dik St. Irenmeus speak in the spirit of Protestantism when he claimed for the See of Rome "superior Headship" over all other Churches, or when he pronounced the oblation of the body and blood on th( altar to be the Sacrifice of the New Law?-But it is needless to go again, however cursorily, through all the stages of that evidence; which must have proved, I think, to even the least candid reader, that there is not a single one of those doctrines or observances, now rejected by the Protestants, as Popish, that was not professed and practised, on the joint authority of the Scriptures and Tradition, by the whole Church of Christ, through the four first ages. While thus I found Catholicity-or, if you will, Poperyamong the orthodox of those times, among whom, and among whom alone, was it that I found the doctrines of Protestantism? Let the shade of Simon Magus, that great father of Calvinism, stand forth and answer;-bring the Capharnaites, with their presumptuous questioning as to how our Lord could give us his flesh to eat;-let the Gnostic believers in the marriage and progeny of the Holy Ghost bring forward their doctrines of Election, Perseverance, Immutable Decrees, &c.;-let the Manicheans come and assert the utter depravity of human nature and the utter slavery of the human will;-bid the Docetse, and Marcion.:tes, produce their bodiless and bloodless Eucharist;-call Nova dan, Aerius, Vigilantius and the like, to protest against Tradition Prayers for the Dead, Invocation of Saints, and Reverence of Relics;-let, in short, the entire rabble of heretics and schis. matics, who, during that time, sprung up in successive array against the Church, come and club their respective quotas of crror towards the work, and, I shall answer for it, such a corn plete body of Protestant doctrine may be therefrom compiled as might have saved the Reformers of Wittenberg and Geneva the whole trouble of their mission. Such, then, being the view I had taken of this most important IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 121 matter,-a view adopted, after much deliberation, and with very sincere reluctance,-it will naturally be concluded that, however imperative might have been my motives for turning Protestant, I had now abandoned all thoughts of undergoing so retrogade a metamorphosis. Marvellous, however, as it may well appear, this was by no means the case. On the contrary, I felt myself still drawn on, as by the hand of destiny; and with a sort of fascinated feeling like that of persons standing upon the edge of a precipice, so long had I now been gazing into the misty gulf of Protestantism, that it was with difficulty, I found, I should be able to forbear the leap. And this brings me, at last, to the explanation which I have so long promised my readers, respecting the motives which, independently of those mentioned at the commencement of this work, impelled me to smother, as far as lay in my power, all religious scruples, and to resolve,-even should I find the features of Protestantism not such as would stand the light of day,-to embrace her in the dark. Though foreseeing that my change of faith would be, in a spiritual sense, infinitely for the worse, I yet tried to persuade myself that it was, after all, but fair, that having suffered so much in the service of a good religion, I should now try to recompense myself by a little of that prosperity which I saw attached to the profession of a bad one. In short, my voyage was like that of Jason, after a Golden Fleece; nor was there wanting, as will appear from the following narrative, a fair Modea to assist me to the acquisition of it. The house in which my father resided, on his own small es. tate, in the County of --, was situated in the neighborhood of part of the property of Lord * * *, one of our most consider. able absentees, whose agent, a sort of second-hand Lord himself, was left to manage all the concerns of those immense possessions, as though they were entirely his own. About two miles from the house where we lived, lay the residence of this agent, and a close intimacy had, for a long time, subs:sted between the two families;-that of the agent consisting but of himself and a rather elderly maiden sister, whose fate it was, as will be seen, to have considerable influence over my destinies, spiritual is well as temporal. The lady and her brother were, it need hardly be said, Protestants,-the noble owner of the property being of that class of orthodox persons who would have thought it unsafe to bring any religion in contact with their pounds, shillings, and pence, save only Protestantism. It was a frequent boast with Miss * * that her family had been all of this dominant faith since the time of the Reformation; though by some of the older neighbors it was, indeed, hinted, that this Protestantism of hers, if hereditary, had been, for some 11 122 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN generations, to their knowledge, in at least a latent state. That it had again broken out, however, in Miss * *, in the most decided form, was allowed by all;-her case being of that species called the Evangelical, or Vital. This spinster had early expressed a warm interest in my salvation, and having, like all persons of her school, a strong taste for proselytism, would frequently propose to me a walk, along the banks.of the river, for the charitable purpose of conversing with me upon religious subjects, and teaching me, as she exexpressed it, to " know the Lord" as intimately as she did. What with phrases, indeed, such as I have just quoted, and the exceeding pride she at all times took in talking of her brother's noble patron, the word " Lord," in one shape or other, was hardly ever out of her mouth,-producing equivoques occasionally, between the spiritual and the temporal, which, though diverting, it would not be quite reverent to mention. Whether, in these efforts for my conversion, the lady had, originally, any further view than merely to gratify that love of interference, which in Saints is so active, I will not pretend to determine. But it was not long before I perceived that feelings of another description had a good deal mixed themselves with her anxiety for my spiritual welfare; nor could I help observing that, in proportion as I approached the marriageable time of life, and as she herself receded from it, a more tender tone of interest began to diffuse itself through her manner;-our walks became, through her management, more frequent and prolonged; and even her religious discourses came to be so " rosed over" with sentiment, that never before were Cupid and Calvin so undistinguishable from each other. Though it was impossible, as I have already said, to be blind to what all this indicated, there were yet circumstances, setting aside the lady's advantage in years, which rendered me incredulous as to her having the least notion of a matrimonial union between us. To become the wife of a Papist, I had frequently heard her declare, would be, on her part, such an act of base and wilful degeneracy as might well make her Protestant ances, tors start from their graves with indignation;-in additioni to which, having, as was generally believed, no fortune, except what her brother, out of his bounty, might be disposed to give her, it seemed the most improbable thing in the world that she should run the risk of incurring his displeasure by forming an alliance, min other respects so injudicious, with one so ill off in worldly means as myself. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 123 CHAPTER XXXI. Rector of Ballymudragget.-New form of shovel.-Tender scene in the shrubbery.-Moment of bewilderment.-Catholic Emancipation Bill carried.-Correspondence with Miss * *. THus stood my views of the matter, when, during a visit of a few days to my family, there occurred a circumstance which removed all doubts, as to our fair neighbor's object, and opened a vista into the future which at once dazzled and perplexed me. I have already, in a preceding chapter, made my readers acquainted with another of my father's neighbors, the rich Rector of Ballymudragget.-So closely, indeed, from my very infancy, was the figure of this portly personage connected with all my notions concerning matters of religion, that were I now to be blessed with visions as beatific as those of St. Teresa herself, the corpulent shadow of this Rector would be sure to bustle across the light of my dreams. His vast importance in our neighborhood,-his eternal tithes, of which I had no other notion, as a child, than that they were a peculiar sort of delicacy on which Rectors lived,-his awful hat, which used to be seen moving, like a meteor, along our roads, affrighting the poor and exacting homage from the rich, -the select fewness of the auditory to whom he all but solilo-. quized his Sunday discourses,-every thing, in short, connected with him, concurred to give me a strange and confused notion of the religion of which he was minister, and to make me look up to him as a sort of Grand Lama enshrined at Ballymudragget. As I grew older, I came, of course, to understand the matter more clearly, and to know that, under the mock-title of Minister of the Gospel, the old gentleman was but the fortunate holder of a good sinecure of some two thousand pounds per annum, to which the father of the present Lord * * had, some twenty years back, appointed him. At the period of my visit, just alluded to, the Reverend Gentle. man was rather dangerously ill, and except as a matter of gossiping conversation, the circumstance excited but little interest in the neighborhood. A change of hat was, indeed, all that most persons speculated on, in the event of his death, and it was gen. erally acknowledged that, as a variety, some new form of shovel would be acceptable. If rumor, however, was to be credited, our snug neighbor, the agent, had a far more substantial interest in the good Rector's demise; the present Lord having, it was said, promised, on succeeding to the title, that the next pre. sentation to the living should be at his agent's disposal, 124 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN How far this rumor was founded, I had never even taken the trouble of asking; but, one memorable morning, when a report, it appeared, had got abroad, that the old Rector was so much worse as to be given over by his physicians, Miss * * proposed to me a walk to the Parsonage House to make inquiries. On our arrival at the door, we were admitted, and while the servant took up our message, my companion and I sauntered through the trellised conservatory which opened from the Rector's well. furnished study into the neat lawn and shrubberies by which his mansion was surrounded. Having never before seen the place by daylight, I happened to ejaculate, as we walked along, " What luxury! what comfort!" when my fair companion, as if unable to contain her feelings any longer, turned to me with a look of the most languishing tenderness, and, laying her hand gently upon my arm, said, " How should you like to be the master of such a residence?" It was impossible to misunderstand her;--the look, the tone of voice, the question itself spoke volumes. I saw the power of presentation in her eyes; felt the soft pressure of induction in her hand; and was already in the prospective dream of my fancy, her husband and a Rector! That chasm which, but a few seconds before, had seemed to yawn between Popery and the Thirty-nine Articles, was now, by a sudden bound of my imagination, cleared without difficulty, and, had not our conversation been providentially interrupted, I was on the point, I fear, of committing myself to some engagement of which, both as man and as Christian, I should have repented. To the significance of the few broken sentences which, in this short interval, fell from her, I should in no respect do justice by merely repeating them. Brief as they were, they conveyed summarily to me the important intelligence, that her brother, through whose recommendation the next incumbent was to be appointed, had placed the benefice at her sole disposal, as a marriage portion, with whomsoever she might find ready and worthy to share it with her;-that to her selection of me, as the happy occupant of both these blessings, my unlucky religion was the whole and sole obstacle, and that it depended but upon myself, should the Rector die to-morrow, to embrace Protestant. ism, and her, and Ballymudragget together! Though dazzled at first by this prospect, there needed, 1 must say, but a moment's reflection to restore my mind to the balance it had been on the point of losing. Putting the religious part of the question wholly out of consideration, I saw instantly what a mark of dishonor must for ever attach to my name, if, in the apparently hopeless state of the Catholic prospects, at that moment, I should desert the fallen faith of my fathers, and for so glaring a bribe. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 125 From the task of explaining all this to the lady herself, the speedy recovery of the old Rector saved me; but that unlucky scene in his shrubbery had given an entirely new character to our intercourse. The bewilderment into which she had seen me thrown by her few pregnant sentences was interpreted by her in the sense most favorable to her own wishes; and, without expressly returning to the subject, there was in all our intercourse, from that moment, an evident impression, on her part, of a sort of tender understanding between us,-an impression which, partly from an habitual unwillingness to give pain, and partly, perhaps, from a little vanity in this my first conquest, I took no pains to remove. In about two or three months after this period, the Emanci pation Bill was carried; and of some of the effects which that great event produced upon my mind, the reader has been already told. During the time I was employed in pursuing my course of sacred studies, I found myself unable to afford an opportunity of paying a visit to home; and my intercourse, therefore, with my fair converter was, unluckily for me, confined solely to let. ters. I call this mode of communication, in my instance, unlucky. because the object addressed being out of sight and at a distance, my imagination was left free to invest her with all sorts of agree. able attributes, without having its pictures brought disturbingly to the test of reality, or its spells weakened-perhaps, brokenby the idol's voice and presence. The consequence was, that my fair correspondent still more and more brightened upon my imagination, the longer she continued absent from my sight; and in proportion as I forgot what she really was, I became but the more deeply enamored of what I fancied her to be. How far the prospect of a rich rectory, with its tithes, great and small, might have had a share in producing and nurturing up this dream of sentiment, I must leave to others to conjecture. That such rectorial realities may have helped to give substance to the vision, I will not entirely deny; but still in imagination, the re. sult was not the less tender and sentimental, and could I have been well secured against the casualty of ever again seeing, or speaking with the lady of my love, there is no saying to what extraordinary lengths of time and ardor my passion might havo persevered. 11' 126 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN CHAPTER XXXII. Miss * *'s knowledge of the Fathers.-Translation for her Album from St Basil, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory, and St. Jerome -Tender love-poem from St. Basil THouGHI I had not yet mustered up sufficient courage to make Miss * * acquainted with the result of my searches after Protestantism, she knew and, of course, duly appreciated the efforts I was making to render myself worthy of her hand. Not that this evangelical lady's learning extended so far back as to give her the least notion of the existence of any such persons as the Fathers;-her reading having chiefly lain in such New-Light paths as the Evangelical Magazine and Morning Watch, where authorities such as the Rev. E. Irving, and the reputed Elias, Mr. Louis Way,* would be sure to carry the day triumphantly against all the St. Justins and St. Ambroses of antiquity. She was, however, courteous enough to give me credit for having adopted the most effectual mode of Protestantizing myself-and only hinted now and then, affectionately, that she thought me a loung time about it. By way of keeping her in good humor, as well with the Fathers as with myself, I occasionally translated into verse some of the many florid passages which occur in these writers, and laid them, in double homage, at once, of poetry and piety, at her feet. With these half-tender, half-saintly strains, the lady was, as may be supposed, inexpressibly delighted. To the task of copying them out, her most delicate crow-quills were devoted; and it was the first time, I dare swear, in the annals of gallantry, that the names of St. Basil, St. Gregory, and St. Jerome were fated to shine forth in the pages of a morocco-covered Album. The pathetic remonstrance addressed by St. Basil to a Fallen Virgin, (of which Fenelon has said, " on ne peut vien voir de plus eloquent,") abounds with passages to which, though in the form of prose, such poetry as the following does but inadequate justice. ST. BASIL TO A FALLEN VIRGIN. Remember now that virgin choirt Who lov'd thee, lost one, as thou art, * Tne honor which this pious gentleman has now for sometime enjoyed, of being looked upon as no less a personage than Elias incog. was attributed also, I find, by some sectaries of the last century, to a devout captain of dragoons, whom they singled out, I know not why, for the same mysterious distinction. In a similar manner the Seekers, by whom St. John the Apostle is expected back again upon earth, gave out, sometime ago, that lie was actually arrived, and living retired in the county of Suffblk. See Honori Reggi, de Statu Ecclesice Britannicca. 4 In a note on the words "Ad Christi contendit altana," in ths Treatise ot IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 127 Before the world's profane desire, Had wanr'd thine eye and chill'd thy heart Recal their looks, so brightly calm, Around the lighted shrine at even,* When, mingling in the vesper psalm, Thy spirit seem'd to sigh for heaven. Remember, too, the tranquil sleep That o'er thy lonely pillow stole, While thou hast pray'd that God would keep From every harm thy virgin soul. Where is it now-that innocent And happy time, where is it gone? These light repasts, where young content And temperance stood smiling on; rthe maiden step, the seemly dress, In which thou went'st along, so meek; rThe blush that, at a look, or less, Came o'er the paleness of thy cheek; Alas! alas! that paleness too,f That bloodless purity of brow, More touching than the rosiest hue On beauty's cheek-where is it now. From one of the Homilies of St. Chrysostom who, it is known, particularly distinguished himself by his severe strictures on the gay dresses of the Constantinopolitan ladies,: the following specimen of his style of rebuke, on such subjects, is selected. St. Ambrose De Mysteriis, there is a description given by the Benedictine Editor, of some of the forms usual, in the time of that Father, on the admission of the young Neophytes into the sanctuary, to receive the sacrament In describing their procession from the baptistery to the altar, bearing each a lighted taper in his hand, (as is the manner of the Catholic Church to this day,) he makes mention also of the young maidens who had lately been professed, and who likewise formed a part of this innocent train:-" Si quae puella virginitatem in Paschatio festo essent professm, ipsa etiam inter hos innocentes greges deducebantur." Those who have been taught to consider Nuns as among the creations of modern Popery, will see, from all this, that such dedication of young virgins to God, was customary in the high and palmy age of the Christian Church. Even the runaway nun whom Luther married, might have found some precedent for her escapade in those good old times, as we read, in one of St. Jerome's Epistles, (xciii,) of an attempt to carry off a nun from a convent. * St. Basil represents the virgins as dancing round the altar:--PtTvrl0rt ravrTov iat ayyhKrlKs rOrCO 7oV Oeov per' EKEcv( XopEsa. Such sacred dances, in imitation of those of the Hebrews, were permitted, on great festivals, among the early Christians, and the Bishops and dignified Clergy (as we are told by Scaliger) used to join in them. t My young friend's translation here falls short, I must say, of the beauty ot the original:--2Xporr; Kati raunrl evXpvpoia aporeTepov datiaplrove'a. i One of the persecutions raised against him was headed, we are told, by three widows, who "could not forgive (says Gibbon) a preacher who reproached their affectation of concealing, by the ornaments of drss, their agt; and ugliness." 130 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN Why come ye to the place of prayer, With jewels in your braided hair? And wherefore is the House of God By glittering feet profanely trod, As if, vain things, ye came to keep Some festival, and not to weep? Oh! prostrate weep before that Lord Of earth and heaven, of life and death, Who blights the fairest with a word, And blasts the mightiest with a breath! Go-'tis not thus in proud array Such sinful souls should dare to pray.* Vainly to anger'd Heaven ye raise Luxurious hands where diamonds blaze; And she who comes in 'broider'd veil To weep her frailty, still is frail. The same Homily also furnished me with rather a curious passage, showing how just were this Saint's notions of female beauty, and how independent of the aid of ornament was its natural power, in his eyes. "Behold," thou say'st, "my gown is plain, My sandals are of texture rude; Is this like one whose heart is vain? Like one, who dresses to be woo'd?" Deceive not thus, young maid, thy heart,f For far more oft in simple gown Doth beauty play the tempter's part, Than in brocades of rich renown; And homeliest garb hath oft been found, When typed and moulded to the shape,+ To deal such shafts of mischief round As wisest men can scarce escape. Poetical as was, in general, the prose style of the greater number of the Fathers, St. Gregory of Nazianzum was, I believe, the only one among those of the four first centuries, who wrote actual Poems; and of these I extracted and translated a considerable portion for the Album of my fair friend. The following, however,~ in which the Saint Poet somewhat unconscionably requires, that both the eyes and lips of his young virgins should be motionless, is the only specimen from his works with which I shall here trouble the reader. * Tt KOCPES aavrr7v; OVK eartv ravra iKrTevovarL7 ra a-X7ara..... ov yap Xpvroopopev rry 3aKpvovaav 3e,.-Homil. 8, in 1 Ep. ad Tim. T MI7 a7rara aavrrvu rvEsartv, bHrep ~e Cv, cLa TovrTujv p sovwo KaX\aXirL~oTOal. t IIpoTrerXaaupveov rc aoco/wLa Ka, SKrervtrwpEvwv. No words could express more knowingly the perfections of a well-fitted gown. ~ From his 'YroOqxa IIapevors, or Precepts to Virgins. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 129 Let not those eyes, whose light forbids All love unhdy, ever learn to stray, But safe within thy snowy lids Like timid virgins in their chambers, stay,* Keeping their brightness to themselves all day. Let not those lips by man be won To breathe a thought that warms thy guileless breast, But, like May-buds, that fear the sun, Shut up in rosy silence, ever rest,Silence, that speaks the maiden's sweet thoughts best. From a letter of St. Jerome, in praise of the young widow, Blesilla,--one of those patterns of female holiness, those gems of sanctity, who formed what Prudentius calls "the necklace of the Church,"-the following passage is paraphrased:t She sleeps among the pure and blest, But here, upon her tomb, I swear, That, while a spirit thrills this breast, Her worth shall be remember'd there. My tongue shall never hope to charm, Unless it breathes Blesilla's name; My fancy ne'er shall shine so warm, As when it lights Blesilla's fame. On her, where'er my pages fly, My pages still shall life confer, And every wise and brilliant eye That studies me shall weep for her. For her the widow's tears shall fall, In sympathy of wedded love; And her shall holy maidens call The brightest of their saints above. Throughout all time, the priest, the sage, The cloister'd nun, the hermit hoary, Shall read, and reading, bless the page That wafts Blesilla's name to glory. One more versified extract from a Treatise of St. Basil, and I shall then have done with Miss * *'s saintly Album. So warm * There is a pun here, rather implied than expressed, which the following passage from St. Chrysostom will explain:-Kop, rpotayopsvsrat b oOaAXpos, WVa ()0 CO cLIv VT7 3U)O roa(o)JV &C; Ev rTiv KOVW3OVKXEt) a7TOKEKXElTal, bvrw Kal i rapqEvo; ltausevi.-Homil. 77, de Pcenitent. "The eye is called Kopr, (a young girl,) in order that, as the former is curtained up by two eyelids, as in a bedchamber, even so may the maiden herself remain." t The whole passage is so much more eloquent and vigorous in the original, that I must, in justice, give it here:-" Dum spiritus nos regret artus, dum vite hujus truimur commeatu, spondeo, promitto, polliceor, illam mca reasonabit lingua ili mei dedicabuntur labores, illi sudabit ingenium. Nulla erit pagina, q iee non Blesillam resonet; quocunque sermonis nostri monumenta pervenerint, illa cum meis opusculis peregrinabitur. Hanc mei mente defixam legent virgines, viduae, monachi, sacerdotes, et breve vite, spatium aterna memoria compensabit....... nunquam in meis moritura est libris." I 130 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN a tribute to the beauties and allurements of woman, from a pen so grave as that of the eloquent Bishop of Caesarea, may well be tbund startling;-and the translation, I must say, in point of ardor, does but faint justice to the original. In fairness, how ever, it should be premised, that the authenticity of the work from which this extract is taken has been questioned, and that, among others, the Saint's learned biographer, Hermant, doubts its genuineness. There shines an all-pervading grace, A charm, diffused through every part Of perfect woman's form and face, That steals, like light, into man's heart. Her look is to his eyes a beam Of loveliness that never sets; Her voice is to his ear a dream Of melody it ne'er forgets: Alike in motion or repose, Awake or slumbering, sure to win, Her form, a vase transparent, shows The spirit's light enshrined within. Nor charming only when she talks,* Her very silence speaks and shines, Love gilds her pathway when she walks, And lights her couch when she reclines. Let her, in short, do what she will, 'Tis something for which man must woo her; So powerful is that magnet still Which draws all souls and senses to her. CIAPTER XXXIII. Difficulties of my present position.-Lord Farnham's Protestants.-Ballinasloe Christians.-Pious letter from Miss * *.-Suggests that I should go to Germany.-Resolution to take her advice. TiE position in which I now found myself was not a little embarrassing. By this unlucky correspondence, in which I had been, for some months, engaged, and which-being, on my side, a mere indulgence of fancy, at the least possible cost of reality or feeling,-might have gone on thus, under the fostering influence of absence, for ever, I had not only deluded my mature friend, Miss * *, into the fond certainty that I was in love with ler, but had even, by dint of fine sentences, which, "like chariot. wheels, kindled as they ran," brought myself, in some slight de. gree, to indulge in the same delusion. While between the lady " Kat ou Xacovora yvvri povov KIat bpcora, aXXa at caOrljevr rwSo Kat iail ovt.a, aa TJrV vJ.)Vaav Kara ron appEoDv avrrjs bvaLKrlV Suvar7tav, o4 atrrlpos, Orpi, 7oppw9Oe 4aavrir71, rovro 7rp3 EavurP v atlyyeavlveI.-De vera JVirginitate. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 131 and me, too, this ideal approximation was taking place, that un. tucky Protestantism which was to form the indispensable basis of our union, seemed farther off from me than ever; and, had a vacancy occurred in the Rectory of Ballymudragget, at this moment, the unprovided state in which it would have found me, in the important article of religion, would have been perplexing in the extreme. In addition to the repugnance I could not but feel to the adop. tron of a new creed, from the conviction forced upon me, at every step of my inquiries upon the subject, that in the Catholic Church alone was to be found genuine Christianity, there had been also a ridicule, at this time, brought upon all conversions to Protestantism, by the utter failure of a late saintly farce, called the Second Irish Reformation, to which, in no possible circumstances, could I have had the courage to expose myself. The wretched absurdity of that last effort of Protestant Ascendency,-the parade made about a few scores of hungry Papists, who consented to become Protestants on the same terms on which Mungo consents to tell truth, "What you give me, Massa?" -and finally, the unceremonious speed with which all these Ballinasloe Christians* relapsed, laughing in their sleeves, into Popery and Idolatry,-the whole of this grave farce will long be remembered, to the signalization of my Lord Farnham's wisdom, and the no less honor and glory of the Reverend wiseatcres' of the British Critic, who sounded the rams'-horns of triumph in his pious Lordship's rear. To the fear of, by any chance, being mistaken for one of Lord Farnham's Protestants, I was myself, perhaps, more peculiarly alive, from a consciousness, but too well founded, alas! that, between the poor wretches who exchanged their faith for " the Friday's bacon," and myself, who was about to barter it for the rich rectory of Ballymudragget, the amount of the bribe constituted the whole and sole difference. Feeling, however, that I was bound, in courtesy, to communicate to my fair correspondent some little insight into the real state of my mind, on the subject, I ventured to intimate to her, in one of my letters, that the impression left on my mind by the perusal of the Fathers was, I was grieved to say, not quite so favorable to the cause of Protestantism as, in her zeal for my speedy conversion, she * They who are amused with such foolery, cannot do better than turn to the numbers of the British Critic for that period, (towards the latter end ofl 1827,) where they may trace the whole ludicrous course of this New-Light mummery, from the first triumphant announcements of the advance of "the Reformation" through the benighted regions of Ballinasloe, Loughrea, and Ahascrah, till, "coming in contact," as these gentlemen express it, "with the larkness of the land in Sligo," its evangelical light began to wax fainter and Sinter, and, at last, in the aptly-named district of Kilmummery, expired! 132 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN might desire; and that a yet further course of time and study would be requisite, before those scruples which I entertained, as to the adoption of a new faith, could be removed. The lady's answer to this was in her accustomed textuary style. After declaring pathetically that she had, as I could well conceive, " wearied the Lord with her words," (Malachi, ii, 17,) in my behalf, and assuring me of her unceasing anxiety, night and day, to pluck that " dear firebrand" (as she tenderly and scripturally called my soul) out of the fire, she proceeded to say that, from the very first, she had felt serious apprehensions that in seeking " the word of the Holy One" (Isa. v, 24) among the Fathers, I was but trying to " gather grapes of thorns, and figs of thistles," (Matt. vii, 16.) The only acquaintance she herself had ever formed among the Fathers was at the table, as she reminded me, of my own family, where it had been her fortune, on more than one occasion, to meet the Reverends Father O'Toole and Father M'Loughlin; and the less, in her opinion, that was said of such Fathers of the Church, the better. After a little more of this display of learning, respecting the Fathers, Miss * * continued to say that, were she to speak her own desire, on the subject, it would be, that I should, for a time, " separate from that filthiness of the heathen" (Ezra, vi, 21) with which my family connexions would, as long as I tarried in the land, be sure to compass me; and sorely as it would afflict her, even for a brief space, to lose me, yet so anxious was she that " the soul of her turtle (meaning me) should not be delivered unto the wicked" (Psalm lxxiv, 19)-so strong was her desire to " cause mine iniquity to pass from me and clothe me with a change of raiment" (Zech. iii, 4,) that, until the arrival of that happy moment, when we were to cleave one to another" (Daniel, ii, 43,) she counselled earnestly that I should betake myself unto some " land of uprightness" (Psalm cxliii, 10)--even the land of Luther or of the immortal Calvin,-and there, out of the reach of the " Mother of Harlots," (Rev. xvii, 5,) continue to ( nourish myself up in the words of faith and of good doctrine," (1 Tim. iv, 6,) so as to become worthy, at last, of that ( fat portion" (Hab. i, 16) which was in store for me, and which should be ( rendered double unto me, as unto the prisoners of hope," (Zech. x, 12,)-namely, herself and Ballymudragget. In a postscript to this piece of scriptural patchwork, the fair writer added that, in the event of my going abroad, she meant to commission me to procure for her a copy of that edifying book, Luther's Table-Talk;* and would, at the same time, recommend to me, for my own particular edification, a pious for* This " edifying book" of Luther contains the conversations of thejovial Reformer over his cups, as reported by Rebenstok, one of his most attached IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 133 eign work, called Pastor Fido,* written by one Guarini, and accounted, as she understood, one of the best possible manuals for the instruction of young Protestant divines in those duties which, as faithful Pastors, they were to perform towards their flocks. Whatever may be thought of this last learned suggestion, the oroject hinted to me by my fair converter of a visit to the land of Luther,-the birthplace of the Reformation,-the boasted wellspring of the thousand and one streams of Protestantism,flashed like a ray of newborn light across my fancy. " To Germany!-yes, to Germany will I assuredly go," exclaimed I, once more striding Protestantly through my two-pair-stair chamber, and marvelling that so compendious a mode of attaining my object had never before occurred to me. In the excitement of the vague hope that now opened upon me, added to the exhilarating prospect of foreign travel and adventure, the whole course of my late studies was, at once, lost sight of and forgotten. Fathers, Councils, Primitive Church, all receded into the background, and already did I begin, in the true pride of a Reformed spirit, to persuade myself that every thing which had passed during the first fifteen hundred years of Christianity was but an idle dream, and that not till the year of our Lord 1530t did the Gospel of our Lord come purely and evangelically into operation CHAPTER XXXIV. rhe Apostolic antiquity of the Catholic doctrines allowed by Protestants themselves.-Proofs-from the writings of the Reformers, Luther, Melancthon, &c.-from later Protestants, Casaubon, Scaliger, &c.--froim Socinus and Gibbon. IN the fit of delirium which, at the close of the preceding chapter, I have described, I was, in fact, but jumping to a conclusion into which all thinking Protestants who have examined fairly into the history of primitive Christianity, and yet are satisfied with their own religion, must deliberately have settled. By disciples, and published, after his death, with cruel kindness by his friends. Great efforts were, of course, made to discredit the authenticity of this work-- but without success. The zealous Dutch divine, Voet, allowed its genuineness, and even the Reformer's partial historian, Seckendorf, could do no more than lament the imprudence of the friends who published it. The ribaldry, indeed, with which this book, in its original state, abounded, might well awaken, in those who were solicitous about the Reformer's fame, deep regret at its publication. * In this mistake respecting the Pastor Fido the, lady.was not singular; for, already had the poet Guarini, from the same misapprehension, been placed in the rank of ecclesiastical writers, by Aubert le Mire.-See Querelles Litirraires, Tom. 1. t The year in which the Augsburg Confession of Faith was drawn up by Luther and Melancthon. 