93G 3972 itt the ®itB 0{ $ten» ^cvk '^xhxvix^ VINDICATION O F " The Book of the Roman Catholie Church," AG AI NSTX'e^r,.<^>5T^ THE REVEREND \ ■ ' t^SS^.!^ i 7a 1 VX-." GEORGE TOWNSEN^D'S ^ ^^^'" ^ *" Accusations of History against the ^v Church of Rome :" WITH NOTICE OF SOME CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST " THE BOOK OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH," IN THE PUBLI- CATIONS OF DOCTOR FHILLPOTTS, THE REV. JOHN TODD, M. A. F.S.A. THE REV. STEPHEN ISAACSON, B. A. THE REV. JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE, M. A. B. D. AND IN SOME ANONYMOUS PUBLICATIONS. By CHARLES BUTLER, Esq. WITH COPIES OF DOCTOR PHILLPOTTS'S FOURTH LETTER TO MR. liUl'LER, Containing a Charge against Z)>". Lingard ; AND OF A LETTEIl OF DOCTOR LINGARD TO MR. BUTLER, In Reply to the Charge. LONDON- : JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. M.DCCC.XXVr. " I DO NOT HOLD, THAT THE ROMAN CATHOLIC llE- " LIGION IS ONE WHICH ENJOINS DISLOYALTY: " I DO NOT HOLD THE MAXIM, THAT FROM THEIR " SCRUPLES ABOUT THE OATH OF SUPREMACY THEY ARE " A DISLOYAL PEOPLE : " I DO NOT HOLD, THAT THEY MAINTAIN ANY SUCH " BELIEF, AS THAT THE POPE MAY DEPOSE PROTESTANT " PRINCES, OR ABSOLVE CATHOLIC SUBJECTS FROM ALLE- " GIANCE TO THEM ; OR THAT NO FAITH IS TO BE KEPT " WITH HERETICS, OR PERSONS OF A DIFFERENT RELI- " GIOUS PERSUASION FROM THEMSELVES." Extract from the Speech of the Rt. Rev. Dr. Horsley, Bishop of St. Asaph, on the loth May 1805 ; p. 131. —Printed for Cutiieil & Martin. Luke Hansard & Sons, near Lincohi's-Inn Fields, London. TABLE OF CONTENTS. LETTER to CHARLES BLUNDELL, Esq. on the Answers to " the Book of the Roman Catholic Church" - page xix PRELIMINARY LETTER .... page i I. — Mr. Townsend's assertion, that a decree of the Council of Constance, which an article of the creed of Pope Pius IV. compels every conscientious Romanist to adopt, sanctions the doctrine " that " faith is not to be kept with heretics " - 2 Denied ------ 3 II. — His insinuation, that " a passage in the Book of " the Roman Catholic Church, deserves a harsh " name for intimating that Romanism is founded " on Scripture" ----- 5 Denied ------ ib. III. — His assertion respecting Bossuet's " Exposition of " Faith" 7 Denied --.-._ 8 IV. — His assertion that Arminianism, Calvinism, Quakerism and Socinianism, may be found in the writings of the Romanist Divines - - - - 9 Denied ------ lo V. — His assertion, that all the new orders of the Romamists appeal to Popery, and protest agninst the Scrip- ture - - - - - - -11 Denied ------ ib. A2 1 ^ ■ l. o CONTENTS. LETTER I. Extensive Diffusion of the Roman Catholic Religion - - 12 1 Mr. Townsend's vindication and adoption of Doctor Southey's expression, that " the Roman Cathohc " Religion is a prodigious structure of imposture " and wickedness " - - - - - ib. Duly noticed ib. 2. — His intimation that " if the adherents to Rome are as " numerous as they are represented to be in the " Book of the Roman Catholic Church, the vigilance " of Protestants should be proportioned to their " danger" - - - - - -13 Ansxuered, — Foreign Catholic States have shoxvn more attachment to the British Empire than Foreign Protestant States - - 14 LETTERS II AND III. The Anglo Saxoi^. 1. — Identity of the Doctrine preached to them, and the Doctrine of the Council of Trent, denied by Mr. Townsend ...... \^ Asserted and shown - - - - ib. 2. — His observation on Roman Catholic Miracles - 17 The doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church respecting the belief of Miracles, stated 18 LETTERS IV and V. Mr. Townsend's Assertion of the purer Faith of the Welsh Christians 21 Denied ------ ib. CONTENTS. LETTER VI. St. Dunstan. Mr.Townsend's charge against the Author of " the Book of " the Roman Catholic Church," of " Historical Dis- " honesty," for omitting to mention St.Dunstan's speech at the Synod of Calne - r - - - 22 Disproved ----- . jb. LETTERS VII. & VIII. !• — Investitures and Immunities - - - 2^5 II — St. Thomas a Becket - - - - 26 Mr. Townsend's assertion, that " in defending St. Thomas, " the author of ' the Book of the Roman Catholic '• Church,' has quoted the half only of a passage cited " by him from Mr. Turner's History to prove a point, " which was refuted by the remainder" - - 28 Traiiscription of the ivhole passage : it completely disproves the charge. Ill — Statement by the Author of " the Book of the Roman Catholic Church" of the rise, extension, and fall of the Temporal Potver of the Pope - - 20 LETTER IX. King John. 1. — Mr. Townsend's declaration, that " he is almost " tempted to believe all the accusations of Protestants " against the fairness and candour of the Church of " Rome ; and could also accuse the Author of ' The " Book of the Roman Catholic Church, of insidious *' Jesuitism,' for his representation of the conduct of " King John, in the cession of the kingdom to the " Pope 36 Both accusations shown to be perfectly groundhsSf ib» vi CONTENTS. King John — continued. 