12 134 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN their manual, the Book of Homilies, they are informed that, for more than eight hundred years previous to the Reformation, the whole of Christendom lay drowned in all the darkness of Popery; and a fair inquiry into the writers of the early Church must have convinced them that the same religion which existed during the eight hundred years specified in the Homilies had also flourished through all the preceding centuries, up to the first birth-hour of the Church. They have, therefore, no other alternative left them than the conclusion to which, in my delirium, I came,-that, until the year of our Lord 1530, the Gospel of our Lord had never been truly promulgated; and that, accordingly, his Church, that only visible Church of Christ on earth, to which God himself so solemnly declared, " Lo, I am with you alway to the end of time," had yet been suffered by him, for a space of more than fifteen hundred years, to lie drowned, as the Homily tells us, in " abominable idolatry,"-the vice " most detested of God and most damnable to man!" The position, indeed, which it has been my chief aim to establish in these pages,-namely, that the doctrines and observances taught by the Catholics of the first ages were the same as those professed and practised by the Catholics of the present,has long, I find, by all dispassionate inquirers, even among Pro testants themselves, been virtually, and, in most instances, ex pressly acknowledged; and had this important admission been somewhat earlier known to me, it might have spared both my reader and myself the infliction of some heavy reading. It is true, that at the period of the Reformation, and for some time after, when it was naturally an object with those who originated such violent changes to invest them, as far as they could, with some semblance of authority, both the ingenuity and the effrontery of the innovators were exerted to press the sanction of the ancient Fathers into the service of their new enterprise But the avowals of some of the most eminent among the Reformers themselves showed how conscious they were of the hal. lowness of their pretensions to such authority. The deep concertr with which the considerate and conscientious Melancthon viewed each successive deviation from the ancient standard of the Faith is frequently and with much earnestness expressed in some of his letters. Thus, in a letter cited by Hospinian, he says--" It is not safe thus to depart from the general opinion of the ancient Church;"* and, in another place, " it is, in my judgment, great rashness thus to spread abroad doctrines without consulting the Primitive Church."t * " Neque verb tutum est a communi sententiA veteris Ecclesie discedere." f "Meo quidem judicio magna est temeritas dogmata serere inconsulti Ecclesia veteri." IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 135 From Luther's own confessions, it is well known how long and anxiously he struggled to get over the testimonies, in favor of the Real Presence, which he found both in the text of Scripture and in the writings of the Fathers; and with what exceeding reluctance he, at last, retained a doctrine which it would have been so decidedly, as he felt, for the interests of his cause to repudiate. In a letter to his followers at Strasbourg, he declares the pleasure which it would afford him, could they suggest to his mind some good grounds for denying the Real Presence, as nothing could be of more service to him in his designs against the Papacy.* So admitted is this struggle of Luther's conscience, upon the subject of the Eucharist, that Bayle deduces from it an ingenious argument in favor of toleration, on the ground that the most erroneous opinions may, as in this case, be the result of the most sincere and anxious search after truth. " Who does not know," says Bayle, "that Luther was passionately desirous not to believe in the Real Presence, persuading himself that so long as he should continue in that belief, he would thereby be deprived of one great advantage towards the object he had in view of destroying Popery. His wishes, however, though founded upon what he believed to be strongly his interest, were unavailing. He was not able, though endeavoring with all his might, to discover that figurative sense which to us is so visible, in the words of Christ, "This is my body."f With little less throes of conscience did another Reformer, LEcolampadius, succeed in surmounting the testimonies of the ancient Fathers, on the same point; nor was it till he had made up his mind to renounce their authority altogether,-" semota hominum auctoritate,"f-that he could bring himself to adopt the Sacramentarian doctrine. Were we to collect, indeed, the different Catholic doctrines of which some one or other of the Reformers themselves acknowledged the antiquity, we should find almost the whole of' their own new system of belief surrendered by them in detail. Thus the antiquity of the doctrine of a Corporal Presence was maintained by Luther against Calvin and Zwingli;~ and Melancthon even expressed himself respecting that mystery " in the * Epist. ad.Jrgentin. f Supplement du Commentaire Philosophique, (Euvres, Tom. 2. j Lavater. ~ This did not, of course, escape the observation of some among their own followers. For instance, Dudith (who is said to have ended his own course in Socinianism) thus asks of Beza, in one of his letters to him, "On what dogma do those who have declared war against the Pope agree among themselves? If you take the trouble to look over all the articles, from the first to the last, you will not find one that is not admitted by some, and condemned by others." 136 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN very strongest terms, (says Mosheim's Commentator,) that the Roman Catholics use to express the monstrous doctrine of Transubstantiation; adopting those remakable words of Theophylact, 'the bread was not a figure only, but was truly changed into flesh.'" The Centuriators of Magdeburgh admit, reluctantly and angrily, the antiquity of the Sacrificial Offering. Prayers for the Dead were acknowledged by Calvin to have been an ancient and pious usage:* and the Lutherans not only conceded this point in the Defence of the Confession of Augsburg, but professed their dissent, in the same document, from the opinion of the heretic Aerius, who maintained, in the fourth century, that Prayers bor the Dead were useless. While Calvin rejected this usage, which he yet allowed to be of high antiquity, he, on the other hand, confessed, or rather boasted, that his system of election and Grace was wholly unknown to all the Fathers of the four first centuries;t and Me. lancthon, with all his reverence for the authority of the early Church, could yet,-hurried away, like the rest, by a factious spirit of Reform,-adopt new-fangled doctrines, such as that of Imputed Justice, wholly unknown, as he himself allowed, to the ancient Christians.t By Luther, the use of Images and of the sign of the Cross,~ as well as Confession and the Sacrament of Absolution were retained; while Melancthon, Bucer, and other high authorities of the Reformation, acknowledged the antiquity and importance of the Supremacy of the Roman See. The proofs of this latter concession are numerous. Thus Melancthon says:--" There is no dispute on the superiority of the Pope, and the authority of bishops; the Pope, as well as they, may keep this authority." -Again, " The monarchy of the Pope would also contribute much to preserve the unity of doctrine among different nations; if other points could be settled, we should soon agree respecting the supremacy of the Pope.|1 Bucer, too, who was invited to * Vetustis ecclesia scriptoribus pium esse visum suffragari pro Mortuis. f Instit. Lib. 2. c. 2.--By Gomarus and other such followers of Calvin, it is even admitted that the doctrines of their master, as explained by them, are not to be found in the Gospel. 1 See one of his letters, (Lib. 3. Ep. 126,) in which he acknowledges that he could find nothing like this doctrine among the Fathers. ~ "The Father of the Reformation, Luther, (says De Starck,) wrote, that, on getting out of bed in the morning, one ought to sign oneself with the Holy Cross." A learned and famous Lutheran, Gerhard, has even so far racked his wits in defence of this sign, as to produce the following strained authority for its use:-" The patriarch Jacob, laying his hands upon his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh, crosswise, formed as it were a Cross, and so admonished them concerning the cross of Christ."-Loci Theolog. T. 4. de Baptism. 11 Resp. ad Bel.-This opinion of Melancthon is thus referred to by the illustrious Grotius, who was himself a strong advocate for the Primacy of the IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 137 England by Cranmer, to assist in forming the Anglican Church, writes thus strongly on the same point:-" We confess that, in the opinion of the ancient Fathers, the Roman Church did hold the Primacy, having the Chair of Peter, and that her bishops have been accounted his successors."* But the most striking testi. mony on this point, because wrung from him by the confusion he saw around him, is that of the Reformer Capito:-" The authority of the clergy (he says, in a letter to Farel) is entirely abolished. All is lost,-all is going to ruin..... God now makes me feel what it is to be a Pastor, and what mischief we have done to the Church by the rash judgment, the inconsiderate vehemence with which we rejected the Pope."t At a somewhat later period, we find the learned Protestant, Casaubon, lamenting over those deviations from the ancient faith into which the violence of the Reformation was, he saw, betraying its followers. In writing to his friend Uittembogardt, who had, in a conference held between them, endeavored to relieve his mind from some apprehensions on this head, he says:" Why should I conceal from you that this so great departure from the faith of the ancient Church not a little disturbs me?": -and, in the same letter, after remarking that, on the subject of the Sacraments, Luther differed from the ancients, Zuinglius from Luther, Calvin from both, and others from Calvin, he adds, " If we go on in this way, what will at last be the end of it?"~ By Scaliger, too, another eminent scholar, and a mature convert to Protestantism, it is, without reserve, admitted that, on the important subject of the Lord's Supper, we should in vain endeavor to prove the Reformed doctrine from the Fathers.l| Roman See, as the only means of preserving unity in the general Church o! Christ. "Ideo opat (Grotius) ut ea divulsio que evenit, et cause divulsionis tollantur. Inter eas causas non est Primatus Episcopi Romani, secundem Canones, fatente Melancthone, qui eum Primatum etiam necessarium putat ad retinendam unitatem." With Grotius, too, may be associated, as another authority in favor of the Primacy of Rome, the no less illustrious name uf the philosopher Leibnitz.-See his Systema Theologicum. In a yet more recent Protestant writer than any here referred to,-the Baron Senkenberg, Professor of Law in the Universities of Gottingen and Giesen, and Aulic Counsellor, &c., under the Emperor Francis I,-we find the following strong opiniop on the same subject:-" It is nght that there should be a system of government among Christians, and it is right that there should be a head to preside over it; and none else can be more qualified for this office than the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the representative of the Blessed Peter through an uninterrupted succession." JMethod. Jurisprud. 4, delibertate Ecclesice German. * Prop. ad Cone. f Ep. ad Farel, inter Ep. Calv. 1 Mene quid dissimulem hec tanta diversitas a fide veteris Ecclesie non parum turbat? ~ Si sic pergimus, quis tandem erit exitus? 11 Non est quod conemur ex Patribus hunc articulum demonstrare do Crena.-Scaligerana. 12* 138 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN While these and a number of other such enlightened Protestants have thus candidly acknowledged,-what, indeed, only the party-spirit of sectarianism could deny,-that the weight of ancient authority is all on the side of the Church of Rome, the Socinians, who, from being independent of such authority themselves, could the better, of course, afford to be candid on the subject, have in general been found to agree in the same important admission. In the well-known controversy respecting the Eucharist between Smalcius and Franzius, the Racovian pastor gave up freely to his Lutheran antagonist all the Fathers of the fourth century, as stanch Transubstantiationists. And Socinus himself declared that, if the Fathers are to be made umpires between the disputants, the Church of Rome cannot fail to win an easy triumph. It is by those, indeed, who are not in communion with either of the contending parties, that the question between them has the best chance of being disinterestedly decided; and, on this principle, the testimony of Gibbon may be thrown into the same scale with that of Socinus,-the infidel, no less than the heresiarch, having professed his inability " to withstand the weight of historical evidence that, within the first four or five centuries of Christianity, most of the leading doctrines of Popery were already introduced, in theory and practice."* CHAPTER XXXV. French Calvinists.-The Fathers held in contempt by the English Calvinists. -Policy of the Church of England Divines.-Bishop Jewel.-Dr. Waterland. SOME strenuous efforts were, it is known, made by the French Calvinist, Claude, to prove that, on the subject of the Eucharist, the Fathers of the first ages were in perfect accordance with the doctrine of the Reformed Church.t Far the greater number, however, of Calvinists, both of France and England, held the authority of these venerable teachers in the most sovereign contempt.: " Relying," says the Protestant Casaubon, "bn the * Posthumous Memoirs. f The utter failure, notwithstanding his learning and ability, of the French controvertist, Claude,-particularly in his unlucky appeal to the Eastern Churches against the doctrine of transubstantiation,-left a clear field, on this subject, to M. Arnaud and his brother champions. ( One of the sources of Calvin's contempt for the Fathers is to be found, perhaps, in his ignorance of them:-" Calvin (says Longerue) avoit lu S. Augustin et S. Thomas; mais it n'avoit pas lu les autres Peres." In a satire against the Calvinists, by Bishop Womack, called " The Examination of Tilenus," the propensity of that sect to depreciate the Fathers is thus ridi IN SEARCII OF A RELIGION. 139 authority and reputation of one individual (Calvin) who was truly a very great man, though not free from liability to error, these persons cannot endure the bare mention of the names of those Holy Fathers whose most felicitous services the immortal God was pleased formerly to employ:...... but whom these writers wish to represent as half heathens, unskilled in the Scriptures, silly, foolish, stupid and impious persons. It is on this account they attack the errors of the Papists in such a manner as very frequently to iiflict, through their sides, a mortal wound on the ancient Church."* The same contempt for the early Fathers, as authorities in doctrine, prevailed, at the same period, among the high Calvinistic party in England; and the following passage from a work of the famous Archbishop Bancroft, (his " Survey of the pretended Holy Discipline") will show the lengths to which this feeling of slight towards the Church's Ancients was carried:-"In a certain college in Cambridge when it happeneth that, in their disputations, the authority either of St. Augustin, or of St. Am. brose, or of St. Jerome, or of any other of the ancient Fathers, nay, the whole consent of them all together is alleged,-it is rejected with very great disdain; as, ' What tell you me of St. Augustin, St. Ambrose, or of the rest? I regard them not a rush.' " While thus the Calvinists of England, in the true spirit of their master, made light of and even disdained the authority of the fathers, a far different course of policy led the High-Church Divines, not only to profess the highest feelings of reverence for those writers, but to endeavor to extort, by all means, from their pages, some sanction for their own Protestant doctrines. With that sort of rash vaporing which was to be expected from the craven spirit he had already displayed, Bishop Jewel went so far as to challenge publicly, all the Catholics in the world to produce a single clear testimony from the writings of the Fathers in support of any of those tenets on which the Protestants differed from them.t But the only effect of this absurd vaunt was, as culed from the lips of one of the Examiners:-The man hath a competent measure of your ordinary, unsanctified learning. But you may see he hath studied the Ancient Fathers, more than our modern divines, such as Mr. Calvin and Mr. Perkins. And, alas! they [the ancient Fathers] threw away their enjoyments-and their lives, too, some of them-for they knew not what. They understood little or nothing of the Divine Decrees, or the power of grace and godliness: this great light was reserved for the honor of after-ages." * Letter to Daniel Heinsius, 1610. f The passage of the Paul's Cross sermon, in which this rash challenge is enounced, may be considered, in one respect, valuable, inasmuch as it acknowledges most fully the authority of that concurrent Rule of Faith,concurrent with, and illustrative of, the written Word of God,-which the 140 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN the Bishop's biographer, Humphrey, confesses, to give " scope to the Papists," and do injury to the cause it was meant to benefit. For a long period, however, did this effort, on the part of the Church of England divines, to enlist antiquity on the side of their schism, continue, with more or less zeal, to be carried on; and upon all occasions do we find them appealing, with the utmost reverence, to the Fathers,-though having, at the same time, the avowal of the ever-candid Chillingworth before their eyes, that it was the opposition which he himself remarked between the doctrines of the Fathers and those of Protestantism that formed one of his leading motives for embracing the Romish faith; or, as he himself states his reason, " Because the doctrine of the Church of Rome is conformable, and the doctrine of Protestants contrary to the doctrine of the Fathers, by the confession of Protestants themselves." It has been thought by some that this professed deference of the divines of that period for the authority of writers whose every page breathes rebuke to Protestantism, is to be accounted for by the evident leaning towards Popery which the reigns of the two first Stuarts betrayed; and there is no doubt that this circumstance, combined with the aid derived from the testimony of the Fathers, in those contests respecting Church government in which they were engaged with the Puritans, had considerable share in moving the High-Church divines to this otherwise so anomalous a coalition. But there was, also, another cause, of at least equal importance, to which this feature in the policy of the Church of England is to be assigned. I have before remarked that those Fathers who upheld most strenuously the doctrine of Transubstantiation, (as well as every other doctrine classed under the head of Popish errors,) were also those who most distinguished themselves by maintaining the dogma of the Trinity in its purest, most amply developed, and " bright, consummate" form. To secure the aid of such witnesses, at a time when the spirit of Anti-Trinitarianism was abroad, in defence of a mystery, which the Reformation itself had spared, but which seemed in danger of filling before some of its progeny, was thought to be an acquisition well worth some sacrifice of sincerity; and, for the sake of profiting thus by the testimony of the Fathers on one of the few doctrines common to both parties, the,Protestant divines either wilfully shut their eyes to the wide diversity, on other points, between them, or else endeavored to evade these Catholics derive from their old Doctors and Councils, and from the traditions and examples of the early days of their Church. Thus begins the challenge of the Bishop:-" If any man alive were able to prove any of these articles, by any one clear or plain clause or sentence, either of the Scriptures or of the old Doctors, or of any old General Council, or by any example of the primitive Church," &c. &c. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 141 differences by glosses and explanations, of whose utter futility and deceptiveness it is impossible that they should not themselves have been aware. Of this very intelligible course of policy we find a striking exemplification in the labors of one of the most eminent of these divines, Dr. Waterland. Hence was it, that, in his exceeding zeal for the triumph of Trinitarianism, he was induced to uphold, with so high a hand, the authority of the Fathers,--denominating the Three first centuries " the golden age of the Church," and even inclining, for the honor and glory of his idol, Athanasius, to extend that laudatory distinction so far down as the Fourth.* Hence, rather than risk the consequences of the impolitic admis. sion that allies so useful to the cause of orthodoxy, on one great point of Christianity, were, on every other, no better than unreformed Papists, he thought himself bound to endeavor to prove that, on the equally vital doctrine of the Eucharist, the opinions held by these ancient teachers were no less in accordance with those maintained by the divines of the Established Church. The work, in which the learned Doctor has attempted this task, I have already had occasion to refer to, and shall here only add that, for vague and forced interpretation, for unavailing struggles against the stream of testimony, and the betrayal of conscious weakness under an assumed aspect of strength, it is, considering the acknowledged talents and erudition of the writer, unexampled, perhaps, in the whole annals of theological controversy. CHAPTER XXXVI. Pretended reverence of the English divines for the Fathers unmasked.-Dr. Whitby's attack on the Fathers: followed by Middleton.-Early Christians proved by Middleton to have been Papists.-Reflections.-Departure for Hamburgh. IT was not possible that such a system of evasion and casuistry as I have, in the last chapter, described, should be carried on much longer; and the first great breach made in it was by the honest, however mistaken, Dr. Whitby, in his work "' concerning the interpretation of Scripture after the manner of the Fathers." In this Dissertation, which the translator of Mosheim* represents * Whiston, on the other hand, whose controversial interest drew him in quite an opposite direction, makes the power of performing miracles stop at Athanasius, giving as his reason, that "the forgeries of Athanasius, by their prevalence in the church, provoked God to withdraw his miraculous powers!" f The usual consequences of such bold speculations were, indeed, exemplified in the case of Whitby himself, who, in a posthumous work entitled 142 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN as " the forerunner of the many remarkable attempts that were afterwards made to deliver the right of private judgment, in mat. ters of religion,from the restrain's of human authority," the evi. dence of the Fathers, on points of faith, is set aside with a degree of unceremonious freedom, which even the advocate for the right of private judgment, just cited, allows to have been unwise and unsafe. But, rash as it was, this assault by Whitby was but the ifre. runner of outbreaks still rasher. The same Church which had produced a Jewel and a Waterland, was sure, in the natural course of reaction, to produce also a Middleton. Impatient of such hollow pretensions to the sanction of antiquity, nor much scrupling, in his attacks upon what he deemed to be Superstition, how far Religion herself might be endangered by the onset, this divine brushed away boldly all that film of mock reverence which his brethren had been so long weaving round the memory of the Fathers, and at once held up these ancient teachers not only as Papists, in doctrine, but (his main object being, at all risks, to vilify Roman Catholicism*) as Papists of the most superstitious and drivelling description. In utter defiance, too, of the deductions which might be drawn from such a theory, Middleton hesitated not to reverse the ordinary view of the subject, and, by asserting the first ages of the Church to have been the least pure, risked, heedless of all con. sequences,t the startling conclusion, that the fountain of the "The Last Thoughts of Dr. Whitby," thus expresses himself respecting the Trinity:-" An exact scrutiny into things doth often produce conviction that those things which we once judged to be right, were, after a more diligent inquiry into the truth, found to be wrong; and truly I am not ashamed to say this is my case. For when I wrote my Commentaries on the New Testament, I went on (too hastily, I own) in the common beaten road of other reputed orthodox divines, conceiving that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in one complex notion, were one and the same God, by virtue of the same individual essence communicated from the Father. This confused notion, I am now fully convinced by the arguments I have offered here, and in the second part of my reply to Dr. Waterland, to be a thing impossible, and full of gross absurdities and contradictions." * This object he by no means scruples to avow. "Whereas Popish Christianity, (he says,) which possesses much the largest share of the Christian world, tould be undone at once, if the authority of the Primitive Fathers and primitive miracles should be rejected in common by all Christians."Remarks on Observations, &c. Vol. 2. t Some of those consequences are thus significantly shadowed out by one of his opponents:-" The author must either renounce his argument or the Gospel. Those who believe the Fathers of the second and third centuries to be more credulous than those of the fourth, may fancy the Apostles to have been the most credulous of them all. If the world was so credulous immediately after the Apostles, it will not be easy to comprehend how it should have been much less so in the Apostles' times. The author's charge, indeed, stops with the Fathers, but his arguments do not stop there; for if the Fathers can be proved to have been forgers of lies, the consequences may go IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 143 Christian's faith was most corrupt near its source. In this reckless paradox, however, was conveyed an undesigned tribute to the antiquity of the Catholic Church; since identifying, as he did, all superstition and error with Popery, it is plain that, in pronouncing the first ages of Christianity to have been the least pure, he had no other meaning in his mind than that they were the most Popish. How unreservedly, indeed, Dr. Middleton let out the whole of that inconvenient fact, which it had been so long the policy of his brother Divines to keep veiled in the background,namely, that Primitive Christianity was neither more nor less than Modern Popery,-will appear from some Remarks of his upon a Catechism professing to be by a Protestant, and giving an account of the chief articles of belief of the early Church:" We may now see (he says) from a clear deduction of facts and circumstances, as they are set forth in this piece, how di. rectly the authority of the Primitive Fathers tends to lead us into the Church of Rome: we see it ascribing a supreme and independent power to the Church, asserting the Popish Sacraments, a propitiatory sacrifice of Christ's body and blood, both for the living and the dead; Prayers for the Dead, to procure some re. lief and improvement of their intermediate state; Exorcisms, Chrisms, Consecrated Oil, Sign of the Cross, Penances, Confessions to a Priest, Absolutions, Relics of Saints," &c. &c. This rash sally from the sanctuary,* whatever mischiefs it may otherwise have occasioned, by giving the signal, as it were, from the Church-top, to all sceptics and infidels for a general assault on the earliest witnesses of the Christian faith, was, in one respect at least, productive of good, by putting to shame all that pretended deference to the Fathers which it had been so long the policy of the Divines of the Church of England to adopt. Their manifest object in this was to produce an impression, among all who knew no better, that those ancient teachers of Christianity lent a sanction to the Reformed doctrines. By the imprudence of Middleton, however, this instrument of delusion a great way." A fiiend and correspondent of Middleton, the Archdeacon ot Carlisle, seems to have been filly as little aware, or as reckless, of the obvi(us consequences of depreciating these early teachers, as was Middleton himself. "Christianity (says this wise divine) was in its infancy, at most in its childhood, when these men wrote, and therefore it is no wonder that they spake as children, that they understood as children, that they thought as children." In another place, the Archdeacon, under an evident feeling of impatience at the testimony which the Fathers bear to the truth of what are called Popish doctrines, exclaims, " Let me not be censured though I should be so bold as to say, that we should have understood the Scriptures much better if we had not had the writings of the Fathers!" * " Dr. Middleton (says the Norrisian Professor, Hoy,) does not seem to fall far short of Mr. Hume on Miracles." 144 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN was rendered powerless in their hands;* for, however calumnious and false were, on most points, his representations of the Fathers, he had, at least, abundantly succeeded in showing that they were, in faith and practice, any thing but Protestants; and that, therefore, to refer to them as authorities for Protestant doctrines, was a deception which, once well exposed, was not likely to be often, or with any success, repeated. Accordingly we have seen that, from that period,-with the exception now and then of a Daubeny, or a Faber, who still resort to the old battered armory for weapons,-the Church of England Divines have, with a most prudent reserve, left the Fathers as auxiliaries, undisturbed on their shelves: and the few departures from this safe policyt into which they have been tempted, must serve, more and more, to confirm them in the advisedness of their rule. The late Bishop Tomline, for instance, in calling in the aid of the Fathers against the Calvinists, only showed how totally misapplied and perilous was their alliance in * In the following passage from one of the Lectures of Dr. Hey, we find the motives of both the parties, in these two opposite views of the Fathers, pretty fairly stated:-" Those who defend the pretensions of the Fathers do it through fear, lest, if they should appear indefensible, the cause of Christianity should suffer by the condemnation of its early propagators. Those who accuse the Fathers of superstition, weakness, or falsehood, consider what indelible disgrace they shall bring upon Popery by showing the impu. rity of the source from wthich all its distinguishing doctrines have taken thei:' rise." With respect to the accusations here mentioned, against the Fathers, of 1" superstition, weakness, &c.," they are the same that have for centuries been brought forward against the religion which glories in having followed them; and the best answer to all such attacks on the early teachers of Christianity, is to be found in those wise and sarcastic words which I have once before quoted from Lardner:--" Poor ignorant primitive Christians, I wonder how they could find the way to heaven. They lived near the times of Christ and his.lpostles. They highly valued and diligently read the holy Scriptures, and some of them wrote Commentaries upon them; but yet it seems they knew little or nothing of their religion!...... Truly, we of these times are very happy in our orthodoxy." t The two very interesting works of Bishop Kaye, relating to St. Justin and Tertullian, are hardly to be accounted exceptions to the system of policy here noticed, as this accomplished scholar has approached his subject far more in the spirit of a Dilettante than a Divine, and treated the Fathers very much as he might the classics of a barbarous age, making their works subservient to the illustration of the peculiar customs and opinions of their times. How coolly his lordship deals with some matters of opinion and evidence which, in the days of the chivalry of controversy, would have made a thousand folios leap from their shelves, will appear by the following specimen. Referring to the opinions of Tertullian respecting the Eucharist, the Bishop says that this Father "speaks of' feeding on the fatness of the Lord's body, that is, on the Eucharist,' and 'of our flesh feeding on the body and blood of Christ, in order that our soul may be fattened of God.' These are, it must be allowed, (adds the Bishop,) strong expressions." Strong, indeed though forming, as his lordship ought to know, but one of a countless host of such proofs that Tertullian's doctrine of "feeding on the Lord's body," really and corporeally, was the universal belief of the early Christian Church. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 145 such a cause;-the very same testimonies which he thus brings to bear against the tenets of modern Calvinism being no less fatally efficient against the doctrines of the first Reformers, as well as against the predominant spirit of the Articles of his own Church."* I have now satisfactorily, I trust,-though far more at length than I had, at starting, anticipated,-succeeded in establishing the very material position which I had laid down, namely, that the antiquity claimed by the Catholics for the doctrines of their Church, or, in other words, the identity which they maintain exists between their system of belief and that which the first teachers of Christianity promulgated, has been long, by Protestants themselves, reluctantly, but still most effectively admitted. On finding thus remarkably corroborated the conclusion to which I myself had come, that what is now called Popery was, in fact, the whole and sole faith of the primeval Christians, I know not whether the prevalent feeling in my mind was that of triumph or mortification. In the first place, had these important concessions been somewhat earlier known to me, I might have been spared all those pains of parturition which the first chapters of this work so unnecessarily cost me;-my situation now being something like that of the famous Cardinal Sfondrati, of whose book on predestination it was said, " que s'il avoit commence son ouvrage par la seconde partie, il se seroit epargne la peine de composer la premiere." In the second place, I had, I confess, flattered myself, as do the self-taught in all lines of study, that the results which I had thus lighted upon were of my own peculiar and exclusive finding out. The discovery, therefore, that so many others had arrived at exactly the same point before me, gave to my task a degree of triteness for which I was by no means prepared, and not a little dimmed in my eyes, the glory of my research and scholarship. On a review of the whole, however, the effect of all these inquiries upon my mind was still further to stimulate me to the prosecution of the pursuit in which I had engaged; my strong persuasion being that there must, after all, be something more, in the nature of the Protestant Church, than I was yet aware of, to enable her to hold her ground, even so long, as a constituent portion of the Christian world, notwithstanding her thus * "The Evangelical Clergy (says the Bishop's able opponent, Mr. Scott) do not contend that our Articles, Liturgy, &c., are in every tittle exactly coincident with the sentiments of Calvin; but that they contain, in a more unexceptionable form, all that they deem essential in his doctrine." Dr. Maclaine, too, (the translator of Mosheim,) says of the Ultra-Calvinist proceedings of the Synod of Dort, "Its decisions, in point of doctrine, were looked upon by many, and not without reason, as agreeable to the tenor of the Book of Articles established by law in the Church of England." J '13 14G6 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN acknowledged defection from most of the doctrines of the early Church, as well as of that mark of the great Father of Heresies which I have shown to be branded on her brow. " In Germany," exclaimed I to myself, "if any where, I shall be sure to find her in her first, genuine shape, with all the associations, too, which such antiquity as it is in her power to boast, combined with the influences of the ' Genius Loci,' are able to shed around her birthplace." After taking leave, therefore, in an affectionate letter, of my fair Calvinist friend, and promising faithfully to attend to her commissions respecting Luther's Table-Talk and the Pastor Fido, I set out from Dublin on the twentieth of August, and staying but a few days in London, on my way, arrived at Ham burgh about the end of the month. CHAPTER XXXVII. Hamburgh.-IHagedorn.-Klopstock and his Wife Meta.-Miss Anna Maria a Schurman, and her lover Labadie.-Account of them for the Tract Socity.-Forwarded through the hands of Miss * *. FRoM a traveller starting upon a tour so purely theological in its object, the reader will hardly be prepared to expect much of that variety of observation which, in general, constitutes the chief charm of the wayfarer's narrative. With the neighborhood of Hamburgh I found some names and recollections associated, in which, as a lover of poetry, and of literature in general, I could not but feel interested. How far this city has cause to take pride for having been the birthplace of Hagedorn, my entire ignorance of that Anacreontic poet's writings forbade me to judge; but of the merits of Klopstock, the various translations of his writings had enabled me to form some notion, and I accordingly visited the tomb of this famous poet with all due reverence;though less, I am ashamed to confess, on account of his renowned Messiah, than for the sake of the memory of his devoted and interesting wife, Meta.* In the mood of mind, however, into which my late studies had thrown me, neither poets, nor the fair idols of poets, had much chance of occupying any great portion of my attention; and the only little romance I could got up, illustrative of the neighbor* The wide difference there is between the selfish sensibility of a man of genius, and the warm, devoted, unconscious generosity of a natural-hearted woman, is most characteristically exemplified in the respective characters of Klopstock and his wife, as exhibited in their Memoirs. The grave of this poet is at Ottenson, a small village near Hamburgh, where he lies buried in the churchyard, beneath a large linden-tree, under which he used to sit, IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 147 hood of Hamburgh, had for its heroine the learned and once famed Miss Anna Maria a Schurman, a lady celebrated by the pens of Vossius, Beverovicius, and other erudite Dutchmen, but to whose fame and name I was now for the first time introduced. The history of this fair Savanta, from the time when she first undertook (as one of her biographers expresses it) " to be, like Luther and Calvin, the architect of her own faith," till she became the disciple and, it is said, wife of the notorious Labadie, would afford, in a small compass, as edifying a picture of the effects of the Reformation as could be desired. Her lover Labadie, who, at last, rose to the "bad eminence" of being at the head of a sect of Protestant fanatics, was one of those preachers of piety and practisers of profligacy, who knew so well and art fully how to avail themselves of the excited fancies of the female Reformers of that period; and one of the precious doctrines which he is known to have held was, that " God could and would deceive, and that he had sometimes actually done so!" A member of the Catholic Church till his fortieth year, Laba die saw what a field was opened by the outbreak of the Reformation, as well for the license of private passion as for the freaks of private opinion; and, having first distinguished himself in his own church by endeavoring to corrupt a whole convent full of nuns, he abandoned the Catholic faith and turned Calvinist minister. The popularity which, in this new character, he attained,* as a preacher, was almost without example; and the contrast known to exist between the spiritual doctrines which he taught, and the very anti-spiritual tenor of his private life, was not without its attraction for many of his fair disciples. Of the manner in which he still ventured to instruct his female followers, an instance is given by Bayle, in rather an amusing anecdote, which only a philosopher like Bayle could well venture to tell; -and, after a career, not unlike that of some of the old Gnostic heresiarchs, this worthy off-shoot of the Reformation died at Altona, in the arms of his last love, the pious and learned Anna Maria 'a Schurman, in the year 1674. Out of all this,---difficult as were some of the particulars to manage,-I contrived, during my leisure moments at Hamburgh, to make out a plausible, and even decent, little religious story, which I despatched to Miss * *, as the first fruits of my foreign inquiries after Protestantism, begging her to present it to the * "It is remarkable enough (says Mosheim's Commentator) that almost all the sectaries of an enthusiastical turn were desirous of entering into communion with Labadie. The Brownists offered him their church at Middleburgh, when he was.suspended by the French synod from his episcopal functions. The Quakers sent their two leading members, Robert Barclay and George Keith, to Amsterdam, while he resided there, to examine his doctrine."- Vol. 5. 148 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN Religious Tract Society, of which I knew her to be one of the most distinguished members. The account given of her own early life by Miss Schurman, in a work published at Altona, furnished me fortunately with some anecdotes, respecting her infant days, which could not be otherwise than interesting to the evangelical world. We find recorded here, for instance, the first young stirrings of that piety which shone forth, in after days, so signally, under the auspices of the "John of Jesus," as her lover, Jean Labadie, styled him. self; and, among other things, we are told of the effect produced upon her, when she was a little girl not quite four Xears old, by the first Question and answer in the Heidelburgh Catechism, which filled her, she assures us, with " so deep a sense of love for Christ, that not all the years passed, since then, had been able to efface the lively recollection of that moment." She then informs us* of her early taste for making babies, in wax, as well as the singular propensity which she had, through life, for eating spiders. From this interesting part of her history, I was enabled to trace her to the full meridian of her fame, when, mistress of twelve languages, and writing fluently in four of them,-besides being a proficient in music, painting, sculpture and engraving,she had the Spanheims, the Heinsiuses, the Vossiuses at her feet, and returned learned answers to the Epistolic Questions of the Dutch Doctor, Beverovicius.t The literary memoirs, indeed, of this lady, might be made to include within their range some of the names of most celebrity on both sides of that controversy to which the doctrines of the famous Synod of Dort gave rise. Thus with Rivetus, the bitter opponent of Grotius, she held a long correspondence, of which the object was to discuss the often agitated question, " whether it was proper to instruct a Christian woman in the Belles Lettres;-and it is not difficult, through all the civility of her Calvinist correspondent, to perceive that this Champion of " Immutable Decrees," could he have had his own will, would not suffer one of the sex to soar an inch above the workbag. While such homage was paid to her fame by this high-flying Calvinist, she boasted also some warm admirers in the Arminian line; of which number was Gasper Barlous, the celebrated Latin poet, whom the Gomarists ejected from all his employs ir * Pectus meum tam nmagno gaudio atque intimo amoris Christi sensfuisse perfusum, ut omnes subsequentes anni istius momenli vivam memo ria-n delere potuerint nunquam.-EVKA,7pia, seu melioris partis Electio. t Epistol. Quaest. Roterod, 1644. There is also among the "Responsa Doctorum," published by the same writer in 1639, an answer by Miss Schurma-. To the illustrious list of her correspondents, the names of Salmasius and Iuygens are to be added. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 149 the Church, for no other reason than that he refused to believe, with the Synod of Dort, that God had created the greater portion of mankind for the sole purpose of damning them. Among the works of this Arminian poet, we find some verses to our eru. dite heroine, the concluding lines of which may be cited as a specimen of the free and rakish style in which learned ladies used, at that period, to be addressed by learned gentlemen:Scribimus hec loquimurque tibi.... Sin minus iila placent, et si magis oscula vester Sexus amat, nos illa domi debere putabis.* The change from this brilliant, but, as Miss Schurman afterwards deemed it, vainglorious period of her life,t to that stage when religion and Labadie took possession of her whole soul, opened a field for tract eloquence of which I was not backward, as may be supposed, in availing myself;-that saintly time, when instead of bending over the profane pages of a Horace or a Virgil, she had no longer eyes or thoughts but for such Evangelical writings as the "Herald of King Jesus," "the SongRoyal of Jesus," and other such lucubrations of her spiritual lover; and when, looking back with shame to the praises which the learned world had heaped upon her, she solemnly, and in the presence of the Sun, as she tells us, cast away and renounced all such objects of her former vanity.: * Heroic.-As a Reformed Minister did not think it unbecoming of him to write these gay verses, one who is neither a Minister, nor Reformed, may, I prcsume, venture thus to paraphrase them: Now, perhaps, having taxed my poetical art, To indite you this erudite letter, You've enough of the sex, aftor all, in your heart, To like a few kisses much better. And in sooth, my dear Anna, if you're pretty as wise, I might offer the gifts you prefer, But that Barbara tells me, with love in her eyes, I must keep all my kisses for her. It should be mentioned, for the better understanding of these verses, that Barleus had never seen his fair correspondent, and that Barbara, whom he hLre mentions, was his wife. The final fate of this poor poet was melancholy. Whether from the triumph of the Gomarists, or the loss of all his Church preferment, his mind became at last so deranged that he fancied himself to be made of butter, and lived in constant fear of approaching the fire. t There is an edition of her works in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French. Lugd. Betav. Elzevir. 1648. S" Eque omnia mea scripta, quay ejusmodi turpem animi mei laxitatem vel mundanum et vanum istum genium redolent, hoc loco, coram Sole (ad exemplum candidissimi Patrum Augustini) retracto; nee amplius pro meis agnosco: simulque omnia aliorum scripta et potissimum Carmina Panegyrica que vana gloriae atque istae impietatis charactere notata sunt, tanquam h meA conditione ac professione aliena procul a me removeo ac rcjicio." 13* 150 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN In this state of pious self-abasement did Miss Schurman pass the remainder of her days;-fully recompensed, however, for her sacrifice of the Beveroviciuses and Rivetuses, by those inward illuminations of the spirit and familiar communings with God by which she supposed herself to be favored; and having received, as has been already mentioned, the last sigh of her Apostle,.Labadie, at Altona, she departed this life, not long after him, in the year 1678. CHAPTER XXXVIII. Blasphemous doctrine of Labadie-held also by Luther, Beza, &c.-Reflections.-Choice of University.-Gottingen.-Introduced to Professor Scratchenbach.-Commence a course of Lectures on Protestantism. THOUGH it was my fate thus, at the very entrance into my new field of research, to be encountered by so strong a specimen of the effects of German Protestantism, I must beg the reader to rest assured that it was by no means my wish to attach undue importance upon any such insulated instances of fanaticism or absurdity, well knowing that there never existed a system of doctrine so pure, as that, among those professing it, some such examples of unworthiness might not be found. The only point fairly to be considered is, whether there were not, deep-laid in the very principles of the Reformation itself, the seeds of all such extravagances as we have been just now considering; and whether the profligate and but too successful apostleship of Labadie, and the fantastic devotion of his disciple, Anna Maria, were not as naturally and necessarily the result of that unbounded license which was accorded to private judgment at the time of the Reformation, as the similar excesses of most of the early heretics were the fruits of the same principle equally by them asserted and put in practice. And here, I must beg especial attention to a fact, which, to most readers, will, I have no doubt, appear as startling and almost incredible as it did, when first I happened to light on it, in the course of my studies, to myself. The blasphemous doctrine held by Labadie, that " God could and would deceive mankind, and that he had sometimes actually done so," is one that with difficulty we can conceive admissible, for a single instant, into any sane mind. But, once admitted, there is no extent of demoralization and corruption to which, under the shelter of God's own example, it might not be made to lend a sanction. What then will be said, by those who now, for the first time, learn the fact that such was the impious doctrine of most of the IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 151 l 'ading Reformers, and that it is in short asserted, in express terms, by Luther himself! In order to get rid of some of the difficulties winch beset the doctrine of Election and Reprooation, and Reconcile those passages of God's Word wherein the wicked are invited to repentance with those predestinating Decrees by which he has already fixed and sealed their doom, the first Reformers found it necessary to adopt the monstrous supposition that, in such addresses to the Reprobate, the Almighty is not serious, nor, in thus inviting them to repentance and amendment, really means what he says?-" He speaks thus," said they, " by his revealed will, but, by his secret will, he wills the contrary,"-or, as Beza expounds it, " God occasionally conceals something which is contrary to that which he manifests in his Word!"* But it is by Luther himself that this gross blasphemy has been brought forward in its most prominent and most revolting relief. In commenting on Gen. xxii, and on the conduct of God, as there represented, towards Abraham, (which is one of the instances given of this alleged opposition between the revealed and the secret will of the Almighty) Luther thus writes:SSuch a species of falsehood as this is salutary to us. Happy indeed shall we be if we can learn this art from God. He attempts and proposes the work of another, that he may be able to accomplish his own. By our affliction he seeks his own sport and our salvation. Thus God said to Abraham,' Slay thy son,' &c.-How? In tantalizing, pretending and mocking." He likewise occasionally feigns, as though he would depart far away from us and kill us. Which of us believes that this is all a pretence? Yet with God this is only sport and (were we permitted thus to speak) it is a falsehood.t It is a real death which all of us have to suffer. But God does not act seriously, according to * Celari interdum a Deo aliquid ei quod in verbo patefacit repugnans.Resp. ad.Act. Colloq..Mompel.-The Calvinist Piscator, too, equally charges God with this rick: " Deum interdum verbo significare velle, quod revera non vult, aut nolle quod reverk vult" (Disp. ccntra. Schafn.) "In his word, God sometimes intimates that he wills what he really does not will, or that he does not will what he, in reality, does will." t Deus dixit ad Abrahamum, ' Occide Filium, &c.'-Quomodo? Ludendo, simulando, ridendo. + Atque apud Deum est lusus, et, si licerit ita dicere, mendasium est.-We find a similar view taken of God's conduct respecting Isaac, by a Rationalist, or rather Infidel writer, of the 17th century, who founds upon it a theory for the solution of such mysterious doctrines as Original Sin, Imputed righteousness, &c. All these mysteries, he maintains, are but a sort of legal fictions, by which God, who prefers such sinuous and mystic ways to the direct and natural modes of proceeding among mankind, chooses to work out his designs.-"Noluit Deus opus hoc perficiere directo illo et naturali ordine, quo plereque res geruntur apud homines, red per sinuosos mysteriorum anfractus, &c."-Prceadamitce, sive Exercitatio. 4c. 152 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN his own showing or representation. It is dissimulation, and he is only trying whether we be willing to lose present things and life itself for his account." It may be questioned whether, among all the blasphemies that have ever been written or spoken, any thing more revoltingly blasphemous than this has ever yet fallen from tongue or pen. Had I at the moment, indeed, when I was setting out from HIamburgh, been shown but the few unhallowed sentences just cited, they would have spared me, I think, all the trouble and disappointment of my journey; being sufficient of themselves, to have convinced me (though nothing more of this Reformer's doctrines had been known to me,) that, from a mind capable of forming such notions of a Divine Being as are there expressed, nothing worthy of supplanting a particle of the ancient faith could have emanated. I was, at that time, however, but slightly versed in the theological part of the history of the Reformation, and regarding the doctrine, therefore, of Labadie as his own peculiar blasphemy, without any sanction for such impious trifling from the chief leaders of his sect, I dismissed the circumstance wholly from my thoughts, and, with renewed zeal of research, prepared cheerfully and even sanguinely for my projected tour. After some deliberation with myself as to the particular uni. versity, which it might be most advisable for me to select as the first scene of my studies, I at last decided for the school memo. rable in theological annals, as having produced a Mosheim, a Michaelis, an Ammon, an Eichorn, and proceeded direct, without any delay in the course of my route, to Gottingen. It would have been my wish,-and I had made a promise, to that effect, to Miss * *,-to put my mind in a sort of training, for the reception of Luther's Gospel, by a pilgrimage to some of those places which are now connected immortally with his name. The cell at Erfurth, for instance, where, as an humble Augus. tinian monk, he, in whom the Vatican was so soon to meet with a counter thunderer, used to solace his lonely intervals of devotion with the flute;-the picturesque ruins of the Wartburg, under whose roof he lay concealed from his enemies, and to which, (in the modesty of his heart, comparing himself to St. John,) he gave the appellation of " his Patmos;"-these and a few more such romantic visits would, I felt, have wound me up to the true Lu. theran pitch, and besides have furnished me with materials for such a letter to Miss * * as would have delighted that future Rectoress of Ballymudragget prodigiously. It was while at the Wartburg, by the way, and while occupied with his famous translation of the New Testament, that Luther was frequently, as he thought, visited by the Devil, in the IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 153 shape of a large blue-bottle fly. His well-known visitor, however, did not succeed in giving much interruption to his biblical toils; for Luther, " who (to use the words of an intelligent traveller) knew Satan in all his disguises, rebuked him manfully, and at length, losing all patience, as the concealed devil still buzzed round his pen, started up, and exclaiming, Willst du dann nicht ruhig bleiben! hurled his huge ink-bottle at the Prince of Darkness."* To have visited all the scenes of such characteristic displays, would have been, I was well aware, the most edifying mode of preparation I could adopt for the nearer acquaintance I was about to form with the doctrines of the chief actor in them. As it was, however, the only initiatory regimen to which I doomed myself, was the swallowing down a cup of that famous beer of Eimbeck, which was counted so orthodox a drink among the German Reformers, and over flagons of which most of their new plan of Christianity was settled. That the great Luther himself was no fie to this beverage,t appears from the fact, which is on record, that the good citizens of Eimbeck sent him, in token of their admiration, a present of some of their best; and " as he could not (says my authority) go to Eimbeck himself, to give the words of salvation for the liquor of earthly life, he is said to have despatched thither two of his most faithful and thirsty disciples."$ It must not be thought, from the tone of banter in which I here speak of the state of my mind, on leaving Hamburgh, that the turn of my views, at that period, partook in any degree of the same mocking character. We are often apt, in referring to scenes or feelings that are past, to invest them with a coloring not originally their own, but reflected back upon them from the experience which we have since acquired. It is true, with my )resent knowledge of the life and the doctrines of Luther, I should * Russell's Germany. t To this beer he no doubt alluded, in his famous sermon at Wittenburg, when, in impressing upon his hearers that it was not by force of hands the reform of abuses could be effected, he told them that words had hitherto done every thing for them:-" It was words (said he) that, while I myself lay quietly asleep, or was drinking, perhaps, my beer with my dear Melancthon and Amsdorf,-it was words that were, in the meantime, shaking the Papacy as no prince or emperor ever could have done." In this same sermon it was that he so far outraged all respect, both for his cause and his followers, as to threaten that, if his advice was not followed, he would, without hesitation, retract his whole course, unsay every thing he had written or taught, and leave them to themselves; adding, in a taunting manner, "This I tell you, once for all."-"Non dubitabo funem reducere, et omnium que aut scripsi aut docui palinodiam canere, et a vobis desciscere: hoc vobis dictum esto." Sermo docens abusos non manibus, -c. 1 The traveller (Williams) from whom I have taken this extract, after stating that a barrel of this beer was, in the fifteenth century, a present for a prince, adds, that if it was at all like the specimens of it which still remain, the princes must have had " execrable tastes and strong stomachs." 154 TRAVELS OF AN 1RISH GENTLEMAN find it nearly as difficult to speak with seriousness of his pre. tended Reformation as it would be to discuss gravely the claims to apostleship of a Montanus or a Manes. But it was under a far different aspect I considered the subject at the time of which I have been speaking. My limited acquaintance with the details of that strange jumble of creeds, out of which the multifarious mons:er, called Protestantism, arose, left me, to a great extent, ignorant of the system of faith I was about to espouse; while the anxiety I felt to discover in it such points alone as might in some degree justify my intended apostasy, made me comparatively blind to all that was of an opposite description, and even lulled, for the time, my natural sense of the ridiculous into inaction. On arriving at Gottingen, 1 lost not a moment in availing my self of a few letters of introduction, with which the private tutor of a young friend of mine, who had passed some months at this university, had furnished me. It was through the means of one of these letters, I became acquainted with the chief Professor of Theology, M. Scratchenbach; nor was it possible for me to have lighted upon an introduction more fortunate for the immediate object of my visit. Besides the great and acknowledged eminence of this gentleman, in the walk of learning where my in. quiries now lay, there were also circumstances, at that moment, connected with the actual state of religion in Germany, which led him to regard with more than ordinary interest, the particular object I had at heart in applying to him. Neither to him, indeed, nor to any one else had I made a secret of my intention to become a member of the Protestant Church, in case, on examining its doctrines, I should find them to be such as I could conscientiously approve. In consequence a long-laid train of causes, which I shall attempt briefly, in the course of these pages, to trace, there had been, of late, numerous instances of defection to the Roman Catholic faith, from both the Lutheran and the Reformed branches of the Protestant Church of Germany. These desertions, which seemed to some persons to be but the commencement of a cur. rent setting in towards Popery, had a good deal broken that spell of indiferentism which had, for some time, hung round the theologians of the University. Fearful only of excesses in belief; the faintest prospect of any return to that faith of which their forefathers had taken such pains to strip themselves, even to nudity, struck alarm through all their ranks; nor could the example, which it was now expected I was about to present, of a conversion in the opposite direction, have offered itself at any apter or more propitious moment. With the utmost promptitude did my new friend, the Profes IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 155 sor, undertake to put me fully in possession not only of the pre. sent state and prospects of Protestantism in Germany, but also of that purifying process by which, as he said, the whole system of Christianity had, in the course of the last half century, been lightened of much of its ancient alloy, so as.to assume, at last, that comparatively pure and rational form, in which it is adopted by most enlightened German Protestants at the present day. As I was well inclined to be an humble and unreplying hearer, my course of instruction took the shape rather of lecture than conversation; and my rule being, to note down, after each of our sittings, such portions of the Professor's discourse as had remained in my memory, I was enabled thus to preserve pretty accurately their substance,-allowing, of course, for such casual and, I trust, slight errors as, from my previous unaccuaintance with the subject, may have stolen into my reports. CHAPTER XXXIX. First Lecture of Professor Scratchenbach.-Heathen philosophers.-Ration alism among the Heretics.-Marcion, Arims, Ncstorius, &c., all Rationalists.-The Dark Ages.-Revival of Learning.-Luther. IT was, as I well recollect, on the eighteenth of September, hat my course of Lectures under the learned Professor Scratchmnbach, commenced. As I was, at the time, rather indisposed, no doubt, in consequence of the Lutheran beer on which I had,entured,) the Professor offered, most condescendingly, to lecture ne at my own lodgings-a small apartment which I had, lookag upon the canal; where, on the day above mentioned, taking is seat gravely opposite me, my instructor thus began:" Between the Priest and the Philosopher,-or, in other words, etween the assertor of the authority of Faith, and the vindicator f the free exercise of Reason,-there must, at all times, and nder all systems of belief, exist a principle of variance, which an only be prevented from coming to an open and violent strugle, either by the interposition of the strong arm of the State in ivor of one of the two parties, or by some mutual compromise r coalition among themselves. For the first of these modes of stablishing religious peace, the alliance between Church and tate has been always found the most efficacious contrivance. he plan of conniving at, and compounding with established iperstitions, was the policy adopted by the sages of Greece and ome; and the practicability of a coalition between Theology id Philosophy is exemplified in the present state of German rotestantism. 156 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN " The exclusion of Reason from all interference in religious concerns was as strongly inculcated, it must be confessed, by the great philosophers of antiquity as it has ever been, at any period, even by Papists themselves. In fact, an implicit and uninquir. ing acquiescence in the religious rites handed down from their forefathers, was regarded by them as one of the most exemplary duties of all good citizens. ' When religion is in question,' says Cicero, 'I do not consider what is the doctrine thereon of Zeno, Cleanthes, or Chrysippus, but what the Chief Pontiffs Coruncanus, Scipio, and Scaevola say of it...... From you, who are a philosopher, I am not unwilling to receive reasons for my faith; but to our ancestors I trust implic.itly, without receiving any reason at all.'* " So little, indeed, of a Rationalist, in our German sense, was Cicero, that, though acknowledging the art of Augury to be a fiction and cheat, we find him denouncing, as worthy of the severest punishments, all who opposed or disturbed the popular belief in that rite.t " In a state of things where a Cicero could speak thus, or still stronger, where an Epicurus went, for decorum's sake, to prayers,: neither the Latin nor Greek priests had much to dread from philosophers; and accordingly, in their respective periods, the most irrational superstition continued to flourish under the very shelter of the Garden and of the Academy. But, though so tolerant of their own established and time hallowed absur. dities, we may see, in the zeal with which Porphyry, Celsus, an( Lucian, assailed, each in his own fashion, the Christian faith that, towards what they accounted a new and intrusive supersti tion, these philosophers were by no means so tolerantly disposed -being in this, no doubt, of the opinion of your English divine Warburton, that 'nonsense for nonsense, the old should keep it ground, as being already in possession.' "I was far less, however, of the hostility of Philosophy tha of her amity and alliance that the Christian Church, at that pc * Cum de religione agitur T. Coruncanum, P. Scipionem, P. Scaevola Pontifices maximos, non Zenoneim, ut Cleanthem, aut Chrysippum sequc.....A te philosopho rationem accipere debeo religionis: majoribi autem nostris, etiam nulli ratione reddita, credere. Cic. Lib. 3, de N'at. Deorl, Another heathen philosopher thus speaks, in the same spirit: " When all so uncertain in nature, how much better is it and more venerable to adhe to the faith of our ancestors, as to a depository of truth, to profess the religio delivered down by tradition, and fear the Gods that our fathers and mothe have taught us to fear."-Quanto venerabilius ac melius antistitem verita majorum excipere disciplinam, religiones traditas colere, &c.-Caecil..Minuc. Fel. f Nec vero non omni supplicio digni P. Clodius et L. Junius, qui coni auspicia navigaverunt; parendum enim fuit religioni, ncc patrius most rey diandus.-De Div. I Vie d'Epicure, by De Rondel. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 157 nod, had any reason to complain;-the efforts made by some of the most learned of the Fathers to graft the tenets of Paganism upon Christianity, having more than any thing tended to adulterate the simple truths of the latter, and involve whatever there was of mysterious in its doctrines in still more hopeless darkness. " The only instances, indeed, which occurred in those times, of free and fearless investigation into the credibility and historical consistency of the documents of Revelation, are to be found, as might be expected, among the Gnostic writers; and more especially,-as far as can be judged from the mere abstracts of their works that remain,-in the writings of the Marcionites. The sifting search made by these heretics through the Old and New Testaments, for the purpose of pointing out the numerous con tradictions between them, affords, perhaps, the first signal exam pie in the annals of Christianity, of that sort of reference to Reason, as the arbiter of Faith, which formed the groundwork both of Protestantism, as introduced at the Reformation, and of that more extended system called Rationalism by which it has been superseded. How acutely Marcion perceived the utter ir. reconcilableness of the history of the Fall of Man with any of those attributes which true piety would accord to the Deity, appears from his comment upon that event, that ' God must be either deficient in goodness if he willed, in prescience if he did not foresee, or in power if he did not prevent it.' "These glimpses of Rationalism, however, mixed up as they were with the wild fancies and absurdities from which no sect of Gnosticism was free, produced but little enlightening effect, even on those from whom they emanated, while upon the selfsatisfied orthodox of the day, they were, of course, entirely lost. Like all other hoeresiarchs, Marcion was followed for the absurd parts of his system, not for what was sound in it, and the former with the usual good fortune of error, prevailed. The Church, too, fast entrenched within her frontier of Unity, and having, marshalled on her side, most of the learning and talent of Chris lendom, might safely bid defiance even to the assaults of Phi. bsophy when approaching in the odious shape and name of Heresy. "Thus kept safe from all scrutiny of reason, during its early md probationary period, Christianity, when, at last, adopted as he religion of the Empire, received the additional aid and saneion of the secular arm. 'At the same time, in acquiring this lliance, it could not but lose much of that internal union which.,e pressure of persecution, from without, is sure to impart to iJ?roscribed religions. Hence Schism,-so much more dange'cus than Heresy, as deriving from kinship but the readier poN,r to wound,-began then only to show itself to any formi. 14 158 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN dable extent, when the Church, with ' Kings for her oursing fathers and Queens her nursing-mothers,' took her place, mitred and enthroned, as the chosen Spouse of the State. " Then was it that, within her own bosom, those controversies sprung up, which, though relating to the most awful concernments of another world, were decided by debates and majorities, like the most ordinary state-affhirs of this, the discussions of a riotous Council and the votes of a crowd of factious Bishops, being thought sufficient to determine such points as, whether the Trinity was to be abolished or retained, whether the Holy Ghost was a person or an accident, &c.-Through all these struggles, the Church, (owing chiefly, it must be confessed, to the influence of the Bishops of Rome,) triumphed signally over its adversaries; nor did the efforts of the schismatics to-simplify and rationalize the popular articles of belief, in any one instance, succeed. " In vain did Arius attempt to lay the foundations of a pure system of Monotheism, by asserting Christ to have been but a creature, made, like other creatures, by the one God of all. It was decided against him,* by a large majority of Bishops, (manyv of whom, we are told, never asked the meaning of the word ' Con. substantial,' till the whole aflfir was settled,) that the S mi was not a creature, but a Being consubstantial and coeternal wi.h the Father.t The decision thus adopted, took its station in the code of Christian orthodoxy, and a ready answer was always a;t hand for all objections offered to it. For instance,-' if. the Father and Son,' said the Rationalists, 'are to be considered thus identical, it may be said that one of the Trinity has been crucitied, -that one of the Trinity died.' ' By no means,' answered the orthodox, ' though the Father and Son are one essence, in perfect identity, yet could the Son die, without the Father also dying!' " In vain did Nestorius,-who, to avoid the blasphemy, as he deemed it, of calling Mary ' the Mother of God,' held that there were two persons in Christ, the divine and the human,-venture to assert the very simple and obvious proposition, that 'a child of two months old never could be a God.' Against him also the usual summary mode of decision was adopted,$ and the union * At the famous Council of Nice, assembled by Constantine in the year 325 SI have here considerably abridged the discourse of the learned Professor, who, besides that, in the wantonness of his Rationalism, he chose to speak of these ancient Councils in a tone of levity which could not be otherwise than offensive to most readers, branched out also into details of those assemblies, which could as little fail to be found useless and tiresome. The authority cited by him for what he here relates of the Bishops, is the Church historian, Socrates; who, it appears, adds that, on coming to an explanation, after the Council was over, such a scene of discord ensued among these unanimous voters of Consubstantiality, as the historian could compare to nothing but a "battle fought in the dark." t By a council held atEphesus, A. D. 431.