2 His charge, that " the third Canon of the Fourth " Council of Lateran, is an article of the Faith of Roman " Catholics;" that "it declares the Pope's right to " Temporal Dominion ;" and that " the disclaimer of " the Pope's right to temporal dominion by the Roman " Catholics is not valid, and cannot be depended upon, " in consequence of their acknowledging the paramount " authority of the Council" - - - - 37 3. — Discussion of the Charge - - - - 41 4. — Pai-ticular Disctission of the Third Canon of the Fourth Council of Lateran ------ .43 Mr. Townsend's intimation of the insufficiency of Catholic disclaimers, even upon oath, of the Pope's Temporal Dominion; because the Catholics recognize a paramount authority in the Pope to discharge their consciences from the obligation of such an oath and disclaimer - 49 Admission, by the writer, that, if, while the Ca- tholics take the oath or make the disclaimer, they recognize a paramount authority, ivhich may dispense tvith its obligations, — they are perjured villains ------ 52 The charge is most horrible - - - ib. And is most unjust - - - - ib. (See the late Bishop Horsley's equal reprobation of it, in the title leaf to the work.) 5. — Mr. Townsend's allegation, that to give validity to Ca- tholic denial of the Pope's universal temporal dominion, the Pope and his government must deny it - - 54 1 . Such a denial is perfectly unnecessary - ib. 2. Whether necessary or unnecessary, it has been given - - - - - ib. LETTER X. View of the Romish System - - 58 Remarks upon some assertions of Mr. Toivnsend, ib. CONTENTS. LETTER XI. Rise of the Reformation The Mendicant Orders. — Persecution under the House of Lancaster - 60 1 — Mr. Townsend's imputations to the " Author of the " Book, of ' a lamentable error of judgment, in attri- " buting the rise of the Reformation to the general " diffusion of the opinion of Manes' " - - ib. 2. — Mr. Townsend's charge, that, " the Author intimates " that the sentiments of the Reformers, in the age " of Cranmer and Luther, and consequently the " opinions of the Protestants of the Church of " England at present, are the identical errors which " are imputed to Manes " - - - - ib. 3. — Mr. Townsend's charge, that " no controversialist was " more unfortunate than the Author has been, in " reviving the exploded doctrine, that the faith of " the Protestants was the creed of Manichaeus," ib. 4. — His intimation, that, '' the Author insinuates, in a man- " ner unworthy of him, that the political opinions " of the Manichseans, were the real prelude to the " doctrines of liberty and equality, now frigthfuUy " agitated" ...... Qi Explicit denial, that the Author ever made any such attribution, intimation^ assertion or insinuation - - - - - 61 2. — The Author s unqualijied condemnation of all reli- gious persecutions : — Remarks on the utility of Convents of Nu7is, — as permanent institutions for female education - - - - 63 3. — The Authors gratefid acknoxdedgment of the re- ception of the French Exiles in this country, Q^ Mr. Townsend's approbation of Milton's assigning " a " place in the Paradise of Fools, to Friars, and all that " trumpery" 70 Duly noticed ----- ib. CONTENTS. LETTER XII. & XIII. The RefoRxMation — Henry VIII. — Edward VI. Remarks on Mr. Townsend's Question " Whether the Pro- " testant parochial clergy will bear comparison with the " Monks" -73 Mr. Townsend's assertions, that " the Reformation has " produced an Increase of Temporal Happiness in the " Nation" - 75 2. An Increase of Spiritual Wisdom - - ib. 3. An Increase of Morality - - - 77 4. That the revival of Letters is owing to it, 79 5. And that the Editors of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament are Protestants - - 81 Questioned. LETTER XIV. Queen Mary. 1. — Mr. Townsend's statement of the extenuation in " The «' Book of the Roman Catholic Church, of Queen " Mary's persecutions - - - - 82 Ver^ imperfect. 2 His impeachment of the Church of Rome for still sanctioning persecution - - - - 83 Dismissed. 3. — His assertion that Mr. Todd has ably defended Cranmer ------- ib. Controverted. 4. — His charge, that, according to the account given in " The Book of the Roman Catholic Church," Queen Mary's character was, by her religion, " changed from a compassionate, liberal, pious, " moral exemplary woman, into a savage, rancorous " and bigotted persecutor " - - - 84 Refuted. CONTENTS. ix LETTER XV. Queen Elizabeth. XV. 1. Mr. Townsend's assertion, that by the omission in *' The Book of the Roman CathoHc Church," of any notice of the state of Europe and England, at the accession of Queen EHzabeth, " the Author of the book, almost seems *' to have demonstrated, that he reserves his talents for " his own profession, and his sincerity for the courtesy " of private life" ------ 87 Transcription of the statements of each from the Author s Historical Memoirs : it refutes both both charges ----- 88 XV. 2. Mr. Townsend's Eulogy of the Pacific Tendency of Elizabeth's first measures respecting Religion - 91 Controverted. 