-Dr. Priestly, whose views of IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION 159 of the two natures in one person thus inexplicably explained: -' As, in God, the Father, Son and Spirit are three persons and but one God, so, in Christ, the Godhead is one person and the manhood another person, and yet these are not two persons, but one person!' " With equally ill success did Macedonius, another Rationalist, endeavor to relieve the Christian creed of the separate divinity of the Holy Spirit, maintaining that the Scriptures afforded no sufficient authority for such an opinion. He was answered that the want, as far as it exists, of express testimony to this doctrine, arose from the unwillingness of the Holy Spirit, who dictated the sacred writings, to dwell on the share he himself had taken in the divine operations there recorded.* A Council, too, was, in the usual way, convened upon the subject; and, as the failure of all such appeals to reason, on one side, led invariably to increased demands upon faith from the other, this attack on the personality of the Holy Ghost, but ended, as might have been expected, in establishing, among the orthodox, his consubstantiality and divinity. A majority of the Bishops present at that disorderly Council,t-thirty-six, if I recollect right, having voted in the minority,-came to the decision now incorporated in the orthodox creed that 'the Holy Ghost was the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeded from the Father, and who ought to be adored and glorified with the Father and the Son, a;d who spake by the Prophets.' " It was before long, however, discovered that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son, as well as from the Father,-but with. out prejudice (said these enigmatical believers) either to his own claim to be considered as Father, or to the Son's right to be considered as only Son; and the fact and manner of this new line of procession was thus, at last, laid down; ' The Holy Spirit is all these great Trinitarian Councils coincided, of course, with those of our Protestant Professor, after describing the proceedings of the Council of Ephesus, says, " In this factious manner was the great doctrine of the hypostatical union of the two natures in Christ (which has ever since been the doctrine of what is called the Catholic Church) established." * Such is the reason give by Epiphanius for the omission of the Holy Spirit in Paul, 1 Cor. 8, 6, " There is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things." t A Council assembled by Theodosius, at Constantinople, in 381.-I have here also taken the liberty of suppressing a considerable portion of the Professor's discourse. Among his authorities for the "disorderly" character of this meeting, is St. Gregory of Nazianzum, in one of whose poems it is asserted that the great object of those assembled at the Council was to procure for themselves bishoprics. "They fight," says the Saint, " and run into schism, and divide the whole world, for the sake of thrones." St. Gregory also adds, that "the Trinity was but a mere pretext for their wrangling, tie true cause being an incredible spirit of hatred." Kai rpooacris TpLag carL" ro 'arpeoEKE CX00s azrarrov. 160 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN eternally from the Father and the Son, and he proceeds frot them both eternally, as from a single principle, and by one single procession!' " During the ages of darkness and ignorance that followed the period of which I have been speaking, the Church was fortunate enough to have the undisturbed possession of the Christian world to herself;-the few pretenders to science who, from time to time, usurped the name of philosophers, being almost all of the ecclesiastical order, and therefore pledged to devote the whole stock of their wretched quibbling knowledge to the sup. port of a superstition by which they lived and prospered, and of which such science as theirs was, at once, the offspring and nurse. Little, therefore, had religion to dread from the light of reason, in those times, when even Grammar was thought too profane a restraint upon the words of divine wisdom, and to be ignorant was accounted an essential qualification of all good Christians.* " In the midst, however, of this darkness, there had appeared, now and then, some crepusculous gleams, which bespoke the ap. proaches, however slow, of a more intellectual era. At last, in the fourteenth century, the night of ages began gradually to clear away; and, with the revival of learning, there burst forth a 'morning of the mind,' a spread of thought and knowledge, in whose light, it was easy to foresee, Superstition would not very long linger. "The important change, indeed, which was soon manifested in the tone of religious feeling through Europe, showed suffi. ciently how the spirit of Christianity may be altered or modified by the more or less enlightened state of the minds that receive it. The hostility to the Roman See, expressed openly both by Dante and Petrarch, was but a foretaste of what the diffusion of a thirst for knowledge was yet to produce. Within the very precincts of the Church, the inquiring spirit began disturbingly to display itself; and we find, among other instances, a friar of the Dominican order, Savonarola, so far anticipating the glorious era that was at hand as to venture to couple the word ' Refor. mation' with the Church,t and to maintain, in opposition to the preachers of mystery, the reasonableness of Christianity. " Notwithstanding, however, such glimpses of a purer era of theology,-glimpses rewarded, as in Savonarola's case, with strangulation and burning,-the anti-papal adventurers of that period were, it must be confessed, far more of fanatics than of Reformers; nor was it till the ever-memorable outbreak of Lu* It was a saying of those times, " Quanto melior Grammaticus, tanto pejor Theologus." 1 Savonarola wrote a Ritratto "della Revelazione della Riformazioe della Chiesa." IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 161 ther himself that, for the first time, in the whole history of creeds, it was laid down as a principle, that Religion is to be subjected to the jurisdiction of Reason, and private judgment made the sole test and guide of Faith. From that moment, the triumph of Reason over Superstition was, however distant, secure. The very introduction of such a principle into Christian theology at once threw open the sanctuary to the searching eyes of philosophy, and led, by natural and inevitable steps, (which it shall be my business, in future lectures, to trace,) to that enlightened and philosophical state of religious belief, which you will find prevailing among most educated German Protestants of the present day." CHAPTER XL. Reflections on the Professor's Lecture.-Commence Second Lecture.Luther-His qualifications for the office of Reformer. IT would be difficult to describe the state of astonishment and, at times, utter dismay, into which,---though obliged from a sense of good-breeding to put a restraint on my feelings,-I was thrown by the whole course and tendency of this most startling discourse; a discourse uttered, be it remembered, by one who was not only a Protestant Professor of Theology, but still more, a Minister, as I now for the first time learned, of the Hanoverian Church! The natural cast of my disposition was, as I have before stated, deeply devotional; and I had at this time, notwithstanding my general love of inquiry on such subjects, formed but little acquaintance with the works of any infidel writers;--the few occasions on which I had tasted of the cold springs of Scepticism, having rather repelled than allured me to any deeper draught. The irreverence with which, I knew, most Protestants, of all countries and sects, think themselves privileged to speak of that illustrious array of Fathers and Councils which arose, in the early time, as fortresses, along the banks of Christianity, during the first progress of that " river of God" through the world, sufficiently accounted to me for the views taken by the Professor of the inspired wisdom of those early beacons of the truth. It was not till I found him raising doubts, and even more than doubts, as to the direct agency of God in the promulgation of the Gospel,* and endeavoring to reduce that special mission of a Saviour to the level of those everyday manifestations of benefi. * The particular passage of the Professor's Lecture, here alluded to, occurred in that portion of his discourse which, for reasons already given, I omitte 1. In speaking of the dark ages, he, had said, " It will be difficult for those who K 14" 162 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN cence which all alike proceed, though mediately, from the same divine hand,-it was not till startled by his arrival at this advanced stage of scepticism, that I was, at last, aware in what direction my Protestant guide was leading me, and saw that already we were on the high road to the " waste wilderness" of unbelief. There was, however, but little time allowed me for rumination on what I had heard, before I was again summoned to heal more, by the indefatigable Scratchenbach, who, presenting him self early in my apartment, on the following morning, and resum ing his subject where we had broken off, proceeded as follows: "In most respects, Luther may be said to have been eminently qualified for the great task of demolition which it fell to his lot to accomplish. Intrepid, vain, self-willed, and vehement,-fear. less of all attacks from enemies, and elated easily by the acclamation of friends-with passions ever prompt to suggest what was daring, and a perseverance proof against all scruples in executing it,-the very weaknesses and excesses of his character contributed fully as much as its better points to his success. The indiscriminate license of personal abuse in which he indulged, gave a vigor to his public displays, in the eyes of the vulgar, which made all else appear feeble in comparison, and against which no man who was, at all, restrained by decorum, could hope to contend with any success. In the same manner, had his natural temperament, as regarded the other sex, been aught but what he himself so coarsely describes it,* there would have been one impulse wanting of the many, strong and ungovernable, which, in defiance of decency itself, urged him on in his career. " No other man, indeed, of the memorable band whom that crisis called forth, could have accomplished what may be called regard Christianity as a revelation direct from heaven, to explain why this revealed knowledge should, at the time of which we are speaking, have shared the fate of all mundane and ordinary knowledge, and like philosophy, poetry, -like the whole circle, in short, of human sciences,-should have passed through an eclipse as opaque and earthly as ever ignorance and superstition have combined to cast over mankind. That a light, so immediately from the hand of God, should, within a few centuries after its introduction into the world, not only fail in preventing the darkness that then fell over every other field of knowledge, but should itself become as much obscured by craft and credulity as were even the basest.of those forms of superstition that had preceded it, is a supposition too monstrous, too derogatory to all our notions of divine power, to find admission into the belief of any mind not wilfully hoodwinked. A system of faith, however moral and excellent in itself, which follows so naturally the course of human weakness and change; which, in a period of ignorance, takes the dark and gross color of the times, and, in an age of increasing civilization, becomes proportionably enlightened, can assuredly lay no claim to those marks of divine workmanship,-that instant and constant perfection,-that grand sameness of design and execution, which characterizes all that bears the impress of the immediate hand of God." * Ut non est in meis viribus situm ut vir non sim, tam non est mei juris ut absque muliere sim.--Colloq. Mensal.-See also his Sermon de Matrimonio IN SEAITCII OF A RELIGION. 163 the rough work of the Reformation,-the revolutionary part of that great change,-with any thing like the same ability, perseverance, or success. Melancthon would have been far too hesitating and conscientious for the bold, Carlostadt too much of a ieveller and fanatic for the timid, while Zwingli would have pursued a plan of Reform too philosophical and simplifying for almost all. Even the reverence with which Luther clung to minv of the errors of the old faith, was, however weak, of much service, in facilitating his general object; as the transition from old doctrines to new was thus made to appear less violent, and while much was held forth for the lovers of novelty to look forward to, there was also much retained on which the reverers of antiquity could look back. "Nor would it be right, among the various requisites for such a mission which he possessed, to omit adverting to his private character, as a convivial companion, which, among the sources of his influence, was certainly not the least popular. The refined, retiring habits of a leader like Melancthon, would have presented nothing broad enough to the public gaze; while of Calvin, as an heresiarch, the sour, arbitrary sternness would have thrown such an air of rigor round the infant Reformation as would not have been likely to attract many votaries to its cradle. The social habits, however, of Luther, his jollity, his love of music, the anecdotes spread abroad of his two-pint cup,* his jokes, his parodies, &c.,-all tended at once to divert and interest the public, and by lowering him to the level of their own everyday lives, established a companionship, as it were, between him and his most distant partisans. " To this very day, indeed, his reputation, as a lover of plea. sure and good cheer,--surviving, strange to say, almost all his theological tenets,-still continues to give a zest to some of our most popular drinking-songs. For instance:'D'rum stosset an, Und singet dann, Was Martin Luther spricht: Chor. Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib und Gesang Der bleibt ein N arr sein Lebenlang, Und Narren sind wir nicht.'t * The famous goblet which this apostle of Protestantism called his " Catechistical Cup," and boasted that he could swallow down its contents at a single draught.-See the Colloq. JMensal If there were any need of additional testimony to the authority of this work, it would be sufficient to say that Jortin, in his Life of Erasmus, always refers to it as authentic. Of the Reformer's higher order of parodies, the reader will find a specimen in the appendix to Bower's Life of Luther: his more ribald displays in this way are to be found in the Table-Talk, in Bayle, &c. I "Then let us drink and sing what Martin Luther said:-who does not love wine, women, and music, remains a fool all his life, and we are not fools.' 164 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN " Such, undeniably, was the assemblage of at once apt and powerful qualifications, with which Luther came furnished to that work of assault and demolition, which forms usually the first stage of all radical Reformations, whether in faith, philosophy, or politics. We have next to contemplate his character from a far more lofty and trying point of view, and having accorded to him his full praise, as the assailant of an old system of faith, consider how far he is entitled to the same tribute, as the apostle and founder of a new one:-and here, in my opinion, all eulogy of Luther's character, as a Reformer, must cease. " For that great principle which he was first the means of introducing into theology, namely, the acknowledgment of a right in every individual to interpret the Scriptures according to his own judgment, it is impossible to express too strongly the gratitude which all lovers of religious liberty owe to him. For the service rendered to Religion itself, by making Reason its ground. work, those who seek the reasonable in all things, in Faith as well as In every thing else, can never be sufficiently grateful to Luther and his associates. But here, in the introduction of this great pregnant principle,-a principle, bearing within it the germ of future consequences to Christianity which its propounders little foresaw,-the whole services of Luther to the cause of Truth and Rationalism terminate. His own practice, his notions of tolerance, his temper of controversy, the whole tendency, in short, of his creed and conduct, lay all, as we shall see, in the very opposite direction." CHAPTER XLI. Lecture continued.-Doctrines of Luther.-Consubstantiation.-Justification by Faith alone.-Slavery of the Will.-Ubiquity of Christ's body. " OF the policy of retaining a few of the minor absurdities of Popery,* as a means of smoothing away the abruptness of so radical a change, I have already intimated my opinion; and had our Reformer confined himself to this slight compromise with prejudice, he might have been justified, thus far, on fair grounds of expediency. But he has to answer for a far more gross, as well as gratuitous, homage to absurdity. For, not only did he, in the free exercise of that reason of which he was so vehement an assertor, adopt, to its full extent, the old Popish belief of a Real Presence in the Sacrament, but also in professing to explain * The Professor alludes to Luther's retontion of the rite of Exorcism in Baptism, of Private Confession before admission to the Lord's table, of the use of the sign of the Cross, of the decoration of Churches with Images, and stther such observances of Popery, which were retained in Lutheranism. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 165 more orthodoxly the modus of that Presence, introduced a new and still more monstrous enigma of his own, in the place of that mystery which he had found, ready made to his hand; thus en. deavoring, by the substitution of the small word Con, to give a new form and life to that venerable nonsense which had so long flourished under the auspices of the monosyllable Trans. " That he was conscientious in his adoption of the doctrine of a Real Presence, the accounts left by him of his struggles upon this subject prove.* He was then recent, we know, from the study of the early Fathers of the Church, and, accustomed as he had been to consider their authority as superseding even that of the senses themselves, the strong proofs which he could not but find in their writings, that they were all, to a man, believers in this miracle, were, to his still subjugated mind, sufficient evidence of its truth.t Had he luckily remained as ignorant of the Fathers as were, to the last, his colleagues, Zwinglif and Calvin, the world * The sincerity of Luther's belief in a real Corporal Presence, is marked strongly in his own declaration to Bucer: "Q uicquid dico in hac summa Eucharistae causa ex corde dico"-" Whatever I say on this main point of the Eucharist, I say from my heart." He also declared that he would much rather retain, with the Romanists, only the body and blood, than adopt, with the Swiss, the bread and wine, without the real body and blood of Christ. "Malle cum Romanis tantum corpus et sanguinem retinere, quam cum Helvetiis panem et vinum sine (physico) corpore et sanguine Christi." We have, indeed, from Luther's own pen, (in his "Sermo, quod verba stent,") a most able exposition, as well of the truth of the ancient doctrine of a Real Presence as of the futility of the objections which his brother Reformers raised to it. Maintaining that the words of our Saviour are to be taken simply and literally, he points out, as if in anticipation of the fatal mischiefs that have flowed from the abuse of figurative interpretation by the Socinians, the great danger there is in admitting this mode of interpreting Scripture, and suffering the mysteries of our salvation to be explained away by figure. The same submission with which we receive the other mysteries of the faith we should bring with us, he maintains, to the reception of this, not troubling ourselves with arguments either from reason or nature, but confining our thoughts solely to Jesus Christ and his word. To the objections raised as to how a body can be in so many places at once,-how an entire human body can lie in so small a compass,-he opposes the equally difficult questions, how does God preserve his unity in a Trinity of persons? how was he able to clothe his son with human flesl? how did he cause him to be born of a virgin? The very same was the line of argument pursued by the Fathers; and it is with an ill grace that believers in the Trinity can deny the cogency of so kindred.an appeal. Where the authority, however, of these holy men clashed with his own notions, as in his favorite doctrine of the Slavery of the Human Will, he made no scruple of casting it off.--See his answer to Erasmus, De Serv. Jlrb. T. 2.. When referred To the Fathers for evidence against some of his heretical opinions, Zwmgli confessed that he could not find leisure to consult those writers; and to the famous " Mallet of Heretics," Faber, who pressed him hard with such authorities, he answered, " Atqui vel annum totum disputando consumere licebit, priusquam vel unicus fidei articulus conciliari possit." In such a hurry were these men to alter the whole system of Christianity, and so impatient were they of any reference to its earliest, and. therefore, purest teachers. 166 TRAVELS OF AN IRISI GENTLEMAN might have been perhaps spared this mortifying specimen of the uses to which so vigorous a proclaimer of the rights of Reason could apply that faculty, when left to its free exercise, himself. " The true secret of Luther's version of this mystery seems to have been that, failing in all his efforts to disengage himself from so strongly attested a doctrine of the primitive Church, he resolved that, though saddled with the mystery, he would have the credit, at least, of promulgating a new reading of it, so as to distinguish, by some variation, his dogma from that of the Papists. and thus keep the spirit of schism between their religions alive. " Accordingly, unsanctioned, as he must have well known, by the Fathers, who, whenever they venture to speak clearly on the subject, always imply that the original substance of the elements is exchanged for that of the body of Christ, he had the face to intrude upon his Church that hybrid progeny of his own brain, half Popish, half Lutheran, to which he gave the name of Consubstantiation-a doctrine invented, it is plain, not so much to be believed as to be wrangled about, and which, having abundantly, for a season, served tnat purpose, has now passed into oblivion, leaving the Mystery, which it was intended to supplant, still in possession of the field.* " However fitted, indeed, by the peculiar character of his in. tellect and temperament for the office of sweeping away, without mercy, established errors and prejudices, there cannot be a clearer proof of Luther's inadequacy to the task of founding an original system of his own, than the fact that, of all those points of doctrine which he himself, in his capacity of Reformer, introduced, not a single one has survived to this day among those Protestants whose Church bears his name. And in this respect, as in most others, he but shared the fate of all those earlier heresiarchs whose respective systems, from the want of that upholding au. * It is a signal tribute to the truth of the Catholic doctrine respecting the Eucharist, that the three classes of Reformers who, in dissenting from it, differed among themselves, should, in every objection and argument which they brought against each other, furnish a weapon against them all, to the hands of the Catholics. Thus Luther was accused by Calvin of doing violence to the words of our Saviour, who did not say, "My body is in, or with this," but " This is my body;" "you must, therefore," said Calvin, " either admit, with me, no Real Presence at all, or else admit, with the Papists, the mystery (:f Transubstantiation." On the other hand, Calvin and Zwingli were with equal truth accused by the Lutherans of putting a forced construction on the words of our Saviour, who did not say, "This is thefigure, or sign of my Body," but "This is my body;" while Zwingli, in return, rated the Lutherans on their imprudence, in allowing that the word "is" retains its natural signification; because, if it does, (argued Zwingli,) the followers of the Pope are in the right, and the belief that the bread is converted into flesh must then follow, as a matter of course. " Fieri nequit quin panis substantia in ipsam carnis substantiam convertatur." De Ccena.-See also his answer to Billicanus. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 167 thority which the Church of Rome alone has ever been able to afford to doctrine, survived but a short time themselves, leaving little more than the name of each founder to his followers. " The very doctrine, indeed,-that of Justification by Faith alone, without Works,-which Luther propounded as the foun. dation of his religious Reform, (and in which he but revived, by the way, an old, exploded imagination of the Gnostics,) was brought into disrepute, even in his own lifetime, by the dangerous consequences which his disciples deduced from it;* and in op. posing, as he was sometimes forced to do, its most obvious results, he was but passing sentence of condemnation on his own boasted principle. Having himself, for instance, gone so far as to assert the extravagant paradox, that the works of men, "though they might be good in appearance, and even probably good, were still mortal sins,'t his favorite, Amsdorf,t thought himself warranted in advancing a step further, and maintaining that ' Good Works were even an obstacle to salvation;' while another of his disciples, Agrippa, renounced the obligations of the Law altogether, and considered the enjoinment of Good Works as a Jewish, not Christian, ordinance. " This doctrine, I need hardly remind you, was revived in Englandl] by some fanatics of the seventeenth century, and to this day, as I understand, boasts a number of partisans in that country;T so that, in fact, in the dangerous extravagances of * The immediate practical consequences of this doct-ine are thus described by one of Luther'sown disciples, Martin Bucer:-" The greater part of the people seem only to have embraced the Gospel, in order to shake off the yoke of discipline, and the obligation of fasting, penance, &c., which lay upon them in the time of Popery, and to live at their pleasure, enjoying their lust and lawless appetite without control. They therefore lend a willing ear to the doctrine that we are justified by faith alone, and not by good works, having no relish for them."-De Regn. Christ. t Prop. Heidls..in. 1518. J Though himself but a priest, Luther took upon him, in the unbridled license of his self-will, to make this Amsdorf a bishop. ~ The question " whether good works were necessary to salvation" became, after Luther's death, one of those subjects of controversy which were agitated so fiercely and intolerantly among his followers. For simply main. taining, indeed, the affirmative in this dispute, the Lutheran Horneius was denounced as Papist, Majorist, Anabaptist, &c., and severely condemned by the three universities of Wittenberg, Jena, and Leipzig. j] As a fair specimen of the opinions of these English Antinomians, I need but quote the words of their great champion, Dr. Tobias Crisp, who died in the year 1642:-" Let me speak freely to you and tell you, that the Lord hath no more to lay to the charge of an Elect person, yet in the height of his iniquity, and in the excess of riot, and committing all the abominations that can be committed,-I say, even then, when an Elect person runs such a course, the Lord hath no more to lay to that person's charge than God hath to lay to the charge of a believer; nay, God hath no more to lay to the charge of such a person than he hath to lay to the charge of a Saint triumphant in glory!" ~T Most of the English fanatical sects have, at some time or other of tlhir 168 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN Antinomianism and Solifidianism we must now look for the only vestiges of that vaunted dogma which formed the groundwork of the Saxon Reformer's religious edifice.* " I must not omit here, in reference to this doctrine, to notice, -as proving how unfit Luther was to be a teacher either of morals or religion,-his audacious interpolation of the word ( alone' in a verse of St. Paul to the Romans (iii, 28) for the purpose of gain. ing, by this fraud, some sanction for his own doctrine of Justifi. cation, by making the Apostle assert that ' man is justified by faith alone.'t " Another article of his Reformed creed on which Luthel prided himself no less ostentatiously, (though this, also, he derived from that fountain-head of most of his tenets, Gnosticism) was the absolute slavery and nullity of the human will;-a doctrine, in his eyes, so founded on Christian truth, that he professed his readiness to defend it 'against all the Churches and all ihe Fathers.' Notwithstanding this vaunt, however, and the audacious lengths to which he dared to carry his paradox,-even to the blasphemy of making the Deity the author of man's sin,:career, taken up this doctrine of Luther. Thus it was a favorite tenet of Whitefield, "that we are merely justified by an Act of Faith, without any regard to Works, past, present, or to come." The lengths to which the Wesleyan Methodists carried the same convenient doctrine, appears from the account which Wesley's able disciple, Fletcher, gives of them:-" I have heard them," he says, "cry out against the legality of their wicked hearts, which they said still suggested that they were to do somethingfor their salvation." The same writer represents some of these fanatics as holding that " even adultery and murder do not hurt the pleasant children, but rather work for their good. God sees no sin in believers, whatever sin they may commit. My sins might displease God, my person is always acceptable to him. Though I should out-sin Manasses, I should not be less a pleasant child, because God always views me in Christ."-Fletcher's Checks to.lntinomianism. * The sect of Lutherans that seem to have followed up most consistently their leader's doctrine, on this head, were the original Hernhutters, or Moravians, whose founder, Count Zinzendorf, maintained, among his Maxims, that "nothing is required to Salvation and to becoming our Saviour's favorite soul for ever, but to believe that another has paid for us, has toiled, sweated and been racked for us."-Maxims of Count Zinzendorf-a work, revised and corrected by the Count himself. f He was detected, by Staphylus, Emser, and others, in still further frauds on the text of the New Testament, and for the same party purpose. Thus, in the 6th verse of the Epistle of St. Paul to Philemon, he omitted the word "work" after the epithet "good," notwithstanding that this word was, as these critics assert, in the famous Complutensian edition, as well as in the old editions, in Latin, of Robert Stephen. ( In his work de Servo Arbitrio, Luther declares expressly that" God works the evil in us as well as the good; that the perfection of faith is to believe that God is just, though by his own will he renders us necessarily worthy of damnation, so as to seem to take pleasure in the torments of the miserable." We have already shown, in the preceding chapters, how large a portion of Protestantism has been borrowed from the monstrous schools of Simon Magus and the Gnostics; and from the same respectable source is derived afso this doctrine-common alike to Luther and Calvin,-which supposes God to IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 169 ne was forced, on this point also, to yield to the saner suggestions of others; and consented, in the framing of the Confession of Augsburg, to the introduction of an article, in which the Liberty of the Human Will is admitted to such an extent as by some has been even thought to border closely on Semi-Pelagianism. " In this doctrine, respecting the Will,-as in every other, indeed, which he himself originated,-the nominal followers of Luther took a course entirely different from that of their master; insomuch that, in the time of Bayle, as we are informed by that writer, the Lutherans had been for a long period on the verge of Molinism. Bayle adds, too, in a spirit of prophecy, the following remarkable words:-' If the Lutherans go on in future thus departing from the dogmas of their ancestors,* there will come a time when they will in vain look for their doctrines in the Confession of Augsburg; and they will then perhaps do as the monks have done by the rule of their Patriarchs, that is to say, place all matters again upon their former footing.'t "It must be acknowledged that the present state of Protestantism in Germany, combined with those desertions to the Cath olic Church which are daily taking place, confirm but too strongly the acuteness of this shrewd philosopher's foresight. " Nearly the same destiny as awaited the other doctrines of Luther attended also his strange notion concerning the Ubiquity of Christ's body. Taking for granted that, as the divine nature of Christ is omnipresent, so must also be that human nature which is hypostatically united with it, he drew from hence the monstrous conclusion that Christ's body is every where; attempting thereby be the deliberate author of man's sin and ruin. "It was the belief of Simon Magus," said Vincent of Lerins, "that God was the cause of all sin and wickedness, as having himself, with his own hands, created man of such a nature as, by its own proper movement, and the impulse of a necessary will, is neither able nor willing to do any thing but sin."-Comm. c, 34. Compare with this opinion the foregoing of Luther and the following of Calvin:-" Though Adam has destroyed himself and his posterity, yet we must attribute the corruption and the guilt to the secret judgment of God. (Calvin. Respons. ad Column." Nebul. ad Art. 1.) Take also another specimen from a Calvinist of the seventeenth century, Szydlovius: "1 myself acknowledge that, according to the common custom of thinking, it seems too crude to say, ' God can command perjury, blasphemy, lies, &c.,'-and can also command that 'he shall not himself be worshipped, loved, honored, &c.'-Yet all this is most true in itself." -Vindicice Qucest. aliquot, &c. One of the Dort divines, Maccovius, (Professor of Theology at Franeker) maintained, in still more express terms, that " God does by no means will the salvation of all men, that he does will sin, and that he destines men to sin, as sin." * Not only did they desert their Founder's doctrine on this point, but also carried with them into their later extreme of opinion the same spirit of intolerance which they had manifested in the former. " Since then," says Gilbert, " the Lutherans have gone into the Semi-Pelagian opinion so entirely and so eagerly, that they will neither tolerate nor hold communion with any of the other persuasions."-Exposition of the Thirty-nine.articles. N N'ouvelles Lettres Critiques sur l'Histoire du Calvinisme. 15 170 TRAVELS OF AN IlISII GENTLEMAN to account for its real presence in the Eucharist, in answer to Zwingli, who contended that not even God himself could cause the body of Christ to be in more than one place at a time. " But from this wild doctrine, also, the Reformer found himself dislodged by those consequences which the inquiring spirit he had himself awakened deduced from it. If the body of Christ is every where,' said Brentius, 'it is, then, of course, present in a glass of beer, in a sack of corn, in the rope with which the criminal is hanged!' Whether we look to the doctrine itself or to the consequences drawn from it, we must own that the master and his disciples were well worthy of each other. " Such, briefly, is the history of those misbegotten and shortlived dogmas which this Reformer had the audacity to present to the world as the legitimate offspring of Religion by her new con. sort, Reason;-so little had his mind of that power, which only great minds possess, of setting the seal of durability on its conceptions, and striking out truths that will last;-though gifted amply with the coarse vigor that can assail and demolish, so utterly wanting was he in that prospective spirit of Reform, which alters but to improve, and remoulds but to regenerate; which can look beyond the mere dazzle of the moment's change, and while it clears away the clouds of the past, can also send a steady light into the future! " Hence was it, as I have already remarked, that of all those doctrines which belonged peculiarly to himself-all, in short, of his system, that was not Popery at second hand-the greater portion found its Euthanasia in his own lifetime, while of the remainder, all that at present survives is either the mere shadow, as in the Church of England Articles and Homilies, or the mere abuse, as in the tenets of the Antinomians and Solifidians." CHAPTER XLII. Lecture continued.-Doctrines of Calvin and Zwingli compared with those of Luther.-Luther's intolerance-how far entitled to be called a Rationalist. -Summary of his character as a Reformer. "( TRIED by the test which I have applied to Luther,-the durability of their respective systems,-both Zwingli and Calvin must stand, as Reformers, very far above their Chief; most of the doctrines of the father of Calvinism being still held by his followers, in nearly the same form in which they were promulgated and consistently enforced by himself; while the rational view taken by Zwingli of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper,as being a mere commemoration of the death of Christ, under IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 171 the symbols of bread and wine,-has become the standard belief of most Protestant Churches.* Even the simple and unmysterious form to which Zwingli reduced the rite of Baptism, divesting it of all that miraculous efficacy which superstition had attributed to it, has not only been adopted into the creed of the Socinians, Unitarians, &c., but, with the same good fortune that attended his philosophic view of the Eucharist, has received the sanction of some of the most distinguished among your English divines.t So different has been the fate of the doctrines of Zwingli, and even of Calvin, from that which has justly befallen the crude, ill-considered, and abortive dogmas of Luther. "While, on his own part, too, this clumsy and precipitate reformer contributed so little, in the way either of strength or ornament, towards the structure of the new faith, his intolerance led him to oppose violently every effort in the work of improvement by others; and it was soon seen that this loud champion of the right of private judgment would, if he had his own will, restrict the exercise of that right solely to himself.t His coarse * Zwingli's views on the subject of the Sacrament, says Bower, " have been adopted not only by the British Churches, but by many on the Continent."-Life of Luther,.1ppendix. f Though the Zwinglian, or, as it has an equal right to be called, Socinian view of the Sacrament, had found its way into the English Church long before the time of Hoadly and Balguy, it was by these two divines that so bold and heterodox an innovation upon the doctrines of the Church of England, as declared in her Catechism and Articles, was first openly promulgated. "The rite of Baptism," says Dr. Balguy, "is no more than a representation of our entrance into the Church of Christ."-( Charge, on the Sacraments.) He explains this further by saying, that "the sign of a Sacrament is declaratory only, not efficient;" thus doing away that effectual and invisibly working grace, which, according to the Articles and the Catechism, is given by means of the Sacraments. In the same Socinian spirit, this Protestant divine tells us that " the benefits of the Lord's Supper are not present, but future. The Sacrament is no more than a sign or pledge to assure us thereof." Equally devoid of all efficacy and mystery was the Lord's Supper in the eyes of Bishop Hoadly, who agreed with Zwingli and Socinus, in considering it as nothing more than a mere commemorative rite:-or, as his able Protestant opponent, the Rev. W. Law, not unfairly describes his doctrine:-" Thus has this author stripped the Institution of every mystery of our salvation, which the words of Christ show to be in it, and which every Christian that has any true faith, though but as a grain of mustard-seed, is sure of finding in it." I The author of the History of Leo the Tenth, notices with just reprobation "the severity with which Luther treated those who unfortunately happened to believe too much on the one hand, or too little on the other, and could not walk steadily on the hair-breadth line which he had presented." The same writer remarks,-" Whilst Luther was engaged in his opposition to the Church of Rome, he asserted the right of private judgment with the confidence and courage of a martyr. But no sooner had he freed his followers from the chains of Papal domination, than he forged others in many respects equally intolerable, and it was the employment of his latter years to counteract the beneficial effects produced by his former labors." This part of Luther's character, indeed, has long been given up by all candid Protestants. The Rev. Dr. Sturges, in his "Reflections on Popery," allows 172 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN and bitter enmity to Carlostadt and Zwingli, for no other reason than that they followed their own views of doctrine, not his, showed how widely different was his theory of toleration from his practicc. ' They are,' said he, speaking of the Zwinglians, ' men damned themselves and drawing others into hell; nor can the Churches have any further communion with them, or allow of their blasphemies.'* In another place, too, he says of these brother reformers of his:-' Satan reigns so among them, that it is no longer in their power to speak any thing but lies.'t " With an assumption, too, of infallibility, preposterous from such a quarter, he denounced the most trifling deviation, either on the one side or the other of that precise line of opinion which he had thought proper to dictate, as a transgression, not only against himself, but against God. The defeat of the Zwinglians, at Cappel, as well as the death of their able Pastor, he pronounced a judgment on them all for differing from his version of the Eucharist. In the same bigoted spirit was it that he refused to comprehend in the Confederacy of Smalcald, either the Zwinglians or those German states and cities which had adopted the opinions and confessions of Bucer. " The same impatience, indeed, of all control, which he evinced so usefully throughout his struggle with the Pope, still continued to render him impracticable in the hands of his brother Reformers; and this self-willed and selfish principle he allowed to influence him in the most important concerns. 'I abolished,' said he, ' the elevation of the Host, to brave the Pope, and I had retained it so long to spite Carlostadt.'t In a similar strain of dogged defiance, combined, too, with the most unprincipled in. difference as to the error or truth of the hasty notions he took up, we find him declaring that, 'if a Council were to order the Communion to be taken in both kinds, he and his would only take it in one, or none; and would, moreover, curse all those who should, in conformity with this decree of the Council, communicate in both kinds.'~ " How completely he held in subjection the wise, but too gentle Melancthon,--even to the endurance from him of blows, as Melancthon himself confesses, I[-would be sufficiently apparent, that Luther was, "in his manners and writings, coarse, presuming, and impetuous;" and a far higher authority, Bishop Warburton, says, in speaking of Erasmus, that " the other Reformers, such as Luther, Calvin, and their followers, understood so little in what true Christianity consisted, that they carried with them into the Reformed Churches that 'very spirit of persecu. tion which had driven them from the Church of Rome.'"-,.otes on Pope's Essay on Criticism. * Jlp. Hospin. f Epist. ad Jac. Prep. Bremens. ap. Hospin. f Confess. Parv. ~ Form. Miss. 11 Ab ipso colaphos acceperim.-Ep. ad Theodorum. The wretched life wnich his tyrant led him, is described toucningly in some of Melancthon's IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 173 did there exist no other testimony of the fact, from the promi. nent station and authority which, immediately on Luther's death, his former slave began to assume in all the councils of the party. But it was then too late for the mild spirit of Melancthon to have any influence. The intolerant character of the Founder had sunk deeply and indelibly into his Church; and, as he himself had been accustomed jocularly to boast that he was a second Pope,* so the followers of his creed but exchanged the infallibility of Bulls and Councils for the upstart pretensions to the same authority assumed by Confessions and other Symbolic Formularies. " Hence, though Lutheranism has now,-thanks to the enlightening progress of Reason,-become, like most other such distinctions between Protestants, a mere name, its course, for nearly two centuries after the death of its founder, was marked by a bitterness of polemic spirit, a cold pedantry of doctrine combined with a hot-headed intolerance in practice,t such as never before conspired to render religion unamiable, since human systems of faith were first known in this world. " In what respects besides his one, great, and signal achievement in substituting the tribunal of Private Judgment for the authority of the Church, this Reformer has been deemed, by Wegschneider, to deserve the title of Rationalist, I am wholly at a loss to discover.: Besides the instances which I have brought forward, from his doctrines, displaying an extent of irrationalism which goes beyond even the privilege of such sectarian absurdities, his favorite thesis, on which even the Doctors of the Sorbonne were opposed to him, that 'there are things false in Phi. losophy which are true in Theology,' may be said to contain within itself the very essence of the Anti-rational principle; and accordingly, on the first rise of the party called Rationaux, we find them frequently contesting this thesis with the orthodox.~ confidential letters. "I am in a state of servitude," he says to his friend Camerarius, " as if I were in the Cave of the Cyclops; and often do I think of making my escape." * When Luther, in going to visit the Pope's Nuncio, in 1535, stepped into the carriage with Pomeranus, who was to introduce him, he said, laughingly, "Here sit the Pope of Germany and Cardinal Pomeranus." t This intolerance of the Lutherans has been noticed even to a late period by travellers in Germany. Thus the Baron de Reisbeck says, in speaking of Frankfort, "La seule chose qui nuise a la liberte de penser, a l'humanisation des mceurs, et aux progres du commerce et de l'industrie, c'est l'inquisition qu'exerce le Clerge Lutherien, qui forme ici la principale eglise." I Wegschneider possibly meant no more than what many other German Rationalists (as Mr. Pusey informs us) assert-viz. that " their scheme is the perJection of that Reformation which Luther left incomplete." ~ One of the earliest of the Rationalists, Meyer, in his work, " Philosophia Scripture Interpres," (which Semler republished) contends strongly against the notion of Luther that there are many things "quae sunt vera theologice ac philosophice falsa." 15* 174 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN "It is true that Luther first set the example,-thougn certainly not with any clear foresight of the consequences,-of that unceremonious method of dealing with the received Canon of Scripture which has in later times been adopted, and with such search. ing effect, by far more able inquirers into the authenticity of the sacred writings. In rejecting the Epistle of St. James, as spurious, and calling it a 'chaffy' production, ' unworthy of an Apostle,'* Luther was actuated, we know, by little else than a feeling of pettish impatience at the authority which this Epistle opposes to his own doctrine of Justification,-as also at the sanction, perhaps, which it affords to the Catholic Sacrament of Extreme Unction. In the same manner, his unseemly attacks upon Ecclesiastes and other Books of Scripture, are to be accounted only among those post-prandial effusions of his humor, for which, in his soberer moods of theology, he was hardly to be held responsible. " Though the example, therefore, from such authority, of a want of reverence for any part of the received Canon, may have tended to weaken, in some minds, that homage for the whole which a long reign of Superstition had impressed, it would be paying much too high a compliment to the headlong theology of Luther, to trace to his factious attacks on the Epistle of St. James and Ecclesiastes even the germ of that bold school of scriptural criticism, for which we are so deeply indebted to the Rationalists;-a school, which, in our own times, has produced a Gesenius to call in question the authenticity of Isaiah, and a Bretschneider to impugn the genuineness of the Gospel and Epistles of St. John. " For the rest, taking into view the predominant features of Luther's character,-his intolerance, his ungovernable temper,* * With a similar freedom, Luther expressed his opinion of the relative value of the other books of Scripture. The Gospel of John he called the Chief Gospel, and preferred it far to the other three. So also the Epistles of Peter and Paul were held by him to be far above the three Gospels ot Matthew, Mark, and Luke, insomuch that these Epistles, together with the Gospel, and First Epistle of John, contain all, in his opinion, that is necessary for a Christian to know.-See his Preface to the.N'ew Testament, 1524. t " It is impossible," says Calvin, in a letter to Bullinger, "to bear any longer with the violences of Luther, whose self-love will not permit him to know his own defects, or to endure contradiction." Those who wish, indeed, for favorable portraits of the Reformers, must seek elsewhere than in the picture they have drawn ofeach other. In return for the polite names which Luther lavished upon his fellow-Protestants, calling them "blasphemers," "heretics," "devils," &c., they as freely retorted upon him such titles as the New Pope, the New Antichrist, and said that " those who could bear his violence must be as mad as himself." The same candor respecting each other seems to have pervaded the whole reforming circle, and while Melancthon tells us (Testim. Praf. ad Frid. Mycon.) that Carlostadt was a brutal ignorant fellow, more of a Jew than a Chnstian, we are informed by Cqlvin (Ep. Calv.) that Bucer was full of tortuous and double-dealing ways, IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 175 his weak, anile superstition,*-the rank absurdity of those parts of his faith which he parodied from Popery, and the want of all stamina in those abortions of doctrine which he chose to father himself,-his utter failure in bequeathing to his followers one lasting dogma, but his complete success in transmitting to them the worst bitterness of the dogmatic spirit,-having glaringly before us these characteristics of his whole career, both as man and reformer, it requires, I must say, the summoning up of all our most grateful recollections of the vast service rendered by him to mankind, in throwing open the documents of Faith to the search of Reason, to keep alive in our minds even a due show of respect to his memory, or enable us to listen, without impatience, to the eulogies that are sometimes lavished on his name." and that Osiander (in whose jokes Luther took such delight) was a man ol the most profane conversation and infamous morals. (Mlel. Ep. ad Cacmer.Calv. Ep. ad Mel.) * Besides the fancies of Luther, already mentioned, respecting his interviews and dialogues with the devil, he imputed also to this familiar, the severe illness of which he was near dying in 1532. In the same manner, some remarkable meteoric phenomena, which occurred in the following year, were, as Seckendorf tells us, attributed by Luther to diabolical agency. This historian, too, has preserved a letter from the Reformer to a servant-maid who was supposed to be possessed by a demon, and nothing could well be more weak or old-womanish than its contents. With the exception of all that related to the operations of the devil, in which department Luther's powers of belief shone unrivalled, his friend Melancthon was even more grossly superstitious than himself. It appears from his Letters that, while employed on the Confession of Augsburg, he attended anxiously to all stories of prodigies that were abroad, hoping to collect from them, omens as to the success of his cause. An extraordinary overflow of the Tiber,-a mule delivered of a foal, with a foot like that of a crane, ap peared to him, both of them, signs that something serious was at hand; while the birth of a calf with two heads, within the very territory of Augsburg, was an omen, he thought, of the approaching destruction of Rome by schism. This last portent, indeed, he communicates seriously, in a letter to Luther, acquainting him at the same time that, on that very day, the Confession of Auigsburg was to be presented to the Emperor! That a mind, capable of such flights of absurdity, should believe also in the predictions of astrology, was not to be wondered at; and accordingly we find that this noble victim of superstition was constantly brooding over the horrors of his own horoscope, which among other threatened misfortunes, had foretold that he was to be shipwrecked in the Baltic. Addicted as was not only Melancthon, but,-as would seem from his let ters,-the greater number of his correspondents, to this absurd belief in astrology, it does not appear, as far as I can learn, that they were any of them acquainted with the alleged prediction, respecting Luther himself, which, through the astrological calculations of Landin, was discovered in Dante, Infern. Cant. i.-(See the remarks on this passage in Mr. Taafe's ingenious Co:nment on Dante. Murray, 1822.) As a still further proof that the poet could have meant no other than Luther, by his " Greyhound," M. Rossetti has, it seems, found out that the word Veltro is but an anagram of the great Reformer's name! 17b TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN CHAPTER XLIII. Lecture continued:-the Refbrmer, Zwingli-superior to all the others-his doctrine on the Lord's Supper and Baptism-original author of Rationalism-followed by Socinus.-Analogy between Transubstantiation and the Trinity. " OF all the men whom the great crisis of the Reformation called forth, the most clear-sighted, consistent, and enlightened was, beyond all question, Zwingli; and it is among the instances which show how, in all such revolutions, the thinkers anticipate the actors, that the mind of Zwingli was already in advance on the road to religious freedom, at a time when Luther still lingered in the dark thraldom of Popery. That to the latter, when once roused, the praise of enterprise and its reward, success, were most amply due, cannot be denied. But the advantage in mind, which Zwingli possessed over him at starting, he maintained ever after;-not only throughout their joint-living career, but in those important effects which have, to this day, survived themselves. "Of the short-lived dogmas, indeed, of Luther, it may be said, (to borrow an illustration from one of your English writers,) that 'they rose like the rocket, and fell like the stick;' while not a single one of those doctrines which Zwingli either introduced or adopted,-such is the vitality which gogd sense can infuse into all that it handies,-has been suffered to pass away from the Pro. testant faith; for, while his rational view of the Eucharist very early supplanted both the monstrous mystery of Luther and the evasive Real Absence* of Calvin, his simple and unmysterious doctrine respecting Baptism has, for a long time, been adopted t The Calvinistic view of the Eucharist is thus explained by a learned Protestant: " Calvin and Beza will not allow the bread and wine to be so much as the vehicle of the body and blood, but make these things not only distinct but very far distant from each other. They allowed nothing but bare elements to be taken from the celebrator, and if men, over and above, receive the body and blood of Christ, that was to be attributed to their own faith, by which they imagined they could communicate of the body and blood, at any other place, and in any other religious action, as well as at the Lord's Table or at the Sacrament."-Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice. The same industrious inquirer into Christian antiquity, says, in speaking of the view of this Sacrament now prevalent in the Church of England:"But what all ages and Christians before thought too mean and base to be the whole entertainment for pious souls at the Table of the Lord, that is, mere bread and wine, without either natural or spiritual body and blood joined to them, or accompanying them, without any divine grace or benediction shed upon them by the Holy Ghost,-these weak elements, barely set apart for a pious use, our Arminians and Socinians have substituted for the Medicine of Immortality, the Sanctifying Food, the Heavenly as well as Earthly Thing, the Spiritual Nourishment, the Divine Substance, the Tremendous Mystery of the Ancients." IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION 177 by most Protestant Churches, and has even found its way, in spite of Catechism and Articles, among your subscribing Church of England Divines. " Nor was it so much by the example he thus set towards clearing away the alleged mysteries of Christianity, as by the mode of interpreting the text of Scripture which he adopted for this purpose, that Zwingli established his claims to the gratitude of all lovers of the reasonable and the intelligible. The rule laid down by him, for this great object, and which he fully exem. plified in his own manner of dealing with the Eucharist, is simply as follows:-never to let the mere literal sense of a passage of Scripture stand in the way of a rational interpretation of its meaning; but, wherever the words, taken literally, would imply something irreconcilable to reason, to solve the difficulty by having recourse to a metaphorical sense. " Thus when Christ, for instance, in instituting the Eucharist, said, taking the bread in his hands, ' This is my body,' the words, thus solemnly uttered, were accepted, there is no doubt, by the Primitive Christians, in their strict literal sense,* even as Christ himself uttered them; and the miracle which he then announced, as one permanent, through all future time, in his Church, held its place in the faith of the whole Christian world for a period of no less than fifteen centuries. "' In the just confidence, however, that no antiquity, however venerable, has any right to establish a prescription in favor of fiction and error, the philosophic mind of Zwingli at once saw through the misconception which had, even from the Apostles themselves, veiled the meaning of these words, and, by the application of that test of scriptural truth to which I have just referred, showed manifestly that, in saying of the bread, ' This is my body,' Christ could have meant only, 'This signifies' or 'is the sign of my body.' " It was, I repeat, in his bold adoption and enforcement of this simple mode of interpretation, that Zwingli's chief and inappreciable service to the cause of Rationalism lay. For, though he himself did not extend the principle further than to the Eucharist and Baptism, it has been, by later followers in the same naturalizing path, applied to other mysteries not less untenable. It is therefore to the example first set by this Reformer, in rejecting all that was miraculous in the Sacraments, that we owe that * To this belief, as being that of the ancient Church, the immortal Leibnitz thus bears testimony:-Aiunt enim (the Impanatores) corpus Christi exhibere in, cum et sub pane. itaque cum Christus dixit, hoc est corpus meum, intelligunt quemadmodum si quis sacco ostenso diceret, hac est pecunia. Sed pia antiquitas aperte satis declaravit panem mutari in corpus Christi, vinum in sanguinem passimque hic veteres agnoscunt metastoicheism quam Latini transubstantionem recte veterunt.-Systema Theologicum. L 178 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN process of simplification which the whole system of Christianity since has undergone, till, gradually purified through the succes. sive strainers of Arminianism, Socinianism, and Unitarianism, it has, at length, settled into that clear and, if I may so say, filtered state of belief, unobscured by mystery, and unembittered by controversy, which is exhibited in the rationalized creed of our Protestant Churches at this day. "' In mystery and supernaturalism has ever lain the strong-hold of priestly influence; and the two grandnd nd unfailing sources of this influence, in the creed which preceded those of the Re. formation, were the Real Presence and the Trinity. In getting rid of the first of these, the Swiss Reformer not only opened an inlet for light on this one particular point, where, as Milton said of his own blindness, ' Wisdom was, at one entrance, quite shut out,' but also, by the principle which he applied, as a touchstone to this long-standing miracle, prepared the way for the fate, at no distant day, of its twin mystery, the Trinity. He was, in fact, suspected of being, on this latter doctrine also, a Rationalist; insomuch that Luther, who was too acute not to perceive that all such mysteries have one common cause, called on him publicly for an explanation of his orthodoxy on the subject. " It was, indeed, hardly possible these men should be blind to the sure and natural consequences of the revolutionary principle which they were introducing into religion; and how clearly Melancthon, at least, foresaw that the Nicene mystery of the Trinity would, in its turn, be arraigned at the bar of all-judging Reason, appears from a passage in one of his letters, where, speaking of Servetus, he says, 'You know I always feared that there would be, at last, this outbreak about the Trinity. Good God! what tragedies will these questions, Whether the Word is a Person, Whether the Spirit is a Person, give rise to among our descendants!'* "So conscious was Zwingli himself of the invaluable prize which he had lighted on, in this discovery of a mode of interpreting Scripture, which would bring its mysteries down to the level of human reason, that he used to call his application of this principle to Christ's words, his 'Margarita felix,' or 'happy pearl,' -as though with a sort of joyful anticipation he was looking forward to those still further triumphs over error, which future champions of Reason would, with the same simple weapon, achieve.* Ilept rr7 Tpotabo scis me semper veritum esse fore ut hac aliquando erumperent. Bone Deus, quales tragedias excitabit haec quastio ad Posteros, Et ecrrv TroCratrn s Aoyos C E EOTV tvroTrnacri ro HvEvua.-Lib. 4. Ep. 140. f In this mode of interpretation, as in every thing else, the ancient heretics anticipated the modern. Thus Tertullian tells us (de Resurrect. Carnis) that those who opposed, in his time, the doctrine of the Resurrection of the flesh, IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 179 "' Nor was there long wanting one to wield this weapon with a degree of courage and effect which will for ever render his name 'a hissing' in all priestly ears,-the learned and excellent Socinus. The very same principles of interpretation by which Zwingli had been enabled to relieve Christianity from the portentous incubus of a Real Presence, were made equally available by Socinus for the subversion of Christ's divinity, and of all the complex machinery of mysteries connected with that belief.* In one of his works, on this latter subject, we find the great parent of Socinianism pointing out as well the analogy that exists between Transubstantiation and the Trinity, as the similar processes of reasoning by which both are to be rejected;t and the following are the terms in which he sums up his parallel:"' But, as the monstrous and sophistical notion of the Eucha rist has been, by the help of God, so plainly exposed, that even children, with reason, laugh at and explode it, and it is now evident that what was reckoned the most divine mystery of the Christian Religion is the grossest idolatry, so we hope that the shocking fictions concerning our God and his Christ, which at present are supposed to be sacred and worthy of the deepest reverence, and to constitute the principal mysteries of our re. ligion, will, with God's permission, be so laid open and treated with such scorn, that every one will be ashamed to embrace them, or even bestow any attention on them.'-Socin. Opera, Tom. L argued that "the language of Scripture is frequently figurative, and ought to be so considered in this instance; the resurrection of which it speaks being a moral or spiritual resurrection." * The doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction, for instance, is thus got rid of by Socinus:-"Even though I should find it written, not to say once, but frequently, in the Sacred Writings, I still would not believe it in the sense which you have put on it. For, as that is utterly impossible, I would interpret all such'passages accordingly, giving them the sense that suited my views of the matter, as I have done with many other passages of the Scriptures."-Socin. Lib. 3, de Servatore. As further specimens of his manner of applying this rule of interpretatioii, it need only be mentioned that in his Exposition of the First Chapter of John's Gospel, he overleaps the difficulty which there meets him in limine by maintaining that John, in calling Jesus the Word of God, uses at once a metaphor and a metonymy; and the passage (v. 14) where it is said that " the Word was made Flesh," he explains away by showing that the verb EYEVEro, which is here translated " was made," means sometimes simply "was." "Therefore," he adds, "we ought not, in this passage, to translate the verb was made flesh, but, was flesh. For it has been sufficiently proved already that by the term, the Word, must be understood the man who was born of the Virgin Mary, who could not be made flesh, but was flesh."-A disciple, it must be owned, worthy of him who first showed that the words " This is my body" mean " This signifies my body!" f The biographer of Socinus, Toulmin, in defending this mode of "having recourse to a figurative and more lax sense of all such passages as otherwise assert things derogatory to the divine perfections," adds, "there is no other way of evading the force of the Papist's argument for Transubstantiation, from the. express words of the Institution." 180 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN "It is more peculiarly, perhaps, in that branch of the History of the Reformation which relates to the rise and progress of Anti-Trinitarian doctrines that we are able to trace, step by step, the natural working of the principle which that revolution, in favor of reason against authority, introduced. The impossibility Df fixing a boundary, at which Reason, once started on her inquisitorial career, shall consent to rein in her speed, could not be more strikingly exemplified than in those successive stages of Reform by which the dignity of Christ's nature was lowered from its divine station, losing, at every stage, some attribute of glory that once belonged to it,-first, to the subordinate, but still heavenly rank assigned to it by the Arians; then, by a further fall, to the region, half.beavenly, half-earthly, of Socinianism, and from thence down, by rapid descent, to the entirely human solution of the whole mystery, in the creed of the Unitarian." CHAPTER XLIV. Lecture continued.-Anti-Trinitarian doctrines among the Reformers.-Valentinus Gentilis.-Socinianism-its weak points.-Progress of AntiTrinitarianism-the Holy Spirit, not a Person, but an attribute. * AnioNG those bolder speculators who ventured, early in the progress of the Reformation, to express openly their dissent from the received doctrine of the Trinity, the only one whose opinions on the subject seem to have been stated clearly, either by him self or others, was Valentinus Gentilis. This Italian Reformer, (one of the scions from that nursery of Anti-Trinitarianism, established in the year 1546 at Vicenza,) though he was for despoiling the Saviour of his Godhead, still allowed him to have been i super-angelic spirit, born before all worlds, who became incarnate in the human body of Jesus, with the view of effecting the salvation of man. " The next step, in the descending scale, was the doctrine of Socinus, who, rejecting, as a notion unsanctioned by scriptural evidence, all belief in the pre-existence and superior nature of Christ, held that he was, by nature, man, though of miraculous birth,-being conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, without the intervention of any human being. Thus being properly, said Socinus, the Son of God, and endued with divine wisdom and power, Christ was sent, with supreme authority, on an embassy to mankind; and, after his death and resurrection, becoming, like a God, immortal, received from the Father all power in heaven and earth, having all things, with the exception,C God himself alone, placed under his feet. To a Being invested IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 181 with this divine'sovereignty, it seemed naturally to fbllow that divine worship was due: and Socinus, in according such worship, was far more consistent than a great number of his followers,* who, while they hesitated not to believe that a human creature could have been elevated to all this Godlike sway, yet, with a reservation not very intelligible, refused to invoke so mighty a sovereign in their prayers. " It required, in truth, but a very little further advance of the rationalizing principle to supersede, by some more plausible scheme, the well-meant, but wholly untenable system of Socinus, who, by this transfer of all the power of heaven and earth into subordinate hands, made of Christ a sort of Maire du Palais, and degraded the Almighty into a Faineant. One of his disciples, Palaeologus, had suggested,-evidently as a means of escape from" the grand absurdity of their system,-that, though such power might have been intrusted to Christ, during his stay on earth and before the fall of Jerusalem, he had, since his death, resigned all into the hands of the Father, and no longer himself directed the concerns of his kingdom. This easy escape, however, out of an absurdity, which was even more gross than that of the believers in the God-man,t was rejected indignantly by Socinus, who, with the self-opinion characteristic of a system. monger, still persevered in his own views; and the following extract from his answer to Palkeologus, in which, it will be perceived, he disposes of all the arrangements of the Divine gov ernment as familiarly as he would any matters of mere earthly concernment, will show, at once, the difficulties of the system which he wished to substitute for the Trinity, and the grossly human hypothesis by which he endeavored to get rid of them. " Thus does he argue with his disciple:" If Christ be not removed to any distant place, from whence he cannot himself govern his kingdom; if he be not hindered by other engagements; if, lastly, he live for ever and be not fallen * The same spirit of variation and dissention which has marked the course of every other branch of Protestanism, we find also among the Socinians. After the arrival of Socinus in Poland, the Unitarians there formed thirty. two distinct societies, which had, as we are told, scarcely any common prin. ciple but this, that Jesus Christ was not the true God.-Dictionnaire des Hlresies. Those who take an interest in the history of Unitarian doctrines will find their curiosity gratified by the instructive sketch of the progress of Socinianism which Dr. Rees has prefixed to his edition of the Racovian Catechism. f The absurdity of the scheme of Socinus is thus sneered at by a brother infidel-" And though the Socinians disown this practice [of allowing seeming contradictions in religion,] I am mistaken if either they or the Arians can make their notions of a dignified and Creature-God capable of Divine worship appear more reasonable than the extravagances of other sects, touching the article of the Trinity."-Toland's Christianity not mysterious. 