1. — Did morality and justice authorize Elizabeth 'to make Episcopalian Protestantism the religion of the state? 93 3. — Or to enact, that adherence to the ancient religion, tvas a crime agai^ist the state ; and that non-conformity to the nexv ritual, should be heavily punishable - 93 3. — Or to make the belief of the spiritual supremacy of the Pope, legal evidence of unsound allegiance - 94 4. — Observations on the excessive pretensions of some Popes g^ 5. — If itjbllotvs from a subject's being a Catholic, that his allegiance to a Protestant king cannot be depended upon, it must equally follow, from a subject's being a Protestant, that his allegiance to a Catholic king cannot be depended on - - - - 96 Justice requires in each case, that criminality shoidd be proved, before the guilt is considered to be established - - - - ib. xli CONTENTS. Queen Elizabeth — continued. 4 Mr. Townsend's crimination of the Author of " The « Book of the Roman CathoHc Church, for calHng " the Bull of Pius, merely — ' illaudable.' " - ill The charge is totally unfounded : — the Author has applied to the Bull several of the strongest expressions of reprobation in the English language : — and the word " illaudable" standing singly, is shoton to be equivalent to the ivord " infamous" - - - 112 5. — Mr. Townsend's inculpation of the whole Catholic body in the Massacre at Paris, on St. Bartholomew's day 114 Repelled. 6 His charge against Dr. Lingard, of " utmost unfair- " ness," for not mentioning the rejoicings at Paris on the Massacre 116 Neither are they mentioned by Hume or Carte ib. 7 His imputing to the Author, " a deplorable attempt to " reconcile Father Campian's petition, and the dis- " pensation, with the asserted perfect loyalty of the " Romanists" ib. The Author has made no such attempt, and has condemned both the petition and dispe?i- sation ------ ib. 8. — Mr. Townsend mentions, the Insurrection of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland - - 1 1 7 But does not mention the refusal of the Catholics to join them - - - - - ib. g. — His assertion, that the persecutions by Protestants of Catholics, are not to be imputed to the Protestant' Church, — because their lawfulness was never taught by their councils or creeds - - - - ib. As much imputable to their Church as those of Catholics to theirs - - - - 1 1 8 CONTENTS. xiii Queen Elizabeth — continued. 10. — His entire approbation of the Act of the 27 Eh'zabeth; by which, on a discovery of a plot against her, by the Pope, the King of Spain and the Duke of Guise to invade England, she banished the Priests and Jesuits, upon pain of death - - - 1 1 8 He brings no evidence of the plot, — and is re- quired to prove that any priest iji England was concerned in it - - - - 1 1 9 1 1 . — He alleges Thockmorton's Treason - - 1 20 Discredited by the late Dr. Robertson and Lord Auckland ----- ib. 12. — He produces examples of persecutions by, and re- gicidal doctrine of, some Foreign Catholics - ib. Is silent on Protestant persecutions and regicidal doctrines ----- ib. 13. — He cites Bishop Taylor's assertion, that the statute against the Priests was not passed, till after their own confessions, that many of them had come into England, to instigate the loyal to the execution of the Bull ib. Not one suck confession. 14. — The refusal of the Priests to profess their allegiance to the Queen, by a satisfactory answer to the six questions - - - - - - -123 Their answers lamented and blamed : — the refusal would have justijied strong precaution- ary measures : — but did not justify Elizabeth's new creations of felonies, premunires, and treasons - - - - - -124 15. — His account of Campian's conduct and trial - ib. Shown to contain much misrepresentation - 125 16. — His account of the views and objects of the Missionary Priests - ib. Unstipjjorted by fact - - - - ib. 17. — His Vindication of Hume's charge against the Seminarists - - - - - -127 Replied to - - - - - -128 xiv CONTENTS. Queen Elizabeth — continued. 18. — His charge against the Author, that " his references " respecting Ireland deserve the severest repro- " bation" .-._.. 133 The mhole passage produced, and left to the reader s judgment - - - - 1 34 XV. 6. 1. — His denial of the loyalty of the conduct of the Ca- tholics, while England was threatened by the Spanish Armada - - - - - 1 36 No ground Jbr the denial - - - 137 2. — His InteiTogations, — designed to charge Catholics with persecuting principles, — and to acquit Protestants of them - - - - - - -136 An explicit anstver to each - - - lb. 3. — Accuses the Author of " Sophistry and Disingenuous- ness" 139 Of the former he may have been unintentionally guilty: — Never guilty of the latter - 140 CONCLUSION . - . - ib. LETTER XVI. The Gunpowder Conspiracy - - 146 I. Mr. Townsend's assertion, that the English Catholics were ^' extensively engaged in it - - - - - ib. Denied ...... ib. II. His assertion, that the English Catholics have uniformly refused, even in our own age, the security of loyalty to our Temporal Sovereign 147 Denied ------ ib. CONTENTS. xy The Gunpowder Conspiracy — continued. III. His assertion, that the Author of " The Book of the Roman " Catholic Church candidly acknowledges, that no single " fact has been discovered, which proves Cecil's privity " to the plot, but seems unwilling that this reluctant " conviction of his own mind, should influence his " readers" ----- - - 148 The Author admits that this tvould have been a most shameful disengenuousness. — He tran- scribes the tohole passage, and leaves it tvithout note or comment, to the Judgment of his readers ------ ib. IV. His assertion, that the Gunpowder Conspiracy can be justly charged on the whole body of the Roman Catholics, 154 Refuted ------ ib. V. 1. — His misrepresentation of Garnet's answer to Catesby^ 159 2. — His misrepresentation of the account given in " The " Book of the Roman Catholic Church," of the number of the Catholics engaged in the con- spiracy - ib. 3. — His assertion, that the Author terms the conspiracy " improbable" -.- - - - -160 Denied ------ ib. 5. — Cites the Author's expression, that, " Garnet might be " found guilty in a court of law, while a court of " honour would think gently of his case," — as if it referred to his equivocations - - - 160 The ivhole passage is cited, and shows it had no reference "whatever to these - - - 162 xvi CONTENTS. The Gunpowder Conspiracy — continued. 6 His assertion that, " no expression of indignation, no " phrase of contempt, for Garnet's doctrines of " equivocation, escape from the Author of The " Book of the Roman CathoHc Church " - 1 63 The Author calls the doctrine, " odious and per- " nicious'" and says, that " it saps thejbun- " dations of honourable intercourse in society, " and fair dealing between man and man." 164 7. — Mr. Townsend mentions, that the Author's affirmation, that " the result of his researches at the State Paper " Office, had been favourable to the Catholic " cause, — had excited in many the most painful " impressions" ------ ib. Several instances stated, in tohich the result luas Javourable to the Catholics - - 165 Mr. Townsend' s co7icealment of several facts con- nected with the plot, xvhich show the innocence of the Catholic body - - - - 167 XVI. 6. Examples of attempts, similar to that of the Gunpowder Plot, of Protestants against Catholic Princes - - - - 169 XVI. 7. The oath of allegiance required by James I. from the English Catholics - - -- - -173 Several inaccuracies in Mr. Townsend 's account of it - . - - - _ - ib. XVI. 8. General view of the laws passed against the Catholics in the reign of Elizabeth and James - - - - - -175 CONTENTS. xvii LETTER XVII. Charles I. 1 — Mr. Townsend declares, that " he does not defend the " cruel and savage executions of the priests in this " reign, for a religion which was made treason" 1 85 But he repeatedly eulogises the laivs xxiritten in blood lohich made it treason - - - ib. 2.^Admits the Catholics were loyal, but observes, that the Pope had not directed them to forsake their Sovereign ------- ib. But the Pope had directed them, under pain of excommunication, to Jbrsake the standard of Elizabeth, — i/et one and all adhered toil - ib. LETTER XVin. Charles II. — James II. 1. — Mr. Townsend defends the breachof faith of Charles II. to his Catholic and Puritan subjects, at the time of the Restoration - - - - - -187 Great inaccuracy in his defence: — The Monarch and his Mi7iisters defended it by Jlagrant equivocation -'* - - - - ib. 2. — Mr. Townsend expresses his high approbation of the Act which excludes Roman Catholics from the Senate - - - - - - -189 Lord Bolingbrohe, a traitor to his God, to his King, and to his Country, was punished Jbr his treason by a less severe punishment, than the law, thus eulogised by Mr. Townsend, inflicts on the Dulce of Norfolk, and the other Roman Catholic Peers - - - ib. 3. — Mr. Townsend repeats and aggravates the terms, — *' superstitious and idolatrous," — applied by the oath of 30 Ch. II. to the Roman Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation - - - - 190 The language in which Mr. Townsend expresses b xviii CONTENTS. Charles II. — James II. — continued. himself on this tenet, is left by the Author, to the taste, thejeeling, and refection, of every gentleman in the tvorld. 4. James II. — Mr. Townsend's assertion, that the Author declares that the measures of that monarch might be denominated a project for general religious tolera- tion 193 Shoiun to be a misrepresentation - - - 194 5. — The Bill of Rights and Act of Settlement - 195 Postscript - - - - - - -196 Transcription of the Fourth Letter ad- dressed BY Doctor Phillpotts to Mr. But- ler, containing a Charge against Doctor LiNGARD ------ 203 Doctor Lingard's Reply _ . . 