16 182 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN into inactive sleep, it is most weak to suppose that he hath,re. signed his kingdom to the Father, especially when the sacred Scriptures say not a word of it. "'If you allow Christ's care of his kingdom before the de. struction of Jerusalem, as is very plain, for what reason should you deny it after this, and assert that he has resigned it to his Father? Is it because Christ has perhaps since removed to some remote place from whence he may not be able to govern his kingdom, or is so engaged in other concerns, as to have no lei. sure for this office? or does he sleep during this interval, for I cannot imagine that you will be so mad as to say that he is again dead.'*-Socin. Opera, Tom. I. "This, from a worshipper of the Power of Reason, was, it must be owned, but a sorry offering at her shrine. But even the failures of such bold adventurers, in the cause of truth, have their use;-the very wrecks they leave become beacons for the guidnce of those who follow them. The opinion,t that Christ was neither to be worshipped nor invoked, was but a forerunner of those further curtailments of his dignity which were soon, in the natural course of such sifting inquiries, to take place. It was now found that his miraculous conception was unsupported by any scriptural authority, besides that of the introductory Chapters of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke; and this evi.. dence, on the subject, a bold and unscrupulous spirit of criticis:n, which had now enlisted itself in the service of Rationalism, pronounced to be spurious.f "The simple humanity of Christ's nature being thus clearly established, all that confusion between celestial and earthly na. tures, which had so long puzzled and shocked all reflecting Christians, was, to the great relief of common sense, effectually got rid of; while, by a similar verdict, or rather series of verdicts, the third member of the Trinity was disposed of in the same rational and satisfactory manner. By a scale of reduction, * Who could believe that it was of a man capable of uttering such bias phemies, that the following eulogium was pronounced?-" High, most deservedly high, as those great Reformers stand, Luther, Zuinglius, and Calvin, in the Book of Fame, Faustus Socinus will be found to rank as high in the Book of Life, which is of more consequence."-Theological Repository, Vol. I f If we may believe his persecutor, Socinus, (for, however strange it may appear, these apostles of free-thinking have almost all been persecutors,) David went so far as to assert that "it was the same thing to invoke Jesus Christ as to pray to the Virgin Mary and other dead saints."-Socin. Opera, Tom. 2. 1 Some of the English Unitarians, content with rejecting only the two first chapters of Matthew, retain those of Luke, in which the passage relating to the miraculous conception has been explained by one of their most learned writers, as not necessarily supposing that there was any thing supernatural in the conception of Jesus.-Unitarianism the Doctrine of the Gospel, by Dr. r,arpenter. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 183 even more summary and rapid, the Holy Spirit was, in like manner, lowered, till, from its high and substantial station, as a constituent Person of the Godhead, it came to be stripped, at last, of all claims to be considered a Person, at all;-the conclusion to which the Socinian Reformers came, on this point, being that the Holy Ghost implies the Power and Energy of God, and is, according to the Scriptures, not a person, but an attribute.* " In this outline of the course of one of the great branches of the Reformation, may be traced the working, step by step, of that naturalizing principle which has more or less operated, throughout the progress of them all, and must, sooner or later, bring all to the same simplified result. And for these happy effects,-still happier in the further consequences yet to spring from them,-we are indebted, primarily, of course, to that grand principle of the Reformation, which brought matters of faith within the jurisdiction of Reason, but secondarily, and above all others, to him who asserted that principle in its fullest extent, the bold and philosophic-minded Zwingli. "' In fact, by none of those who co-operated with him was the spirit of their mighty cause maintained with half such consistency, while living, or transmitted with half such effect to other times. Luther himself was, as I have shown, disqualified both by his temper and his superstitiont" for leaving behind him any durable monument but his name; while Melancthon, though hur * After referring to numerous authorities on this point, one of the Editors of the Racovian Catechism (Wissowatius) thus concludes:-" It is most safe, therefore, adhering to the proper import of the word, to believe the Holy Spirit to be the power and energy of God, and consequently his gift, as is clearly revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament." There was, on this point, however, some difference of opinion among these sectaries, and the Father of the English Unitarians, John Bidle, was one of those who, as we are told, "took the Holy Spirit to be a Person, Chief of the Heavenly Spirits, Prime Minister of God and Christ, and therefore called the Spirit, by way of excellence."-Brief History of the Unitarians, 1687. " To the picture of Luther, already presented in these pages, I cannot help adding two more touches,-one, from his own unerring hand,-which the above remark of the Professor suggests to me. In a preface to his works, written but a short time before his death, the Reformer says, "When I engaged in the cause of the Reformation I was a most frantic Papist; so intoxicated, nay, so drenched in the dogmas of the Pope, that I was quite ready to put to death, if I had been able, or to co-operate with those who would have put to death, persons who refused obedience to the Pope, in any single article." That he carried this amiable temper with him into the new extreme which he espoused, cannot be doubted; and I shall only add to the specimens already given of the tolerance of his spirit, the account which Seckendorf, the able apologist, both of Lutheranism and its author, has left on record respecting the dispositions of his hero towards the Jews. It was Luther's opinion, says Seckendorf, that their synagogues should be levelled with the ground, their houses destroyed, their books of prayer and of the Talmud, and of the Old Testament, taken from them, that their Rabbis should be forbid to teach, and ibrced by hard labor to get their bread, &c. &c. 1 4 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN ried forward in the foaming wake of his leader, still sighed for the safe moorings of the Church, and was, at heart, half-Papist." " Nor less unfit, though in a very different point of view, was Calvin, for the task of reconciling religion to reason, and estab. lishing a faith such as men of sense could adopt. After rejecting, -or rather juggling away,t-the oldest mystery of Christianity, he introduced others, entirely unknown to antiquity, in its place; and, while that which he cast off was but chargeable with being offensive to human reason, what he adopted implies impeachment of the character of God himself. For what less can be said of his mystery of Election and Reprobation-a mystery into whose dark recesses none can look without shuddering, and which would make of the Almighty a Being such as even his own Chosen could not love.t * The Professor alludes, no doubt, to Melancthon's opinions in favor of,he Primacy of the Pope, as well as his decidedly Catholic language, on the subject of the Eucharist, in the Apology for the Confession of Augsburg. It is curious enough that the very same passage, from the ancient Canon of the Mass, (implying expressly a change of substance, in the elements, after consecration) which gave such scandal by its admission into Melancthon's Apology, was adopted afterwards in the Liturgy which Charles I endeavored to force on the people of Scotland. f By no other word than "juggle" could the Professor have half so justly described the sort of conjurer's process by which Calvin, in his mere mockery of a Sacrament, first lays before us the " proper substance" (as he proclaims it) of Christ's body, assuring us that it is as substantially present to the communicant as was the Holy Spirit under the form of a dove, and then, presto, by a sudden wave of the wand, converting this real presence into an absence, and showing that the receiver and the thing received are as distant from each other as earth is from heaven! It is a strong proof, however, of the force of our Saviour's words, in instituting the Eucharist, that, while they compelled Luther, against his will, to believe in a Real Presence, they forced Calvin, with no less reluctance, to endeavor to seem to believe in it;-though, after all, the true explanation of Calvin's doctrine on this point, is to be found in the profane pun of his disciple Beza, who said that the body of Christ "non magis esse in Cacna quam in Cceno." T The following concise and just statement of the fearful hypothesis of Calvinism, is from Bishop Copleston's clearly reasoned treatise on the subject.-" We cannot, indeed, conceive how a Being who knows all things that will come to pass, should subject another being of his own creating to trial; that he should expose this being to temptation, knowing what the issue will be, and yet speak to him before, and treat him afterwards, as if he did not know it." I have already shown (page 89) into what frightful blasphemies the natural consequence of this doctrine betrayed Luther and other supporters of it. With equal conciseness, another necessary consequence of Calvinism was put by a certain Landgrave of Turing, a great patron of the Reformed Doctrines, who, on being admonished by his friends of the dissolute course of life he was leading, made answer, "Si priedestinatus sum, nulla peccata poterunt mihi regnum coelorum auferre; si praescitus, nulla opera mihi illud valebunt conferre." "If I am one of the Elect, no crimes that I may commit can deprive me of the kingdom of heaven; if I am one of the Reprobate, no works that I can perform will avail any thing towards bestowing it on me."-" An objection," adds Dr. Heylin, by whom the circumstance is mentioned, "not more old than common, but such, I must IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 185 "( To Zwingli, in short, alone, of all that memorable band, can the combined qualities required to constitute a great Reformer be attributed. Enterprising, but temperate, keeping the speculative in subordination to the practical, and while throwing his energies into the present, still looking forward to the interests of the future,-firm in his own views and purposes, yet tolerant of the opposing opinions of others,-this great man not only, while living, showed himself worthy of the free cause for which he died, but, in dying, bequeathed a legacy of his spirit to manKind, in that rational mode of interpreting the Scriptures which he taught, and the consequent release from mystery, and its attendant, Priestcraft, which the application of that golden rule has since achieved for us. " To the slow, but sure, working of this one simple principle, we are indebted, I repeat, for the state of the Christian world at this moment. Hence, that philosophic calm, or,-as fanatics choose to denominate it,--Idif'erentism, which has succeeded LO the bitter and vehement controversies that once convulsed all Europe. Hence, the deniers of Christ's divinity, whose fate, in former times, would have been the dungeon or the stake, may now deny, with impunity,- -may even pass muster as Christians, and t-ke their station in the rear.ranks of Belief, unmolested.* " Even into regions that might have been supposed the least accessible to such light, the subtle influence of this principle has yet unerringly worked its way; for, look to your boasted Church of England,-who could ever, in the days of an Abbot or a Laud, have foreseen the possibility of such phenomena, among her Bishops, as a Hoadly and a Clayton? t What confess, to which I never found a satisfactory answer from the pen of Supralapsarian or Sublapsarian, within the small compass of my reading."Quinquarticular History. * The position of Unitarianism, on the scale of Christian belief, is well described by the late Bishop Heber, who calls it a system which " leans on the utmost verge of Christianity, and which has been, in so many instances, a stepping-stone to simple Deism." The accomplished Bishop would, no doubt, have been shocked to be told (what is, nevertheless, but too true) that his own religion was but the first of the stepping-stones in this path. t Of the Essay on Spirit, which this distinguished Prelate of the Church of Ireland published under his own name, in 1751, the zealous Whitaker thus speaks:-" This folly (ofArianism) has been recently revived by what appears a monster of absurdity to these later ages, an Arian Bishop of the Church. Bishop Clayton revived it in his Essay on Spirit." It has been said that Clayton was only guilty of the imprudence of lending his name to this work, which was, in reality, the production of a young clergyman of his diocese. But the hostility of this bishop, not only to the Athanasian, but the Nicene Creed, and the bold effort which he made, by appealing to the House of Lords on the subject, to have both Creeds expunged from the Liturgy of the Irish Church, show that, though not, perhaps, the author of the Essay in question, he concurred sufficiently with it, in spirit, to be held answerable fo all its heterodoxy. 16 * (86 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN prophet would have then dared to predict that a day would yet arrive, when the mark of Arius would be seen peeping from under the mitres of the Establishment, and even Socinianism be allowed to touch, with her disenchanting wand, the long-vaunted orthodoxy of the Church of England Sacraments 7"* CHAPTER XLV. Lecture continued.-Effects of the rationalizing mode of interpretation, as exhibited in Germany.-Contrasts between past and present state of Protestantism.-Inspiration of the Scriptures rejected.-Authenticity of books of the Old and New Testament questioned, &c. &c. " WE have seen that, even within the guarded precincts of the Church of England Establishment,-pledged, as it is, by Articles, and moreover bribed, by rich rewards, into orthodoxy,-the natural consequences of the primal principle of Protestantism have, in many instances, shown themselves, and would, doubtless, under a system of Church Government, less appealing to strong worldly considerations, have been still more fully, or I should rather say, more openly developed. " But,-to bring home at once to the scene of its most extensive and signal results, this inherent and ever-working principle of the Reformation,-need I point elsewhere than to my own country, Germany, for manifestations of its activity and its power? can we ask any more convincing proof of the efficiency of that one simple doctrine which taught that the Scriptures are to be interpreted according to the light of Reason, than is afforded in the deep, radical, and all-pervading change which it has worked throughout the whole system of religious belief in Germany?t * In charging the Hoadlyan scheme of the Sacrament with Socinianism, the Professor but echoes the language of one of the few Prelates of the Church of England, who have thought proper to declare themselves against this now prevalent opinion among the members of the Establishment. In a Sermoh, preached before the University of Oxford, the late Bishop Cleaver, after impressing upon his hearers the intimate connexion which subsists between the importance of the Lord's Supper and the dignity of Christ's nature,insomuch that any depreciation of the high benefits of the former is, in effect, a denial of the divinity of the latter,-proceeds to say that the fame acquired in certain quarters, by Bishop Hoadly's Plain Account of the Sacrament, was "for the sake of its connexion with Socinian notions." f " It need not be added," says the Rev. Mr. Rose, Christian Advocate in the University of Cambridge, " that the Protestant Church of Germany is the mere shadow of a name. For this abdication of Christianity was not confined to either the Lutheran or Calvinist profession, but extended its baleful and withering influence with equal force over each."-Sermons. Similar to this is the account given by a German writer, Baron Starke;-" Protestantism," he says, " is so degenerated, that little more than its mere name sub IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 187 ** Among that people, who once, in their zeal for the infalli. bility of Scripture, maintained that the whole of it had been dictated verbatim by the Holy Spirit,*-that the very Hebrew points and accents of the Old Testament were inspired, and, still further, that even those formularies and Confessions of Faith, every line of which teemed with materials for wrangling, were, one and all, suggested by the same Heavenly prompter,-among that very people, so vast a change has the reasoning principle wrought,t that they now reject all supposition of inspiration whatever, and regard the whole of the Scriptures themselves, from beginning to end, as a series of venerable, but human, and, therefore, fallible documents. " In that same country whose theologians once prized the Old Testament as an equally valuable repository of Christian faith with the New,-seeing under the veil of its types the substance of the Gospel, and in its prophecies an inverted history of the sists at the present day. At all events, it must be owned, it has undergone so many changes, that, if Luther and Melancthon were to rise again, they would not know the Church which was the work of their industry."-Entret. Philosoph. * " Such an exaggerated theory of inspiration," says Mr. Pusey, "did undoubtedly contribute mainly to shake in Germany the belief in the doctrine itself, since the whole seemed to depend upon this faulty theological system. It was a fancied idea of expediency, in support of the main Protestant position against the Romanists, which gave rise to this system among them. Deeply have their descendants to regret their short-sighted policy." Thus was party-spirit at the bottom of all, during the first struggles of Protestantism. Having set up the Bible, as their sole guide, in opposition to the Catholics, to uphold its entire inspiration, in every word and syllable, became a point not so much of religion as of honor with the party; and the consequence has been, according to the ordinary course of such extremes, that the descendants of those very men who cried up the Bible as every thing, have now succeeded, as we see, in degrading the Bible to almost nothing. t The following extract from the Sermons of Mr. Rose,-the gentleman to whom we owe our first full insight into the state of Protestantism in Germany,-contains, in a few words, such a general view of the subject as may save me the trouble of referring to his authority for the details:-" They (the rationalizing Divines of Germany) are bound by no law but their own fancies; some are more and some less extravagant; but I do them no injustice, after this declaration, in saying, that the general inclination and tendency of their opinions (more or less forcibly acted on) is this,-that, in the New Testament, we shall find only the opinions of Christ and the Apostles adapted to the age in which they lived, and not eternal truths; that Christ himself had,.cither the design nor the power of teaching any system which was to endure; that, when he taught any enduring truth, as he occasionally did, it was without being aware of its nature; that the Apostles understood still less of real religion; that the whole doctrine, both of Christ and his Apostles, as it is directed to the Jews alone, so it was gathered in fact from no other source than the Jewish Philosophy; that Christ himself erred, and his Apostles spread his errors, and that, consequently, no one of his doctrines is to be received on their authority; but that, without regard to the authority of the Books of Scripture, and their asserted divine origin, each doctrine is to be examined according to the principles of right reason, befbre it is allowed to be divine. 188 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN mission of Christ*-in that country a more inquiring and dis. cerning theology has now severed all such connexion between the two codes. Instead of finding Christ every where in the pages of the Old Testament, these divines (as was once objected to Grotiust) find him no where;-the prophecies hitherto assumed as having reference to the Saviour being meant really to refer to the future state of the Jews, and having, consequently, no further connexion with Christ than as accommodated by himself and others to his mission. The many wonderful instances which the Hebrew Scriptures record of the direct interposition of God in this world, are no longer looked upon as aught but Jewish images and dreams: those historical narratives for whose truth, and even verbal accuracy, the Holy Spirit, as their dictator, used formerly to be held accountable, are now explained away, as allegories, or rejected, as forgeries; and even that most important of all, on whose truth so much of Christianity depends, the Mosaic History of the Creation and Fall of Man, has been shown to bear on its face the features of mythologic fiction.t " While thus of the Old Testament our views have undergone such a change, some of our illusions, respecting the New, have been no less thoroughly dissipated. The notion, indulged in so fondly by our ancestors, not only of the inspiration of the whole volume, but of the uniform purity of its language, throughout, could not stand before the progress of an improving spirit of criticism; and, accordingly,-imitating rather the boldness of Luther himself than the blind homage paid by his Church to every syllable of Scripture,-our Divines have dealt as unceremoniously with most parts of the New Testament, as did the great Reformer himself with the Epistle of St. James. They have shown that, in most of the Epistles, gross errors and in* "They held," says Mr. Pusey, in speaking of those former theologians ot Germany, "that all the distinguishing doctrines of Christianity were even to the Jews as much revealed in the Old Testament as in the New, and that the knowledge of these doctrines was as necessary to their salvation as ours." He then adds that " no error seems to have prepared so much for the subsequent reaction, in which all prophecy was discarded, all doctrine considered to be precarious."-Historical Inquiry. To such a length were these notions carried at that period, (about 1640,) that the celebrated Lutheran, Calixtus, was accused of Arianism and Judaism, because he thought that the doctrine of the Trinity was not revealed with equal clearness in the Old as in the New Testament; nor was, under the old dispensation, as necessary to salvation. f It was said, with reference to their different modes ofinterpretation, that "Cocceius found Christ every where in the Old Testament, and Grotius found him no where. + On this point, the German Divines have not had all the Rationalism to themselves, as the Reverend author of the " Free Inquiry" was even beforehand with these critics in ridiculing the notion of " a Serpent's speaking and reasoning."-See.1Middleton's Essay on this subject, and also his Letter ic Dr. Waterland. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 189 terpolations abound,-the latter traceable chiefly to about the beginning of the second century; while not only the Epistles, but the Gospel attributed to St. John, have been proved by Bretschneider to have been the productions of some Gnostic of the same period.* "Nor is this all; for even the trust-worthiness of the remain. ing three Gospels has been called seriously into question by a most important discovery which we owe, in the first instance, to the sagacity of our learned Michaelis, but which others, since his time, have brought still further into light. The fact proved, as it appears, from clear internal evidence, by these critics is, that the Three first Gospels are not, in reality, the works of the writers whose names they bear, but merely transcriptions or translations of some anterior documents.t To the proofs brought by our Rationalists of this fact, there has been, as yet, no satisfactory answer from the orthodox: and thus the minds of all thinking Christians are left to the painful doubt whether the same hands that copied may not also have interpolated, and whether Protestants may not find that their sole guide of faith is, after all, but a dubious and fallible dependance, without those lights of tradition by which, conjointly with the Scriptures, the Catholic Church has, through all ages, steered her course. We know, from undoubted evidence, that, about the end of the second Century, both the forgery of new Gospels and the adulteration of old ones prevailed throughout the Christian world, to a very great extent; and the latter species of fraud, if we may trust their mutual accusations, was, in an equal degree, practised both by heretics and by the orthodox;-' Ego Marcionis adfirmo adulteratum (says Tertullian) Marcion meum.' * In the Preface to this work, Bretschneider justifies his object in writing it, both by the example of Luther and the principles of the Evangelical Church.-"Earn enim judicii libertatem non solum antiquissima sibi vindicavit ecclesia, sed eA quoque usus est Lutherus, eademque denique principiis ecclesiae evangelice est quam convenientissima." Many other German theologians, besides Bretschneider, and, among the rest, Claudius, (Supermntendent of the Lutheran church, at Hildesheim!) have taken similar views as to the spuriousness of the writings attributed to St. John. f By Berthold, one of those critics who assert the existence of a common document, it is maintained that this original of the three first Gospels was written in Aramaic. The Epistles of St. Paul, too,-as well as, indeed, all the other Epistles,-he asserts, in like manner, to be merely translations from the Aramaic; so that, as an able writer in the British Critic has remarked, on the subject, "instead of the good old-fashioned notion that the New Testament is a collection of works composed by the persons whose names they bear, and who wrote under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, we must now believe that the original narrator of the Gospel History was an unknown person; and that the Gospels and Epistles, which we read in Greek, are merely translations made by some persons whose names are lost, and who betray themselves by several blunders in the work which they undertook."-July, 1828. 190 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN " But however, ultimately, the question respecting the genu. ineness of these documents may be decided, the rational mode in which we now interpret both their facts and their doctrines com. pletely purges them of all that fanaticism and mystery from which Superstition has hitherto drawn her chief aliment; and our method of solving all such unsoundnesses and inconsistencies in doctrine, is, like most methods that are found efficient in their operation, simple. It being admitted that, on some points,-and, among others, for instance, demoniacal possessions,-Christ accommodated himself to the prejudices and superstition of his hearers, we think it warrantable, wherever his precepts are found to jar with sound reason, to seek in the same temporizing policy the solution of such difficulties. " The doctrinal part of the New Testament being thus sifted of its irrationalism, there remained but the task of reconciling to the laws of reason and nature, those deviations from the course of both which its recorded miracles present; and this not very easy service our theologians have attempted, with success as various as the modes which they have adopted for their purpose,sometimes resolving the whole wonder into a mere exaggeration of natural phenomena; sometimes showing, as in the instance of Jesus walking upon the sea, that to a preposition, mistranslated, the entire miracle owes its origin;* and sometimes even (as was the case in the time of Mesmer's celebrity) attributing the wonderful cures performed by Christ to the effects of Animal Magnetism.t In short, by one explanation or another, all that is miraculous in the relations of the New Testament has been evaporated away effectually, leaving nothing but the mere human realities behind. " Thus, of all that imposing apparatus of miracles,-which, * According to this solution of the miracle, which we owe to a Professor of Theology, Paulus, the words Ecri rVy OaXaraaav reptrarovvra are to be translated " walking by the sea," instead of "walking on the sea." His explanation of the miracle of the tribute-money and the fish, is equally worthy of a Protestant Professor. " What sort of miracle is it," asks Paulus, "which is commonly found here? I will not say a miracle of about 16 or 20 groschen, (2s. 6d.) for the greatness of the value does not make the greatness of the miracle. But, it may be observed, that as, first, Jesus received, in general, support from many persons, (Judas kept the stock, John xii, 6,) in the same way as the Rabbis lived from such donations; as, secondly, so many pious women provided for the wants of Jesus; as, finally, the claim did not occur at any remote place, but at Capernaum, where Christ had friends, a miracle for about a dollar would certainly have been superfluous." For a further account of this precious Theologian, see Rose, State of Protestantism in Germany. t In speaking of the enthusiasts for animal magnetism, who went so far as to attribute to it the raising of the apparition of Samuel by the Pythoness, the Abbd Gr6goire says, "Comme les neologues Protestans, ils appliquent a d'autres faits surnaturels racont6s dans la Bible cette thaumaturgie ni6di cale qui tendroit a d6molir tout le plan de la redvlation." IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 191 having been conjured up as a necessary appendage to Christ's Divinity, should now, along with that Divinity, be suffered to pass away,-the only one that still retains a hold on our faith is the great miracle of the Resurrection, to which, in despite of all reasoning, human nature still clings, and which, therefore, but few of our theologians have yet ventured to call in question.* ( Into a detail of the various doctrines, reputed hitherto as the very essence of Christianity, which have already fallen before the all-conquering march of Rationalism, it is not my intention here to enter. Suffice it to say, throughout that region,-including Switzerlandt within its circle,-which saw the birth, the triumphs, the excesses of the Reformation; that region, where intolerance once rioted over its victims; where Pestelius was condemned to death by the lawyers of Wittenberg for no other reason than that he differed with them on the subject of the Eucharist; where Calvin brought Servetus to the stake, and the Bernese Reformers beheaded Gentilis, for opinions scarce more heterodox, on the Trinity, than those of Whiston and Dr. Samuel Clarke;-through that whole region, not only the Trinity, but every doctrine at all connected with it, the superior nature of Christ, the Personality of the Holy Spririt, the Incarnation,$ the Atonement with its at. * Among these is Paulus, who, in his Commentary, asserts, that Christ did not really die, but suffered a fainting fit. One of the fathers of Rationalism, Selmcr, held the Resurrection to be a sort of poetic mythus, which was to be received in some moral or allegorical sense; and Wegschneider says, that though Christ seemed to the bystanders to expire, yet, after a few hours, being given up to the sedulous care of his friends, he returned to life on the third day. Mr. Pusey looks upon it as one of those symptoms of a return ing reverence for Christianity which he js sanguine enough to perceive in the present state of the Germans, that the doctrine of the Resurrection has resumed its place in their creed. "Many," he says, "I heard of, others I saw in Germany, who had formerly been cold Rationalists, but who were now in different degrees approximating to the fulness of Christianity. From the stage in which the one great miracle of our Saviour's Resurrection was held as the basis of Christian revelation, from this stage onwards there was progress."-Historical Inquiry. t " The ministers of Geneva," says a.Protestant writer, Grenus, " have already passed the unchangeable barrier. They have held out the hand of fellovship to Deists and to the enemies of the faith. They even blush to make mention, in their Catechisms, of Original Sin, without which the Incarnation of the Eternal Word is no longer necessary." Rousseau, in his Lettres de la Montagne, gives much the sam? account of the Genevese of his own time:-" When asked," he says, "if Jesus Christ is God, they do not dare to answer. When asked, what mysteries they admit, they still do not dare to answer....... A philosopher casts upon them a rapid glance and penetrates them at once,-he sees they are Arians, Socinians." I We find clear work made of all these mysteries by a German divine, Cannabich, who in a " Review of the ancient and new Dogmas of the Christian Faith," coolly sets aside the Trinity, Original Sin, Justification, the Satisfaction of Christ, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, as taught in his own Church. This levelling divine (who held one of the highest dignities in the Lutheran Church) thus speaks of the Trinity:-" The dogma of the Trinity 192 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN tendant mysteries, have all, by the great mass of Protestants, of all denominations, been cast off, as fictions and absurdities, fron their creed. " Finally,-to close and crown this series of striking contrasts which the Germany of the nineteenth century presents to the Germany of the sixteenth and seventeenth,-I need but point to the extraordinary coalition which has, within these few years, taken place between the two principal creeds into which the Reformation, in its first progress, branched. Of all Churches, perhaps, that ever existed, the most fiercely intolerant has been the Lutheran,*-not only in persecuting, imprisoning, and even excluding from salvation, as heretics,t the members of her sister Church, the Reformed or Calvinist, but also in nurturing within her own bosom such a nest of discordt as had never before been engendered by theologic hate,-Ultra Lutherans, and Melancthonians refusing each other the rites of communion and burial,~-Flacianists against Strigelians,-Osiandrians against Stancarians,JI-each of these parties hating its opposite as inveterately as all agreed in detesting their common enemy the Calvinists. Yet this very Church, born, as it was, and nursed in discord, till strife seemed the very element, the principle, of its existence, has, within these few years (thanks to the becalmmay be removed, without scruple, from religious instruction, as being a new doctrine, without foundation, and contrary to reason; but it must be done with great circumspection, that weak Christians may not take scandal at it, or a pretext to reject all religion!" * " De toutes les sectes. du Christianisme," says Rousseau, with just severity, "la Luth6rienne me parbit la plus incons6quente. Elle a r6uni comme a plaisir contre elle seule toutes les objections qu'elles se font l'une a l'autre. Elle est en particulier intol6rante comme PEglise R omaine; mais le grand argument de celle-ci lui manque; elle est intolhrante sans savoir pourquoi."-Lettres de la Montagne. f Thus a learned Professor, Fecht, in a work, "De Beatitudine Mortuorum in Domino," expressed his opinion that all but Lutherans, and certainly all the Reformed, were excluded from salvation. But to Lutherans he asserted that the term "der selige," or "died in the Lord," ought in all cases to be applied, even though they had led notoriously ungodly and profligate lives, and on their death-beds had not given the least indication of repentance.-See Mr. Pusey's Historical Inquiry. T Among the instances of Lutherans persecuted by Lutherans, I shall only enumerate Strigel, imprisoned three years for maintaining that man was not merely passive in the work of his conversion,-Hardenberg, deposed and banished from Saxony for only approximating to the reformed doctrines on the Communion,-Peucer, Melancthon's son-in-law, imprisoned ten years, for espousing the cause of his father-in-law's followers, and Cracau, put to the torture for the same Anti-Lutheran offence. ~ The origin of this controversy was the extravagant assertion of Flacius, that " original sin was the substance of human nature." ii By Osiander it was maintained that ourjustification through Christ was derived from his divine nature solely, while Stancarus ascribed the work of justification to his human nature alone. Thus did these "graceless bigots fight."- -for ever in extremes, and for ever in the dark. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 193 ing power of Rationalism) sunk quietly into coalition with its ancient foe, and now shares amicably with it the same temples, the same ministers, and the same Sacraments!* " To the eternal glory of Reason, the world now beholds the edifying spectacle of two religions once so mutually hostile, that each would have freely granted salvation to be attainable any where but within the hated pale of the other, now quiescently subsiding into a partnership of belief,-with creeds simplified, it is true, on both sides, to so rational an extent, as to leave them, even were they so disposed, but few dogmas to dispute about,t and, with that best and sole guard against dissension and craft, a freedom from all dark and uncharitable mysteries. " fo Zwingli who, both by the example and the rule which he held out in applying the touchstone of common sense to the mystery of the Eucharist, was the main source, I again repeat, of all the consequences I have been describing, we are indebted for other bold lights, in the same adventurous track, which would yet more fully illustrate the working of his principle, but to which the extent this Lecture already has reached, permits me barely to allude. The gloomy dogma of Original Sin,-an evident graft from Manicheism,-was among the doctrines discarded by this enlightened Reformer,4 who, in rejecting the notion that * One of the compromises by which this strange union has been effected, is not a little curious. The Lutherans had been accustomed, like the Catholics, to use a small wafer, whole; the Calvinists bread, which they broke. They now use, in common, a large Lutheran wafer, which is broken, like the Calvinistic bread. We have here a type, if I may so say, of the fate of German Protestantism altogether. It was respecting the substance in the Eucharist that these Churches first fell into variance, and now a mere compromise as to the wafer, has been sufficient to bring them together again! Well might the Abbd de la Mennais say, " Le Protestantisme fatigue s'est mdormi sur des ruines." t As a confirmation of all that is here stated by the Professor, I give the bfllowing passage from an English traveller, Mr. Jacob, who, in speakingol the reconciliation in question, says, "This union is said to have spread still wider a spirit of indifference upon sacred subjects. The distinguishing tenet of the Lutherans, and that which is contained in their Symbolic Books, to which the clergy profess adherence, is the doctrine of the Real presence ot the body and blood of Christ, in the bread and wine, in the Lord's Supper. This tenet, though it has ever been the profession of the Lutheran Church, has long been abandoned by almost the whole of its ministers. The Reformed or Calvinistic ministers, had, like their brethren of the Lutheran party, little to give up. Their distinguishing tenets of predestination, election, perseverance, and impelling grace, were passed over in their public services, as obsolete dogmas never to be introduced, and it was generally understood that, for a century past, they have been scarcely entertained by any considerable number of the clergy; so that the union which has been effected is not imagined to have had any other practical effect, but that of making the common people think religious worship, under any form, as much a matter of indifference as this union, thus easily effected, shows that different opinions are to their teachers." f He held it to be a misfortune, a malady of man's nature,-not sin, nor M 17 194 TRAVELS OF AN IRISI GENTLEMAN Baptism washes away sin, denied that there is any original si. to wash away. As on the existence, too, of this innate corrup. tion, depends the necessity of a Redemption, we can little wonder at his adopting a scheme of Salvation so comprehensive, that, according to his view, the great heroes and sages of Paganism are no less admissible to the glories of Heaven than St. Paul himself. In his Confession of Faith addressed, but a short time before his death, to Francis I, not content with assuring that monarch that he might expect to meet, in the assembly of the Blessed, such illustrious ancients as Socrates, the Scipios, the Catos, grouped, side by side, with Moses, Isaiah, and the Virgin Mary, he announces also, as part of the company, the Demi-gods Hercules and Theseus, and at the head of all places Adam and Jesus Christ himself. "I have already intimated that, during his lifetime, some suspicion attached to Zwingli of being less orthodox, on the subject of the Trinity, than were most of his brother Reformers;* and though he succeeded, as we are told, in vindicating himself, on this point, to Luther, 1 am inclined to believe, from the little ceremony with which, in so solemn a document, he classes the Saviour undistinguishingly with all this motley group of Saints and Demi-gods, that the suspicion of his heterodoxy, on the subject of Christ's divinity, was not without foundation. In truth, to a mind far less penetrating than that of Zwingli, it could not fail to have been self-evident, that the very same motive and principle on which he had acted in explaining away Transubstantiation -namely, that all which is unintelligible should be held to be incredible,-would lead, with equal certainty, to the overturn of the no less inexplicable enigma of the Trinity. It was on these incurring the penalty of damnation. "Colligimus ergo peccatum originale morbunm quidem esse, qui tamen per se non culpabilis est, nec damnationis pocnam inferre potest."-Tractat. de Baptism. * Calvin, too, was accused of heterodoxy, on this subject, by the Lutherans, and a book was published by Hutter, one of their most violent divines, to prove that Calvin " had corrupted, in a detestable manner, the most illustrious passages and testimonies in the Holy Scriptures, relating to the most glorious Trinity, to the Godhead of Christ, and the Holy Spirit." The grounds of this Charge against Calvin are to be found in the view taken by that Reformer of some of those prophecies and types of the Hebrew Scriptures which are, by most Christians, regarded as having reference to Christ, but which Calvin, anticipating the system of the Rationalists, applied solely to the temporal condition and prospects of the Jews. In noticing this mode of interpretation (which Professor Scratchenbach might have cited, among nis instances of the rationalizing spirit of Protestanism) Mosheim thus speaks:"It must, however, be observed, that some of these interpreters, and more especially Calvin, have been sharply censured for applying to the temporal state and circumstances of the Jews, several prophecies that point to the vlMessiah, and to the Christian dispensation in the most evident manner, and thus removing some of the most striking arguments in favor of the divinity oj the Gospel." IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 195 grounds that the latter doctrine was attacked afterwards so suc. cessfully, by Socinus; and the two strong holds of mystery having thus fallen before the summons of Reason, all those other inroads into the ancient territory of Faith, which it has been my object to point out to you, have followed naturally in succession." CHAPTER XLVI. Reflections.-Letter from Miss * *.-Marriages of the Reformers.-CEcolampadius.--Bucer.-Calvin and his Ideletta.-Luther and his Catharine de Bore.-Their Marriage Supper-Hypocrisy of the Reformers.-Challenge at the Black Bear.-The War of the Sacrament. THOSE among my readers to whom, from their previous unacquaintance with the subject, the picture that has just been given of the present state of Protestantism in Germany, comes with the same shock of novelty, as it did, I confess, to myself, can alone form any adequate notion of the wonder, the incredulity, with which I listened to that summing up of the Protestants' creed of unbelief, (as it is hardly a solecism to call it,) which has been reported faithfully, as it fell from my instructor's own lips, in the concluding portion of his Lecture. I had, it is true, been sufficiently prepared by my knowledge of the earlier heresies,-those elder branches of the dark family of Simon Magus, the Valentinians, Marcionites, &c.,-to expect all possible freaks of belief from a free, uncontrolled range of Reason through the Scriptures. But that I should find unbelief resulting, to such an extent, from the same license of private judgment, was, though an equally natural consequence, by no means so clearly foreseen by me; nor could I help now calling to mind the remark of a clever Protestant writer,-a remark which, when first I happened to light upon it, struck me as bordering on the extravagant, but to whose truth, the fate that has attended Christianity, in the very father-land of the Reformation, bears but too awful a testimony,-namely, that "the first step of separation from the Church of Rome was the first step to in. fidelity."* So incredible, however, did some of the details of this new negative code of Christianity appear to me, that I resolved to satisfy myself, by direct reference to some of the Professor's au* Extracts from the Diary of a Lover of Literature.-The intelligent author of this work, Mr. Green, lived in habits of intimacy with some of the most eminent men of the last half century. It is in speaking of Dryden's poem of "the Hind and the Panther" that he says, " His Hind demonstrates-what I have often thought, but tremble to express-that the first step of separation from the Church of Rome was the first to Infidelity." 196 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN thorities, as to how far dependance might be placed on his very startling statements. With this view, declining, for a time, the honor of any further lectures from him, I applied myself sedu. lously to the study of all such Rationalist writers as were likely to aid me in forming a judgment respecting the nature of their system. In this task, however, I was, before long, interrupted by a letter from Miss * *, in which, mixing up, as usual, sentiment and theology together, she entreated, as a special favor, that I would collect, for her Album, all such particulars as were on record, respecting " those heaven-favored women who, in the first dawn of the Reformation, enjoyed the enviable distinction of being the wives of Reformers, and thus participating in the affection and sweetening the toils of the first laborers in that great and most goodly vineyard." Though my own romance on the subject had considerably abated, I lost no time in performing, to the best of my ability, this commission of my fair friend, whose exceeding zeal in all matters of theology, (whatever might be her knowledge of them,) entitled her fully to the eulogy passed by Bossuet on a learned R6ligieuse of his time: ' II y a bien de la th6ologie sous la robe de cette femme." Beginning with (Ecolampadius, the early friend of Erasmus,* who was the first priest that took advantage of that era of liberty to provide himself with the lay luxury of a handsome young wife, I proceeded regularly through the list of all those who were induced to follow in so inviting a path. " CEcolampadius," says Erasmus, in one of his letters, "has taken to himself a wife-a pretty young girl; he wants, I suppose, to mortify himself. Some call Lutheranism a tragedy; but I call it a comedy, where the distress generally ends in a wedding." Even the stern Calvin was not proof against this " primrose path of dalliance;" but, on the death of one M. de Bure, an Anabaptist, whom he had converted, kindly followed up this spi ritual service by espousing his widow.t Martin Bucer, who had been originally a Dominican friar, no sooner cast off his frock than he set about marrying, like the rest,-" et meme plus que les autres," says Bossuet, as it was the friar's good fortune to become the husband of no less than three ladies in succession; one of whom (still more to heighten * For the share which Erasmus was supposed to have taken in preparing the way for the Reformation, the Lutherans acknowledged their gratitude, by having a picture painted, " in which Luther and Hutten were represented carrying the ark of God, and Erasmus dancing before them with all his might."-Critique de l'.3pol. d'Erasme, quoted by Jortin. 4 The name of the lady was Ideletta. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 197 the zest of wrong) had been a nun.* This extreme readinese to marry,-more especially on the part of ecclesiastic proselytes, -was regarded as a proof of heartiness in the cause of religious reform; while, on the other hand, any antiquated scruple at the thoughts of violating the most solemn vows, was held in suspicion, as a symptom of still lurking Popery.t With this sort of evidence of good Protestantism, Martin Bucer was, as we have seen, amply provided; and one of his wives had been even more of a pluralist, in matrimony, than himself. By a singular run of good luck, too, this lady's marriages lay all in the Reforming line;-her first husband having been Ludovicus Cellarius; her second, the famous (Ecolampadius, who had been a Brigittine monk; her third, Wolfgang Capito, one of the most active of the Reformers; and her fourth, the Dominican friar, and helping Apostle of the English Reformation, Martin Bucer. Knowing that the career of this fair promoter of Protestantism would be sure to interest my friend, Miss * *, exceedingly, 1 took care to set it forth as much in detail as my materials would allow of; pointing out particularly to her notice the sentimental incident of CEcolampadius's widow becoming also, in succession, the widow of his two most esteemed colleagues, Capito and Bucer. Nor was the liberality of these Reformers, respecting mar riage, confined solely to their own particular cases, but extended even more indulgently to the matrimonial propensities of others; and while three wives in succession were deemed by Bucer a sufficient privilege for himself, he allowed to the Landgrave of Hesse, in consideration of his great services to Protestantism, the right, somewhat less customary among Christians, of having two wives at a time. The Memorial addressed by this Prince to the Reformers, stating his reasons for requiring such a luxury, and the Dispensation granted, in consequence, signed by Luther, Melancthon, and Bucer,t in which they allow to this great pa* The nun is said to have borne him thirteen children. "C'eft eit dommage," says Bayle, " qu'une fille si propre a multiplier fat rester dans le couvent." f "Ce que M. de Meaux observe qu'en ce tems-la le mariage otoit une recommendation dans le parti, n'est pas entierement faux; car il est certain qu'un ecclesiastique, qui ne se seroit point marid, eut fait naitre des souppons qu'il n'avait pas rdnonc6 au dogme de la loi du Ctlibat. Je crois que Bucer insinua cette raison a Calvin lorsqu'il le pressa de se marier."-Bayle. So much was this the case at that period, that the Visitors appointed in the reign of Edward the Sixth, exhorted all ecclesiastics to marry, as a sure sign of their abjuration of Popery. + He assured them that a second wife was quite necessary to his conscience, and that he would thereby be enabled " to live and die more gaily for the cause of the Gospel!" In Bossuet (liv. 6) and Bayle (art. Luther) the reader will find all the particulars of this most disgraceful transaction, which, from the secrecy with which it was managed by the parties, remained for a long period unknown, till, at last, the publication of the curious docu17 198 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN tron of their faith the additional wife he requires, form together as curious specimens of the morality of a religion of reason as an inquirer into the history of such creeds could desire. But the great hero and heroine of my " Loves of the Reform. ers," were the mighty Martin himself, and his fair Catharine do Bore. Commencing from the memorable Good Friday, when this lady, with eight other nuns, escaped, under the care of Leonard Koppen, from her convent,* I showed how early Luther evinced that strong interest in her fate which led eventually to their union. For, not only did he defend Koppen's achievement, in carrying off the nine nuns, but even compared itt" to that of Christ himself, in carrying away the Saints captive to Satan. In tracing the history of the destined wife of Luther through the interval between this elopement and her marriage, I took care to avoid even an allusion to any of those scandalous and, as it would seem, false stories related by Maimbourg, Varillas, and others, respecting her conduct among the young students of Wittenberg. The curious circumstances, however, leading immediately to the marriage, I was enabled to give authentically as stated in those MSS. left by Luther's friend, Amsdorf, to which Seckendorf had access. From these it appears that Miss Catharine had, in a conversation with Amsdorf, complained that it was Luther's intention to marry her, against her will, to Doctor Glacius. She, therefore, begged of Amsdorf, knowing on what intimate terms he lived with Luther, to try and prevail upon his friend to choose some other husband for her; adding, that she was ready, at a minute's notice, to marry either Amsdorf ot Luther himself, but, on no account, Doctor Glacius.: ments connected with it, by the Elector Palatine, Charles Lewis, revealed the whole to the world. The motives of the three leading Reformers, concerned in it, for this most profligate concession, are thus shrewdly touched on by Bayle; who, after giving some extracts from the Landgrave's Memorial, or Instruction, continues, II joignit a tout cela je ne sai quelles menaces et quelles promesses, qui donnerent a penser a ses Casuistes; car il y a beaucoup d'apparence que si un simple gentilhomme les efit consultes sur un pareil fait il n'eut rien obtenu d'eaux.. On peut done s'imaginer raisonnablement qu'ils furent de petite foi: ils n'eurent pas la confiance qu'ils devoient avoir aux promesses de Jesus Christ; ils craignirent que si la R6formation d'Allemagne n'dtoit soutenue par les Princes qui en faisoient profession, elle ne ffit etoufie." * The example of these nuns was followed by another batch, consisting of double the number, who, soon after, made their escape from the Monastery of Wedersteten. j It is but fair to say that the reporter of this blasphemy is Cochleus, who, from his exceeding violence against Luther, must be regarded as rather suspicious testimony. The following are the words in this writer:-" Felicem raptorem sicut Christus raptor erat in mundo quando per mortem suam..... et quidem opportunissimo tempore in Pascha quo Christus suorum quoque captivam duxit captivitatem." I Venit Catherina ad Nicolaum Amsdorffium, conqueriturque se de con silio Lutheri D. Glacio contra voluntatem snam nuptiis locandam: scire se IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 199 On this hint the Great Reformer spake; and, with a rapidity unexampled, (as if the vows pledged to keep them asunder but made them more impatient to come together)-Miss Catharine de Bore became, almost on the instant, Madame Luther. Without a single hint of the matter to any of his friends, he invited a party to supper, consisting of the bride, a priest, a lawyer, and a painter,-the last attending professionally, as well as the oihers, being summoned to take the fair Catharine's portrait,*-and in this apostolical manner was solemnized a marriage wihich. for a time, filled the ranks of Protestantism with dismay. The deep concern of his friend, Melancthon, at this unseasonable event-his own consciousness of the shame and humiliation he had incurred, by a step which, as he himself bitterly said, would, he hoped, "make angels laugh and all the devils weep,f"--the reaction that followed so closely upon this feeling of degradation, and the violent effort by which, regaining his own esteem, he soon succeeded in persuading himself that, after all, the finger of Providence was manifest in the whole affair, and it was God himself that had suggested to him to marry that nun, Catharine de Bore"T:-all these various struggles be. tween conscience and passion afforded me scope for such alter. nations of light and shadow as, in the Memoir of a wedded Monk and Nun, could not fail to be turned strikingly to account. To give a domestic interest, too, to the story, I took care to mix up with it a number of conjugal details, showing how happily, through all the war of creeds, this holy menage went on, Lutherum familiarissime uti Amsdorffio; itaque rogare ad quaevis alia consilia Lutherum vocet. Vellet Lutherus, vellet Amsdorffius se paratam cum alterutro honestum inire matrimonium,-cum D. Glacio nullo modo.Seckendorf. Comment. de Lutheranismo. This whole plan does much credit to the ingenuity of Miss Catharine, who was already well aware how much Luther admired her. There had, indeed, from the display and notoriety of the Reformer's fondness for her, arisen rumors not very creditable to either of the parties. To these rumors he himself alludes, in one of his letters,"os obstruxi," he says, "infamantibus me cum Catharina Borana"-and his warm advocate, Seckendorf states, without any reserve, that " he had wished exceedingly for the girl, and used to call her his Catharine"-" Optima enim cupiebat virgini et suam vocare Catharinam solebat." * The name of this painter was Carnachius, and an engraving from the best of his portraits of Catharine, was prefixed by M. Mayer, to his Disser. tation "de Catharina, Lutheri conjuge," for the express purpose of clearing Luther from the imputation of having married a pretty woman. t Sic me vilem et contemptum his nuptiis feci, ut angelos ridere et omnes daemones flere sperem,-Epist. ad Spalat. 4 Dominus me subith aliaque cogitantem conjecit mire in conjugium cum Catharina Borensi moniali illa.-Epist. ad Winces. Linc. Even Melancthon, too, brou glt himself to think (or, at least, to say) that it was possible there might be "something hidden and divine" under this marriage:-" Isto enim sub negotio fortasse aliquid occulti et quiddam divinius subest!"--Epist. ad Camerar. Can infatuation or hypocrisy-for it must be one or the othergo farther? 200 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN and how much attached to his " girl," as he fondly called her,* the great Reformer continued to the last. With her, indeed, was always associated in his mind whatever he considered most precious and sacred; nor could he more satisfactorily to himself express his ardent admiration of St. Paul's Epistle to the Gala. tians, (his favorite portion of all Scripture,) than by saying that, Slie had wedded himself to that Epistle, and that it was his Catharine de Bore."t The reader has by this time, I trust, come to know me somewhat too well to suppose that, light as may have been the tone in which I dwelt on these details, I was at all insensible to their true and gross nature, or could feel otherwise than deeply disgusted at the scenes of vulgar self-indulgence and nauseous hypocrisy which this whole drama, to a near observer of the chief actors in it, exhibits. It was, indeed, with some difficulty, I contrived to hide, under a thin surface of pleasantry, (such as any other eyes than those of rny learned instructress would have seen through,) the feeling of loathing with which I traced these mock Evangelists through their career,-with which I followed them to their homes, and through all their haunts and habits, and saw them come flushed from their " Table-talk," and their thricetransmitted wives, to tread down, like dogs and swine, the "holy things," and " pearls" of the Faith. The historian Hume has truly characterized the first Reformers as "fanatics" and "bigots;" but with no less justice, might he have added, that they were (with one exception, perhapst) the coarsest hypocrites;~ men, who, while professing the * In boasting that the " wise men" of his party, who were so angry at his marriage, had been themselves forced to acknowledge the finger of God in the event, he thus expresses himself:-Vehemcntur irritantur sapientos inter nostros: rem coguntur Dei fateri, sed persons larva tam mea quam puellae illos dementat.-Lutheri Epist. ap Seckend. t Epistola ad Galatas est mea Epistola cui me despondi-est mea Catharina de Bora. I The one exception here made by my friend can be no other, of course, than Melancthon; yet, it would be difficult, on considering the career of this amiable, but most irresolute man, to acquit him wholly of, at least, the duplicity of disguising his true opinions and lending the sanction of his countenance to measures which he disapproved. The sole circumstance of his upholding, in public, as correct documents of faith, both the Confession and the Apology, which he yet, in his private letters, mourns over, as containing errors and obscurities which it was most essential to amend, is, in itself, so culpable a sacrifice to the headlong spirit of party, as nothing but the remorse which he himself felt for it, can at all palliate or atone. ft is true, his position was most trying; and but too aptly did he compare himself to "Daniel among the lions," as never was gentle spirit surrounded by such uncongenial associates. But his approval of the atrocious crime of the burning of Servetus-how is this to be palliated? It was but in character for such men as Bucer and Farol to demand that the doubter of the Trinity should " have his bowels pulled out," should " die ten thousand deaths;"-but Melancthon! ~ To this charge Bucer himself, the most hypocritical of the whole band, IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 201 most high-flown sanctity in their writings, were, in their conduct, brutal, selfish, and unrestrainable; who, though pretending, in matters of faith, to adopt reason as their guide, were, in all things else, the slaves of the most vulgar superstition; and who, with the boasted right of judgment for ever on their lips, passed their lives in a course of mutual crimination and persecution; and transmitted the same warfare as an heir-loom to their descendants. Yet, "these be thy Gods," oh Protestantism!-these the coarse idols, which Heresy has set up in the niches of the Saints and Fathers of old, and whose names, like those of all former such idols,* are worn, like brands, upon the foreheads of their worshippers. How any Protestant that has ever examined, even but slightly, into the disgraceful history of that long series of wranglings, equivocations and frauds, which the attempt to understand, or rather to mystify, each other, on the one single doctrine of the Eucharist, gave rise to among the Reformers, can be content to have received his faith, at the hands of innovators at once so double-dealing and so clumsy, is to me a marvel unspeakable. The very commencement of this Sacramentarian warfare resembled far more the preliminaries of a horse-race, than the solemn preparation for a controversy by which the faith of millions yet unborn was to be influenced. " I defy you," said Luther, haugh. tily, to Carlostadt, "to write against me on the Real Presence; and will even give you this gold florin, if you will undertake to do so." In saying thus, Luther took from his pocket a florin, which Carlostadt accepted and deposited in his own. They then shook hands on the challenge, and swallowing down a bumper to each other's healths, the War of the Sacrament was thus, in the true German style, declared.t" The scene of this memorable interview was at the Black Bear, where Luther lodged; and in such manner was it that the ineffable and adorable Mystery, which the Saints of other days knelt pleaded guilty. In a letter written to Calvin, during the victorious career of Charles V, he says, " God has punished us for the injury which we have done to his name by our long and most mischievous hypocrisy." * From the very beginning of the Christian church, this adoption of names derived from men,-such as Marcionites, Arians, Donatists, Lutherans, Calvinists, &c., has invariably been the badge of heretical strife and schism; some saying that they are of Paul, others that they are of Apollos, and others that they are of Cephas. "The Apostles," says Ephrem ofEdessa, "gave no names, and when it is done, there is a departure from their rule." How aptly may the words of St. Augustin to the Donatists be applied by a Catholic of the present day to that swarm of Caivinists, Arminians, Socinians, &c., who are opposed to him.-" I am called Catholic, you are with Donatus."--- Ego Catholica dicor et vos de Donati parte.-Psalm. contra part. Donati. t Luther. T. 2, Jen. 447. Calix. Judic. n. 49. Hospin. 2 par. ad ann. 1.524 See Note at the end of the volume. 202 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN to, as the " hidden manna" of salvation, " the wisdom of God in a mystery," was started, as fit game to be hunted down, by this pair of challengers at the Black Bear So much for the decency of those new apostles of Christian. ity;--for their consistency, tolerance, good faith, and wisdom, let the whole history of that most disreputable controversy speak. In the very first attempt of the Lutherans at a regular Confession of Faith, no less than six different explanations of their doctrine respecting the Eucharist (each announced as positively for the last time of explaining) followed in quick succession; while the counter explanations, on the Sacramentarian side, were almost equally numerous. Then came the wily and tortuous Bucer, as a mediator between the parties,-a mediator, by affecting to agree with both, -a reconciler, by misrepresenting each to the other; now inducing Luther to think that Calvin concurred in a Real Presence of Christ's body, while Calvin meant but some vague presence to the eye of faith, and in the sky; now persuading Calvin that Luther admitted the substance present to be spiritual, while, on the contrary, Luther held, as do the Catholics, that the miraculous presence in the Sacrament is spiritual only as to the manner, but corporeal as to the substance. By such tricks and evasions did Bucer,-and, it is painful to add, Melancthon,-succeed in maintaining, for a time, a false and feverish truce between the parties. But arts so gross could not long continue to deceive; all compromise was found to be hollow and hopeless, and, at last, the three great Eucharistic factions, the Lutheran, the Calvinian, and the Zwinglian, all broke loose in their respective directions of heresy,-each branch again subdividing itself into new factious distinctions, under the countless names of Panarii, Accidentarii, Corporarii, Arrabonarii, Tropista, Metamorphiste, Iscariotistae, Schwenkenfeldians, &c. &c.. &c. till, to such an extent did the caprice of Private Judgment carry its freaks, on this one solemn subject, that an author of Bellarmine's time (as that great man informs us) counted no less than two hundred different opinions on the words " This is my body!" But the whole history of that period abounds with lessons full of melancholy warning; nor can any thing more strikingly impress us with the infatuation or ignorance of those persons who still cry out for " the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible," than thus to see that the very men who first raised that cry, and who held the Bible to be all-sufficient for the discovery of divine truth, could yet fall into all this fierce and interminable discord about the meaning of a text consisting of but four simple words IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 203 CHAPTER XLVII. Blasphemies of the Rationalists.-Sources of infidelity in Germany.--Absurdity of some of the Lutheran doctrines.-Impiety of* those of Calvin.Contempt for the authority of the Fathers.-Doctor Damman.-Decline of Calvinism. IT required ro very long or deep study of the chief oracles of Rationalism to convince me fully that, in the Professor's description of the present awful state of Protestantism in Germany, he had by no means exaggerated or over-colored his picture. On the contrary, I found that his statements, however incredible they had at first appeared, were but a faint and diluted representation of the truth; and that, while, from the fear perhaps of giving alarm to so mere a neophyte in the school of Rationalism, he concealed from me more than half of the impieties of the system, he had also, for the honor of his supreme sovereign, Reason, thrown a veil over all its feebleness and its folly. Had I wanted any thing, indeed, to prove, to my fullest con, viction, how wholly misplaced is reasoning, on a subject where, if feeling and faith be not alive, all else is " of the earth, earthy," I should have found it in the pitiful exhibition which these men, otherwise so acute and learned, afford in their attempts to bring down the grand and awful wonders of Christianity to the level of their own finite and low-thoughted reason; nor between the example which they present of irreverent boldness, on such subjects, and the most stupid and superstitious acquiescence under belief, is there much more to choose than between the ass of the Egyptians, carrying gravely the Mysteries, and the same ass, in a fit of liveliness, trampling them clumsily under his feet. With the more plausible features of that mere phantom of Christianity, which still wears the abused name of Protestantism, in Germany, the reader already has become acquainted, from the sketch given of its rise and progress by M. Scratchenbach; and. to go into details of the profane excess to which the system has been carried, would be a task, even had I left myself space for it, neither agreeable nor useful. To give some notion, however, of the tricks, in the way of theology and exegesis, which Fancy, under the demure mask of Reason, can play, I shall here string together, at hazard, a few of the leading results at which these itquirers into "the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible," have arrived. In the Old Testament, the history of the Creation, of Paradise, and of Adam and Eve, are nothing but allegories 'r mythi. The Pentateuch, which may be looked upon as a sort ol " Theocratic Epic," was not written by Moses, but compiled at a L.uch later 204 TRAVELb Orl AN IRISH GENTLEMAN period; and Jehovah was but the Household God, or Fetiche of the family of Abraham, which David, Solomon, and the pro phets, afterwards promoted to the rank of Creator of all things It is plain that Deuteronomy could not have been the work of Moses, nor Ecclesiastes that of Solomon, as in each case it would suppose the author to have related his own decease. The Psalms were a sort of Anthology to which David and other writers con. tributed; and the productions of the chief contributor are thus criticised by a grave theologian, Augusti: " David's muse takes no high flight, but he succeeds best in Songs and Elegies." By critics of the same school, Esther is pronounced to be a Histor, ical Romance, while Ruth, they say, was written for the purpose of proving David to have sprung from a good family, and the story of Jonah is but a repetition of the fable of Hercules swallowed by a sea-monster. As to the Prophets, the learned Eichorn allows them the credit of having been sharp, clever men, who saw further into futurity than their contemporaries; while others, assigning to them a decided political character, " make them out," says Mr. Rose, " to be demagogues and Radical Reformers." The Prophecy, in Isaiah, of the Fall of Babylon, was evidently written by some one who was present at the siege; and the predictions, supposed to refer to Christ, in the same rhapsodies, relate to the fortunes and ultimate fate of the race of Prophets in general.* In the New Testament, the miraculous birth of Christ is to be ranked in the class of mythologic fictions, along with the stories of the incarnations of the Indian Gods,-and more especially that of Buddha's generation from a Virgin, who had conceived him by a rainbow. The motive of Christ for giving himself out for a Prophet was that he might thereby have more weight, as a moral teacher; and, in like manner, he was induced afterwards to personate the Messiah,t from the notion entertained by his admirers, that he was that promised personage. According to Wieland, Jesus Christ was a noble Jewish magician,4 who, on his own part, never conceived the least idea of being the founder * "There is a book by Scherer, (a clergyman in Hesse Darmstadt,) in which he represents the prophets of the Old Testament as so many Indian juglers, who made use of the pretended inspiration of Moses and the revelations of the prophets to deceive the people."