214 APPENDIX. NM. Opinions of Foreign Universities on the Temporal Power of the Pope - - - - - - - 224 N-II. Tlie Oath taken by the English Roman Catholics, under t^e Provisions of the Act passed for their Relief, in the Year 1791 226 N" III. Letter on the undivided Allegiance of Roman Catholics to their Sovereign - - - - - -228 N°IV. Letter on the Coronation Oath - - - - 236 LETTER i IJBRARY CHARLES BLUNDELL, ^SQ. r—-^——^' Containing the Titles of the Works luritten in re-ply to " the Book of the Roman Catholic Church ;" — and Remarks on some Passages in them. DEAR SIR, IF a multitude of Answers to a work be a proof of its merit, " the Book of the Roman Catholic Church" has pretensions to be thought meritorious. Within a short time after it issued from the press, several answers to it appeared, and parts of it were commented upon in several other publications. I long hesitated on the plan which I ought to adopt in answering them. To answer each regularly and minutely, would make it neces- sary for me to write as many books as there were answers. This my occupations and time of life, Quindecimum trepidavit cetns C lander e lustrum, Horace. rendered quite impossible. I therefore determined to write a full reply to such one of my answerers as had made most objections to my work, and urged b2 XX LETTER TO them most strongly ; to reply to such other of the objections as should seem to me to call for parti- cular notice ; and to leave the rest for future discussion. The first part of the plan, I have executed in my letters to ]\Ir. Townsend : The second, in the letter which I have now the honour to address to you. I shall mention in it the titles of all the works to which Doctor Southey's *' Book of the " Church " has given rise, and occasionally advert to some passages in them. In the last number of the Quarterly Review, it is called " a splendid controversy: — peace and praise to us all!" You will see, after my last letter to Mr. Towns- end, a transcription of Dr. Phillpotts's letter to me, on a passage in a work published 1 7 years ago by Dr. Lingard ; and a letter in reply to it, which Dr. Lingard has done me the honour to address to me. I am sure you will read it with great satisfaction. I. The Book of the Chuuch. By Robert Southey, Esq. LL.D. Poet Laureate, Honorary Member of the Royal Spanish Academy, of the Royal Spanish Academy of History, of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands, of the Cymmrodorion, of the Massachusets His- torical Society, of the American Antiqua- rian Society, of the Royal Irish Academy, of the Bristol Philosophical and Literary Society, &c. 8vo. 2 Volumes, Second Edition, 1824. Murray. CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ, xxi ir. Strictures on the Poet Laureate's " Book of " the Church." By John Merlin. 8vo. 1825. Keating & Brown. IIL A Letter addressed to the Author of the Book of the Roman Catholic Church. By Apostolicus. 8vo. 1825. Bain. I CANNOT give you a better account of this work than by transcribing the author's preface : — " The " Roman Cathohc writers of the present day have " a two-fold object in view, the advancement of " their poHtical interests^ and the re-estabhshment " of their fallen hierarchy. To the first I have " no objection. The latter I regard with that in- " stinctive aversion, which must be felt by every " one that has contemplated the pure and glorious *' fountain of light and truth, at the bare mention " of the triumph of darkness and superstition." Upon this I only observe, that the Irish Roman Catholics have never lost their hierarchy, and that the English are perfectly satisfied with the vicarial prelacy, by which they are now governed. IV. The Reformation and the Papal System : Re- marks ON TWO Letters upon these subjects IN the Book of the Roman Catholic Church, 8vo. 1825. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, Paternoster Row; and T.Taylor, Liverpool. Ably and politely written : the chief object of the author is to shew the civil and religious blessings, b3 xxiv LETTER TO " had far better be passed sub silent'io, because " they admit of no satisfactory extenuation or " excuse ; and worse than all, meeting his his- " torical details of human ambition, hypocrisy, " depravity and cruelty, with recr'wiiJiatmis and " counter -charges, — that you had addressed your " great talents to the pith and marrow of the sub- " ject, and have devoted yourself to prove, that " the Roman Catholics of the 'present times are, " by their creed, their dogmas, their priesthood, " and their ecclesiastical discipline and institutions, " as trust-worthy governors and legislators for " these kingdoms as Protestants themselves," But is not the plan adopted in " The Book " of the Roman Catholic Church," the only plan which I could adopt to do justice to my cause ? Dr. Southey had reviled the Roman Catholic reli- gion in