-Rose's State of Protestantism in Germany. t Jesum personam Messie suscepisse.-De Wette. t A Prussian Rationalist has even improved (in the retrograde direction) upon this notion of Wieland. "I1 existe," says Stapfer, " un livre publid ern Prusse, dans des intentions pieuses, et dont le titre dit plus que les plus longs d6vellopemens historiques ne pourroient apprendre a ceux qui aiment a douter encore de l'empire des opinions Rationalistes en Allemagne; le voiciJesus Christ fut-i! autre chose q'mun simple rabbin de campagne Juif?"-JAr chives du Christ aiisme. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 205 of a Religion, and whose Intitute only assumed the form of re ligion by time. Much of the obscurity, it is said, in which the doctrines of the New Testament are involved, is owing to the stupidity and superstition of the Apostles, who misunderstood, in many instances, the language of their master,* and whose gross misconception of his promises, as to a future kingdom, involved him in difficulties with his followers, from which he saw no other way of extricating himself honorably but by death.t It is painful thus to repeat,-even for the purpose of denouncing them,-profanations and blasphemies at once so daring and so frivolous. But a Reverend Protestant has not shrunk from recording them in his pages, and a Catholic has, at least, one less reason for being ashamed of them. The original source of all this flood of irreligion, by which Protestantism has been swept away in Germany, and even Christianity herself seen her " foundations overflown," has, in the foregoing lecture of my German instructor, been clearly and irrefragably pointed out; nor is he a less valuable authority for the true source of the evil, because, by a perversion of moral vision, he regards it as a good, and, in the false pride of Illumin atism, even glories in results, over which every thinking Chris tian, of all sects, must mourn. In one respect only can the view taken by the Professor, of the causes of this great religious revolution, be considered partial or imperfect. In the wish to claim for his favorite Zwingli the whole honor, as he deems it, of having, by the principle which he first applied to the interpretation of Scripture, led the way in this desecrating and unchristianizing system, he has failed to do justice to the share which both Luther and Calvin contributed, in their several ways, to the same lamentable result; * Etsi enim Apostolorum innocentiam, integritatem, pietatem, fervorem et ev9ovctacrlov ea, qua par est veneratione agnoscimus, dissimulare tamen non possumus fuisse cos non solum variis superstitionibus et falsis opinionibus imbutos, sed tamen indociles quoque et tardos, ut si Jesus paulo obscuriore loquendi genere uteretur, eum prorsus non intelligerent.-De Wette, de Morte Jesu Christi Expiatoria. t Voluit Jesus, veterum prophetarum more, morte sua doctrina veritatem profiteri, sperans fore ut difficultatibus quibus, se vivo, pressam videbat, morte sua superatis, victrix tamer illa evaderet, et vanis Messiae opinionibus destructus, in hominum animos vim suam salutarem exsereret.-De Wette. In considering what was the particular reading, adopted by Christ, of a passage in Daniel, which he accommodated to himself, this writer coolly discu sses our Saviour's qualifications for the task of interpreting the Old Testament,-- saying that, though he could not, of course, be expected to know the new Grammatico-historical mode of interpretation, still it was impossible he could be so neglectful of the true meaning of the passage as to understand it in the manner attributed to him:-" Is enim in lectione Vet. Testamenti, licet nostree exegeseos grammatico-historicae rudis, contextus tamen non adeo negh gens esse potuit, ut locum, &c. &c." 18 206 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN nor, in showing how Zwingli set the example of undermining Christianity by the anti-mysterious and naturalizing cast of Ais doctrines, has sufficiently pointed out how his brethren of Geneva and Wittenberg conducted exactly to the same end by the absurdity of theirs. We have already seen how revolting were some of those no. ions of Luther, which, adopted, as they were, in all the wanton. ness of self-will, by himself, descended afterwards, under the abused name of doctrines, to his Church. Of one of these, the Ubiquity of the human nature of Christ,-an extravagance that has no parallel in the whole range of Gnosticism,-its author himself had, towards the close of his life, seen reason to be ashamed; and, with his usual caprice, as well in dictating as in countermanding doctrines, had, in some of his later writings, wholly abandoned the notion. Already, however, had his name hallowed even this nonsense to his followers;-the Ubiquity had become a part and parcel of Lutheranism, and, as such, was to be maintained and wrangled for with the rest. It was, in fact, not as articles of belief, but as badges of party, tlhat any of these monstrous extravagances were clung to so obstinately. Torn up, as was the Lutheran Church, into a multiplicity of schism, every such dictum of their founder became the Shibboleth of a faction, and the more inconceivably absurd was its nature, the more desperate the fidelity with which it was defended. That this is no unfair or distorted representation of that Church, the pages of Mr. Pusey,-the historian, as he may be called, of the Decline and Fall of German Protes!antism,but too sufficiently testify. It is only surprising, indeed, that the reaction, in favor of insulted reason, to which, at last, this war of wordy sectarianism gave rise, did not much earlier take place, and most lamentable that they who, disgusted with this abuse of the name of religion, rejected the motley creed from whence such discord sprung, did not seek refuge at once in the haven of the ancient Church of Christ, whose "peace is as a river," instead of breaking off, it is to be feared, irrecoverably, into the vague void of Unbelief,-that sea without a shore! The course of the Calvinistic branch of Protestantism in G'cr many was, in many respects, different from that of the Lutheran. Owing to their freedom, for a longer period, from fixed formularies of doctrine, there existed in their Church a far more comprehensive scheme of communion than among the Lutherans; and having less, therefore, of the exclusive spirit of formularism in their theology, they were proportionally more tolerant. They had, indeed, a spectacle for ever before them, in the rabid rancor of the sister Church towards themselves, which, though insult. ing and irritating, was, for the most part, by its outrageous ab IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 207 surdity, far more calculated to inspire disgust than any desire tc retaliate. Such an amiable direction had the family feeling be. tween these two heresies taken, that, by Lutheran preachers, the title of Antichrist was transferred from the Pope to Calvin, and in Lutheran Liturgies one of the petitions was, " Repress the Turks, Papists, and Calvinists."* But though it mnay be granted that the Reformed Church, as compared with the Lutheran, set an example far more becoming a Christian community, there was, on the other hand, in its whole spirit and principles, even more deeply laid mischief, and a still more unerring source of such demoralizing and Antichristian consequences as we see exhibited in the present state of Continental Protestantism. Not to dwell further on that rule of scriptural interpretation, so pliant for all purposes, which Calvin, alike with Zwingli and Socinus adopted, and which places the meaning of God's word at the mercy of man's sense, the very foundation of the creed of Calvinism involves notions of a Supreme Being the most disturbing, if not fatal to all genuine piety. If, as Hooker declares, " the seed of whatever perfect virtue groweth from us is a right opinion touching things divine," alas for the growth of virtue or charity in those who seek their model of " things divine" in the God of the Calvinists,-the deliberate preordainer of sin and ruin,-the Author of man's existence, temptation, and fall! That most ancient and most melancholy of all mysteries, the Origin of Evil, must, as long as man suffers and thinks, continue to occupy, however needlessly, his mind. But to attempt to conjure up doctrine out of such a " mist of darkness,"-to speculate on the unrevealed decrees of God, and look for light where Himself has willed there should be none, is a task presumptuous as it is shadowy, vain as it is daring; and which, by mixing up the speculations of philosophy with religion, introduces an element into the latter which never fails to explode, to its ruin. So aware were the Gnostics, in the midst of all their reveries, of the danger of holding forth a Supreme God as the author of evil, that they had recourse to the supposition of an inferior and malevolent Deity, on whom to rest all the responsibility of that mass of moral evil which the more impious Calvinist traces up to the one God himself! Nor is it merely in the rash impiety of this doctrine that its mischief to the cause of Christianity lay, but also in the con. * "In Swedish Pomerania, where there were no Reformed, an order from the local authorities, suspending declamations against them, and erasing from the Liturgy the petition, 'Repress the Turks, Papists, and Calvinists,' was annulled by application to Stockholm; and the intermarriage of a Lutheran with a Reformed declared inadmissible."-Pusey, Historical Inquiry. 208 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN tempt for Christianity's earliest teachers which Calvin's adoption of it implied; he himself having avowed that, on this point, th, Fathers of the three first centuries were opposed to him, and hit more violent followers, Gomarus and others, even admitting thai they were unsupported in it by Scripture. The whole history, indeed, of the Predestinarian doctrine, from its first introduction by St. Augustin, is a subject well worthy of study, as enabling us to track the course of so dark an error, through all the stages of its progress, growing more and more bloated and virulent as it advances, till at last, bursting with its own venom, it gradually dies away. Such, very nearly, has been the course and fate of the dark doctrine of Calvinism. Begin. ning, in a comparatively mild form with St. Augustin,-who himself had commenced with far other opinions, and was only led by the heat of controversy to lay the foundations of Cal. vinism,*-it assumed, in the scheme of the Genevese Reformer, a more rigid and damnatory shape; received some gloomier touches from his followers, Beza and Zanchius, and from thence on, deepening still its hue, as it passed through the hands of the fierce Franeker divines, reached the full consummation of its blasphemy and absurdity, under the auspices of the well-named Doctor Dam-man,t at the memorable Synod of Dort. At that point, however, the glory of Calvinism may be said to have touched its meridian, and the moment of complete tri. umph was but its first step towards decline. Even the Dutch, whose divines had principally contributed to this victory over common sense, refused, in most instances, to submit to the yoke of the victors; and, with that nimbleness which has ever cha. racterized the Proteus, Protestantism, were seen gliding away from the grasp of orthodoxy in the various forms of Universalists, Semi-Universalists, Supralapsarians, Sublapsarians,-like that model of the Reforming Spirit, to which I have just alluded,Nec te decipiat centum mentita figuras, Sed preme quicquid erit; dum quodfuit ante, Reformet. * When St. Augustin opposed the Manichaeans, (who held with the Calvinists, that there are souls necessarily wicked,) he advanced doctrines wholly different from those which he afterwards took up in opposition to Pelagius; and this latter party opinion has been his bequest to future times;-inflicting thereby an injury on Christianity (for even the Catholic Church did not wholly escape the infection) far greater than all his labors in her service can ever compensate. In rejecting Jansenism-an inoculation of this virusfrom her Communion, the Church of Rome has got rid of the only slight taint of heresy that, in her course, "immortal and unchanged," the Milk-white Hind has ever known. f This Doctor Damman was one of the secretaries to the Synod, and of course an upholder of the high Dort doctrine, that " none of the truly faithful can, by any sins, fall from the Grace of God."-Nulli vere fideles per ulla peccata possunt ex gratia Dei excidere.-Damman. in Concordia. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 209 I Geneva, the very cradle of all those monstrous doctrines which had been now decided, by the Maccoviuses and Dammans,* to be the true Christian and Protestant faith, that reaction which has since developed itself so signally, began already to appear; and the same recoil from fanaticism and absurdity which made her then almost Arminian, has since, in its further and natural operation, made her all but infidel. In England, where, at this period, both Court and People were casting a "lingering look behind" towards their Mother Church,t and where the authority, therefore, of the Fathers, (bound up, as it is, essentially with Catholicism,) was regarded still with reverence, a system of doctrine so avowedly opposed as was that of Dort to those early oracles of the faith could hope for no very favorable reception. From that period, indeed, the Church of England may be said, in the words of the ever-memorable Hales,1 to have " bid John Calvin good night;"-and though my German Lecturer, in contrasting Calvin with Luther, assumed that the sectaries still bearing the name of the former maintain also his doctrines, it will be found that Calvinism, though still ftr from being (like its sister heresy, Lutheranism) extinct, has for a long time been shorn of its most baleful beams; insomuch that for one rigid adherent to the reprobatory branch of the creed of Geneva, there are now numbers of professed Calvinists who confine their belief to the sole doctrine of Election,~ rejecting more * Of the frightful opinions of Maccovius, and other Dort theologians, I have already given some samples. One of the memorable decisions of this Synod was that "the children of unbelievers, dying in their infancy, are reprobate as well as their parents"-Infantes nfidelium morientes in infantia reprobatos esse statuimus.--lct. Synod. Dord. This humane enactment is but a consequence of the same principle on which Predestinarians hold that the infants of godly persons are in the covenant of grace, together with their parents, and have therein " a federal interest." The following is the impiously familiar manner in which the draft of agreement, as it may be called, for this covenant between God and the seed of believers, is drawn up by one of the theologians of the sect:-" They (the infants) have true, real and proper interest and propriety in God. As they are his, so he is theirs. There is a mutual propriety and interest in each other. They have God under an actual obligation, viz. of his promise, to improve and employ all his attributesfor their good, benefit and advantage, according, or in a woay agreeable to the true tenor of the covenant, and of the various promises of it. They have a present interest in and right to salvation; and answoerably, in case of their death, before a forfeiture be made of that their interest and right, they shall infallibly be saved." Whiston's Primitive Doct. of Inf. Bap. revived. f " I acknowledge," said James I, in a public speech to his Parliament, 1603, " the Church of Rome to be our Mother Church." I This candid and simple-minded man went to Dort a Calvinist, but "at the well-pressing," as he himself tells us, "of St. John, iii. 16, by Episcopius, -' there,' says he, ' I bid John Calvin good night.'" ~ "I am aware," says Bishop Tomline, "that some persons, now living, who seem to glory in the name of Calvinists, maintain the doctrine of Election and reject that of Reprobation. That this was not the system of Calvin N 18* 210 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN charitably, I must say, than logically, its concomitant and con. sequence, Reprobation. Such, rapidly traced, has been the course and fate of the two leading branches of the original Pretestant creed; both dwindled away to mere shadows in those countries where they first took their rise,-or rather superseded there by a system hardly pretending to be Christian,-while, the only one of the two that still exists, m more than name, has abandoned all that constituted originally its essence, and, in England, is chiefly indebted for its distinctive character to that party spirit, which a Church, fenced round by human formularies, is always sure to generate. CHAPTER XLVII1. Rise of infidel opinions in Europe, soon after the Synod of Dort.-Lord Herbert, Hobbes, Spinoza.-Beginnings of Rationalism among Calvinists. -Bekker, Peyrere, Meyer.-Lutheran Church continued free from infidelity much longer than the Calvinian. THE main object which I have had in view, in the historical sketch given in the preceding Chapter, is to show that, in the reaction produced among Protestants themselves, as well by the impious and irrational consequences of some of their own doctrines, as by the unchristian intolerance with which those doctrines had been enforced, lay one of the chief sources of that infidelity by which their Churches have since been deluged. In further confirmation of this remark, we shall find that it was but a short time after the monstrous decisions of the Synod of Dort,* that scepticism began openly to display itself, among himself, will fully appear by the quotations from his works; and that it was not the system of the Calvinists, at the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, will be equally evident from the first of the Lambeth articles, &c."-Refutation of Calvinism. "Many Calvinists, both at home and abroad, including the principal American divines, reject the second leading article of the Calvinistic creed, and hold Universal Redemption."-.3dams's Religious World Displayed. * "By way of argument to the following story, you will permit me to remind you that the Contra-remonstrants in the Synod of Dort condemned the lax opinions of the remonstrants, concerning Oriinal Sin and Free Will. "Two of their Divines (Contra-remonstrants) elated with victory, insulted a poor fellow who was a Remonstrant, and said, ' What were you thinking of with that grave face?' 'I was thinking, gentlemen,' said he, 'of a controverted question-Who was the author of sin? Adam shifted it off from himself and laid it to his wife; she laid it to the serpent; the serpent, who was then young and bashful, had not a word to say for himself: but afterwards, growing older and more audacious, he went to the Synod of Dort, and there he had the assurance to charge it upon God!'"--Letters from the lata Lord Chedoorth to the Rev. Thomas Crampton. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 211 professed Protestants, in different countries of Europe. It was then, in that dawn of the era of Rationalism, that Lord Herbert of Cherbury asserted the sufficiency and absolute perfection of the Religion of Nature;-that Hobbes anticipated the German theologians of the present day in questioning the authenticity of the Old Testament and the divine authority of the New, and even let fidl those seeds of doubt as to the existence of a Supreme Being, which, in the gloomy mind of his contemporary, Spinoza, soon ripened into Atheism. Already, too, at that same period, had a school of Divines, under the name of Rationals, appeared, whose principle it was to apply the touchstone of reason to religion, and reject all that was not conformable to that capricious test.* It is also confir. matory of what I have above remarked as to the share Calvinism had in producing these results, that Predestination was the very first doctrine on which these Socinians in disguise opened their batteries. As might be expected, too, it was among Calvinists that the reaction against their own creed commenced; and thus has the same sect, by a fate common to all heresies, given birth to the two opposing extremes,-both to the fanaticism which first ingrafied such errors on Christianity, and the infidelity which tore up tree and graft together. One of the first of these Calvinist sceptics was Bekker, a Dutch Divine, who, attempting the same sort of alliance between Philosophy and Religion which has been the means of bringing Christianity to its present state in Germany, employed the principles of Descartes to undermine some of tlie leading doctrines of Scripture. The account of the temptation of our first Parents, the agency of good and evil Spirits, the demoniac possessions in the New Testament, and the Temptation of our Saviour, were among the chief points on which this Rationalist Divine exercised his scepticism; and while his master, Calvin, besides that de. moniac principle which he supposed lodged in every human breast, admitted also the direct influence of the Devil on human actions, his follower, Bekker, denies all agency of the Devil whatever, and (forestalling the shallow device of our modern Rationalists, so much as to leave them not even the credit of originality in wrong) resolves all those passages in the Old and New Testament, where the interposition of the Evil Spirit is described, into mere allegory and mythos. To another Calvinist writer, still earlier, (1655) the annals ot Rationalism are indebted for a book which, though now long forgotten, produced, on its first appearance, such an explosion of indignation as could with difficulty be brought to stop short at * See an account of this school of Theologians, in Bayle's Reponse auA Questions d'un Provincial, c. 130. 212 TRAVELS OF AN IRISII GENTLEMAN the mere imprisonment of the author. Of this strange work* the main object is to prove, from the-5th Chapter of St. Paul to the Romans, that there had existed nations and races of men be. fore Adam, and that he was but called the first man, because with him the Law commenced. In the course of his pretended proofs of this hypothesis, the author (a French Protestant, Peyrere) suggests solutions of some of the miracles of the Old Testament, which approach nearer even than those of Bekker to the plain but clumsy mode of in. terpretation adopted by Paulus and other moderns. For instance, it was not necessary, he says, that the sun should retrograde be. cause the shadow of the dial was put back for Hezekiah. What. ever miracle there was in the circumstance must be confined to the dial of Ahaz alone.t In the same manner, the sun standing still for Joshua was nothing more, he thinks, than that sort of optical delusion which is common in most hilly countries, at sunset, when, though the sun has gone down, its orb appears to be still stationary in the heavens.: The miracle in Deuteronomy of the clothes and shoes of the Israelites having been kept from " waxing old," during their forty years in the wilderness, this author ridicules in almost the very same terms which were employed afterwards by Voltaire for the same purpose;~ and the whole miracle is, he thinks, to be accounted for by the supplies of materials for making cloth ing which the Israelites derived from their flocks and other natural sources. From the plea set forth by this author in defence of his own impiety,-that he had been led to such doctrine " by the principle of Protestants,"-we may see how clearly, even at that time, the natural tendency of Protestantism to gravitate towards infidelity, was not merely prognosticated, but felt. There is yet another work of the same period (1666,) which both its title and the circumstance of its being republished by * Prcaadamitcc sive Excrcitatio super versibus 12, 13, 14, cap. 5 Epist. Paul al Romanos. f Ponatur miraculum in horologio ipso, in horologio Achas, ut vult Scriptura; stabit miraculum suo loco-stabit natura suo ordine, nec facinabitur intellectus praestigiis inanibus. I Fulgor solis, sine sole ipso, et miraculo maximo supcresset in atmosphaer, vel regione vaporum illa, que civitati Gabaonicae, celi et a6ris medio, incubabat: Solis vero fulgor civitatem Gabaonicam et montem Gabaon vererraret, &c.-The author adds that he himself had often witnessed the Same phenomenon, among the mountains of Quercy, where he dwelt. ~ Qouod de calceamentis eorum itidem dejerant, nulla unquam vetustate fuisse consumpta, atque adeb ibi primum induxissent calceos infantibus crescentibus infantum pedibus, crevisse eorum calceos.-" Non seulement," says Voltaire, "les habits des Hebreux ne s'userent point dans leur marcho de quarante annbes, au soleil et a la pluie, et en couchant sur la dure, mais que ceux des enfans croissaient avec eux, ct s'elargissaicnt merveillcusement, a mesure qu'ils avancaient en age." IN SEARCH OF A RELiUIUNl 213 Semler, sufficiently announce as one of the harbingers of that infidel school of which Semler was the founder. I allude to the once celebrated work, " Philosophy, the Interpreter of Scripture," which, on its first appearance, was attributed to the notorious Spinoza, but proved afterwards to have come from the pen of his friend and physician, Lewis Meyer. In subtlety as well as in mischief, this Amsterdam Rationalist was a fit forerunner of the present race of Protestant sceptics; and the following specimen of his work will at once show its insidious nature, and prove,-what frequently I have endeavored to impress upon my reader,-the great triumph it has been for infidelity, by the avowal of infidels themselves, to have been able, by philosophizing away the mystery of the Real Presence, to open a way for the subversion of all mysteries whatever. " There are," says this pupil of Spinoza, " three Mysteries, of which Philosophy alone can properly be the interpreter;-and these are 1, God,-2, the Real Presence,-3, the Trinity. The second of these, the Reformed Church has already disposed of,-showing, by the aid of Philosophy, that her own opinion, on the subject, is the true one, and that of the Catholics and Lutherans, absurd." With a silence, then, but too significant, as to the first of the three Mysteries, on his list, he proceeds to apply to the third mode of philosophizing which had been so successful with the second.* Having traced thus far the progress of that Anti-christian principle, which deriving its origin from the very foundations of Protestantism itself, has since branched out in a multiplicity of names and shapes, and is, at this moment, under its most recent and apparently last disguise, employed in spiiting away the substance of Christianity, in every country where the Reformation has taken root, I shall now, for the further descending steps of the pedigree of this principle, more especially in that country where its effects are most conspicuous, refer to the pages of a writer whose authority I have frequently had to adduce, Mr. * Of the discussion, respecting the mystery of the Trinity, he says"Quanto sane satius fuisset illam pro mysterio non habuisse, et philosophias ope, antequam quod esset statuerent, secundum vera logices pruecepta, quid esset cum Cl. Kekkermanno investigasse." That the absurdities of theology have been, at all times, the food and fuel of scepticism, cannot be more clearly proved than by the use which this writer makes of the monstrous notion broached by some Protestant divines, that God intentionally gave double meanings to some of the precepts of his Word, and rather wished that they should be misunderstood by those to whom he addressed them. Such is the doctrine advanced in a passage of Wolzous which he cites:-" Quandoque Deus, ut dubios et suspensos relinquat, vel ipsos eos, quos sufficienti gratiA spiritus donavit, ut quaecunque ex illi tune oratione hauriri possint, eliciant, non tamen omaem eliciant veritatem: orationem enim volvat et revolvat centies, sit vacuus praeconceptis opinionibus, omnia exaininet, qume usus lingumP requint, ut intuenti textum nil appareat esse neglectum, noluit tamen hoc tem, pore intelligi Deus, himb voluil permittere vt aliquanitisper err rnetur." 9214 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN Pusey. The ability and research with which this gentleman has traced, through all its stages, that " gradual descent," as he expresses it, " of Theology into a system of unbelief," which marked the course of the German Church, during the eighteenth century, can admit of no dissentient opinion. It is only to be regretted that, by confining himself exclusively to the Lutheran branch of Protestantism, he has lost the still stronger illustrations of his subject, which the career of Calvinism would so strikingly have supplied; and it is, in some measure, to remedy this very important omission, that those instances of the progress of Rationalism among Calvinists, which I have just laid before the reader, were collected. There would be no difficulty, indeed, in showing that, from the very first, a disposition to unbelief was far more prevalent among the members of the Reformed Church than of the Lutheran; and the names of Lelius Socinus, Gentilis, Ochinus and others, prove how early Geneva began to produce its natural fruits. Without ascending any higher, however, than the middle of the seventeenth century, we have seen that at a time when the Lutheran Church was still immersed in all the absurdities of its theology,-wrangling, tooth and nail, against Good Works, and for the Ubiquity of Christ's manhood,-the process of rea. soning away all Christian doctrine whatever had already commenced among the Calvinists;-that long before any of those critics and scholars were born, to whom Mr. Pusey assigns the first origin of Rationalism, its most distinguishing features and principles had been anticipated; and that the very subject of Demoniacal Possessions, upon which Semler commenced his rationalizing career, had been turned by Bekker to the same sceptical purposes more than half a century before. CHAPTER XLIX. Return to England.-Inquiry into the history of English Protestantism.-Its close similarity to the history of German Protestantism.-Selfishness and hypocrisy of the first Reformers in both countries.-Variations of creed.Persecutions and burnings.-Recantations of Cranmer, Latimer, &c.Effects of the Reformation in demoralizing the people.-ProoTs from German and English writers. THEY show, or, at least, used to show, in the library of the Abbey of St. Anthony, in Dauphine, an original letter ofEras. mus,* in which that great man declares, that he would sooner suffer himself to be cut to pieces, than not believe in the reality * Voyage Litt'raire de deux Rligieux Benedictzns. IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 215 of the body and blood in the Sacrament. Without pretending to more of the spirit of a martyr than I am likely to be called upon to exercise, and confining my heroism, too, within bounds pro. portionate to the immense distance between my humble self and Erasmus, I shall here merely communicate to my reader, that I had now come to the magnanimous determination to prefer Popery and poverty, for the remainder of my days, to the alternative of Protestantism and two thousand pounds a year, with Miss * *, at Ballymudragget. After remaining some months longer in Germany, I prepared to set out for England,-having passed the latter part of my time in society much more suited to my tastes than that of the Scratchenbachs of the University, namely, some quiet and intelligent Catholic families, whom I found in the midst of this wreck of all other creeds, pursuing tranquilly and implicitly the very same paths of faith which their Church has now trodden fbr nearly two thousand years. It is, indeed, a most impressive spec. tacle, which the state of Germany, at this moment, presents; divided,-according to Mr. Southey's concise and pithy description,-" between the old religion, on the one side, and the new irreligion on the other."* The sagacious prediction of Bayle, that a day would yet arrive when the Lutherans, no longer finding their creed in the Augs. burg Confession, would " put all matters again on their former footing," is now in a fair train for accomplishment; as already numbers of Protestants, disgusted at the unchristian mockery of their own miscalled churches, have embraced the faith of Rome, with every prospect of their example being still more extensively followed. It is, in fact, the alarm produced by these desertions to the Catholic Church that has chiefly caused that apparent reaction, in favor of Christianity, which has been, of late, observa. ble in Germany, as well as those retractions of their former blasphemies which the De Wettes and Bretschneiders have, with so little appearance, I must say, of sincerity,t been hastening to proffer to the public. On my arrival in England, finding my taste for theological reading return, I was glad to avail myself of the few months of leisure I had yet at command, and immediately proceeded to inquire into the state and history of Protestantism in that country, quite as zealously as I had pursued the similar line of study * Colloquies, &c. f Though professing, as it seems, to recant their former sceptical notions, both these writers have republished, and with but little alteration, the very works which contained them; and in the Preface which De Wette has prefixed to the second edition of his "De Morte expiatorit, &c.," we find little more than a sort of apology for his unchristian assertion that "Jesus took. upon himself to personate the Messiah." 216 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN in Germany. Not that there hung even the penumbra of a doubt round the conclusions at which I had now arrived; but, having carried thus far the researches which I had been induced to enter upon, it was naturally my wish to collect such mate. rials, respecting the English Church, as would enable me to complete the Panorama of Protestantism which I had commenced. Having now, however, nearly filled up the canvass which I had allotted for the sketch contained in this volume, I must reserve the picture which I had prepared of the English Reformation for some future opportunity. In the meantime, I shall here briefly call attention to a few ominous resemblances which, on comparing the course of English with that of German Protestantism, could not but strike me as existing strongly between them,-so strongly as scarce to warrant even a hope that two systems so kindred in their origin and tendencies could lead ultimately to any other than kindred results. The same selfishness and hypocrisy which marked the movers of the German Reformation are seen but in more intense and revolting activity among the founders of the same faith in England.* The high stations, indeed, of the principal actors on the latter scene, gave proportionately more impulse and oppor. tunity to such vices; and, while in Henry VIII we find all the temperament of a Luther let loose, as it were, upon a throne, so in Cranmer all the suppleness and hypocrisy of a Bucer were, by the constant demands upon him for these qualities, multiplied a hundred fold.t Even the subservience shown by tLe Reformers of both countries to the gross passions of their royal patrons, will be found to have been marked by the same comparative degrees of baseness; for while, on the one hand, the 'icentious bigamy of the Landgrave of Hesse,-licentious, but at least bloodless,-received the sanction, under their own signatures, of Luther, Bucer, and * The writer of an article in the Edinburgh Review, upon Mr. Hallam's admirable work, the Constitutional History, thus truly describes the founders of the English Reformation:-" A king, whose character may be best described by saying, that he was despotism itself personified; unprircipled ministers; a rapacious aristocracy; a servile parliament. Such were the instruments by which England was delivered from the yoke ot Rome. The work which had been begun by Henry, the murderer of his wvves, vae continued by Somerset, the murderer of his brother, and completed by EIzabetb, the murderer of her guest."-Edinburgh Review. f It is not a little curious to observe that, in the same ma, ncr us the violence and intolerance of Luther were inherited amply by his Ch'rcli, so the hypocrisy and servile spirit of Cranmer have sri-vived to this da) in that Establishment of which he was a founder; and, in no instance, perhaps, has the hypocritical taint, thus entailed, been more striýingly exhibited than in those vmdications of his (Cranmer's) own character, vWhic:,, in defiance of all truth and decency, even such respectable divines al.. R' N'.r. 'To-d, think themselves bound, for the sake and interests of their a