the strongest terms ; had called it " a pro- " digious structure of imposture and wickedness ;" had asserted that the Popery, as he terms it, of the Roman Catholics corrupts their moral and civil principles, and renders their allegiance un- sound. To vindicate my religion, my brethren in faith, and myself, against these heinous charges, it was incumbent upon me to render an account of her faith. With this view, I mentioned three works, in which it is unfolded in a manner suited to the different capacities of readers; "The Catechism of " the Council of Trent," — " Bossuet's Exposition " of Faith," — and " Bishop Challoner's Summary *' of Christian Doctrine." I prefixed to my work CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. xxv the Profession of Faith of Pope Pius IV. ; and, in a separate chapter, stated in the words of the Council of Trent, such doctrines of our creed as the Profession of Pius had described by refer- ence to that Council. All other doctrines I averred to be no part of our creed ; and expli- citly repudiated all obligation of believing them. What better could I have done to show the real tenets of the moral, civil and religious creed of my church ? or to repel the charge that we are not trustworthy governors and legislators for Protestant England ? As to recrimination ; — speaking generally, it is a sorry mode of argument, but it is unavoidable in some cases ; in mine, it could not be avoided. Dr. Southey averred in the strongest language, that the lawfulness of religious persecution, was a principle of our church ; and professed to prove it by producing instances, in which Catholics had been guilty of it. To disprove it, after disclaim- ing the tenet in the strongest manner, and shew- ing the explicit disclaimers of it, by Catholics, I produced instances equally numerous and equally unjustifiable, of Protestant persecutions. I then called on Dr. Southey to assign one good reason, why the criminality of Catholics, in the instances produced by him, should be charged on the Catholic creed or ascribed to Catholic principles, if the equal criminality of Protestants, in the instances cited by me, should not be equally chargeable on their creed or ascribable to their religious principles. 5cxvi LETTER TO This Is the only recrimination which I have used, and Dr. Southey evidently drove me to it. Most sincerely do I wish, all such recriminations, all such aspersions, all harshness of every kind, were at an end. I flatter myself that in all my writings, even in that which is now presented to you, a single word that offends against charity or civility cannot be found. I must again repeat the words of St. Francis, of Sales, that " a good ' Christian is never outdone in good manners." ' We have solemnly protested," say the Roman Catholics, in their address of 1817,* " and do again solemnly protest, against all intemperate language, all rancorous and illiberal invectives, all harsh and insulting expressions. We bear no animosity to individuals of any communion, sect or party ; we embrace all our countrymen and fellow citizens, as friends and brethren, and most sincerely do we wish to see all united in the par- ticipation of every right, and every blessing, which we soHcit for ourselves." VI. Practical and Internal Evidence against Catholicism, with occasional Strictures on Mr. Butler's Book of the Roman Catholic Church; in Six Letters, addressed to the impartial among the Roman Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland. By the Rev. * Historical Memoirs of English, Irish and Scottish Roman Catholics, Vol. IV. p. 20. CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. xxvii Joseph Blanco White, M. A.; B. D. in the University OF Seville ; Licentiate of Divi- nity IN THE University of Osuna; formerly Chaplain Magistral (Preacher) to the King of Spain, in the Royal Chapel at Seville ; Fellow and once Rector of the College of St. Mary a Jesu, of the same Tovv^n ; Sykodal Examinor of the Diocese of Cadiz ; Mem- ber of the Royal Academy of Belles Lettres OF Seville, &c. &c. ; now^ a Clergyman of the Church of England ; Author of Doublados Letters from Spain. Murray. VL 1. This Rev. gentleman in the postscript to his second Letter (p. 67), calls on his readers to com- pare the last article of my translation of Pope Pius's Creed with the original. My Translation is thus expressed : — " This true Catholic faith, out " of which none can be saved, which I now freely " profess and truly hold, I. N. promise, vow and " swear, most constantly to hold and profess the " same, whole and entire to the end of my life. " Amen." Here my translation closes : — Mr. Blanco White then transcribes the original of that clause, and inserts immediately after it, the follow- ing words as belonging to it, but which are not inserted in my translation : — " Atque a meis sub- " ditis, vel illis, quorum cura ad me in munere " meo spectabit, teneri, doceri et praedicari, quan- " tum in me erit, curaturum, ego idem N. spondeo, " voveo et juro." Mr. Blanco White then in- forms his readers, that he noticed my omission of xxviii LETTER TO the last clause, in the New Times. Had I seen the notice, it would have put me upon inquiry; but Mr. Blanco White's book conveyed to me the first notice I had of his discovery. My copy of the Creed is a transcription of that, which the late Dr. Challoner prefixed to his *' Grounds of the Catholic doctrine, as contained " in the profession of faith published by Pope " Pius IV." — first published about 50 years ago, and now in its 12th edition. Doctor Challoner also has prefixed it to his edition of the Catholic Prayer Book, entitled " The Whole Manual." The words in question are omitted in both. An Eng- lish version of the Profession of Faith, with the same omission, is also inserted in the Ordo AdmU mstramU sacramenta, published under the sanction of the Catholic Prelates in this country, for the use of the English Catholic mission. But the passage in question, is inserted in the Profession of Faith in the Bullarium of Cheru- brinus, the Bullarium Magnum, and in a stereotype edition of the Canons of the Council of Trent, recently published at Paris. I am not apprised of any edition of the original, or of any version of it, except Dr. Challoner's, and the edition in the Ordo, from which it is absent. Upon inquiry of those most likely to be well informed upon the subject, of the probable cause of Dr. Challoner's omission of the passage in his editions of the Profession of Faith Pius IV, I un- derstand, that the clause is always retained, when CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. xxix the oath is tendered to priests, and always omitted, when the oath is tendered to the laity ; and that the latter, (for till lately, priests were very seldom ordained in England), being of most frequent use in this country. Dr. Challoner naturally thought it was most proper to publish the profession in that form. I am confident that Mr. Blanco White is sufficiently informed of the high character of Dr. Challoner for learning, piety and integrity, to attri- bute his omission of the clause in question, to any sinister motive. Had I been apprised of the in- sertion of it in the original, I certainly should have given it its proper place in the translation of it which I prefixed to " the Book of the Roman " Catholic Church." VI. 2. Mr. Blanco White (page 31, and note A. page 219), finds great fault with my translation of a passage in Paulas Emilius Veromnsis. There is no end of verbal criticism, and I shall not, on this occasion, engage in it. I still maintain the propriety of my translation. My placing the ori- ginal immediately under the translation, — as by doing it I furnished means for the instantaneous detection of any error which might have found its way into my translation, — must satisfy every ho- nourable mind, that, if the error charged upon me exists, it was unintentional. XXX LETTER TO VI. 3. Mr. Blanco White (page 51) rejoices to find the dogma of intolerance branded in " the Book " of the Roman CathoHc Church with the epithet " of detestable; but cannot, he says, help won- " dering that a man, who thus openly expresses " his detestation of that doctrine, should still pro- " fess obedience to a see, under whose authority " the inquisition of Spain was re-established in " 1814." He then asks, " if Catholics are so far " i?7iproved under the Protestant government of " England, as to be able to detest persecution, by " what intelligible distinction do they still find it ** consistent to cling to the source of intolerance, ** which has inundated Europe with blood, and " still shews its old disposition unchanged whenever " it preserves an exclusive influence." In answer to these observations, I beg leave to remark, that the passage to which Mr. Blanco White refers, is not the only one in which I have proscribed intolerance. My works, as I mentioned in the dedication to you of " the Book of the " Roman Catholic Church," are numerous, per- haps too numerous : they now fill twelve octavo volumes. Among them, there is not more than one in which I have not, in the most strong and unqualified terms, advocated unlimited civil and religious liberty, or have not, in similar language, erprobated civil and religious intolerance. Of the inquisition, I have uniformly expressed myself in the harshest terms. In a postscript to my Address CHARLES RLUNDELL, ESQ. xxxi to Protestants, published in 1813, and most ex- tensively circulated, I thus express myself: — " Since this letter was written, I hear, with infinite " pleasure, that by a legislative decree of the Cortes, " the Spanish inquisition is utterly abolished. So *' perish every mode of religious persecution, by " whom or against whomsoever raised ! " In my Historical Memoirs of the English, Irish, and Scottish Catholics,* I gave a full account of the abominable process of the inquisition ; I say that, " as a systematic perversion of forms of law to the " perpetration of extreme injustice and barbarity, *' it holds, among the institutions outraging huma- " nity, a decided pre-eminence." " Why then," asks Mr. Blanco White, " do " Roman Catholics cling to the Pope?" My answer is that, we do not cling to him in the manner Mr. Blanco White suggests. We ac- knowledge in him no authority to sanction intole- rance ; no authority to legislate in any temporal concern; no authority to enforce his spiritual power by any temporal means. A Catholic, with- out ceasing to be such, may disapprove, may detest, may counteract the attempts of a Pope to establish an inquisition, or any other institution of intolerance. That both states and individuals have acted in this manner, in opposition to the Popes, is well known to Mr. Blanco White. All Austrian, German, Hungarian, Bohemian and French Roman Cathohcs, unimproved under Protestant government, cling, • Vol. I. p. 104. XXX ii LETTER TO in the manner I have mentioned, to the Pope: not one of these states has allowed the establish- ment of the inquisition M'ithin it. All deny the Pope's authority to depose princes ; all deny his tem- poral power. Can we therefore be said with justice, to cling to the Pope, in the manner in which this ex- pression is constantly used by Mr. Blanco White ? After all, objectionable as the system of the inqui- sition certainly was, both in theory and practice, can it be said, that it was more objectionable in either than the system of penal law, which was organised and established by the codes of Elizabeth and James ? Mr. Blanco White mentions, in affect- ing terms, the situation, to which his new opinions reduced his mother. I sincerely sympathize with him, and do not feel less indignation against the monstrous code of penal inflictions which occa- sioned it, than he expresses. But the penal codes of Elizabeth reduced many a mother, who would not inform, in certain cases, against her child, to similar woe. Neither should it be for- gotten, that the object of the inquisition was to prevent the introduction of a new, and, as ex- perience showed, a revolutionary religion ; the object of Elizabeth's persecutions, was to eradi- cate the ancient and the actual religion of the country, in direct opposition to the wishes of a large majority of the nation; and, in the case of Ireland, in direct opposition to the acknowledged wish of the whole kingdom. It sickens me to return to this sad subject. Why CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. xxxiu should Mr. Blanco White write a book, the evident tendency of which is to raise popular prejudice against us ; to perpetuate the laws under which we suffer ; and thus to eternize the depression of a large proportion of his brother men, of his brother Chris- tians ; of those, with whom, not many years since, he walked in union, in the house of God ? VI. 4. Mr. Blanco White has accurately transscribed my version of the canon of the loth session of the Council of Florence^ which defined, that " full power was delegated to the Bishop of Rome, " in the person of St. Peter, to feed, regulate and '•' govern the universal church, as expressed in " the general councils and holy canons." — " When ** I examine," says Mr. Blanco White, (page 33), " the vague comprehensiveness of this decree, I can " hardly conceive what else the Roman Catholics " could be required to believe. Full power tofeed^ " regulate and govern the universal church, can ** convey in the mind of the sincere Catholic, no " idea of limitation.'* But is not a very clear idea of limitation conveyed, by the words, " as ex- " pressed in the councils and holy canons ? " To these words, Mr. Blanco White seems, by his sub- sequent discussion of this passage, to have paid no regard. They denote that the plenitude of power conferred on the Holy See, by the first part of the sentence, is limited by the second to the exercise of it in that manner, which is prescribed by the general c xxxiv LETTER TO councils and holy canons. Thus the decree of the Council of Florence is explained by Bossuet.* VI. 5. Permit me to state succinctly, from an au- thority which cannot be questioned, the doctrine of the Roman Catholics, respecting exclusive sal- vation in their church, in opposition to the re- presentation which Mr. Blanco White gives of it (p. 61), and in other parts of his work. Roman Catholics hold, ist, that whatever be the religious belief of the parents of a person who * Defensio " Declarationis Ecclesiae Gallicanse, Pars II. " Lib. 6, cap. 12; Pars III. Lib. ll. cap. 10." In the ori- ginal Greek the expression is stronger than my version of it; and I must observe, that a Protestant translator of this cele- brated canon expresses the limitation in question, more strongly than I have done. " We define, that Jesus Christ has given " the Pope, in the person of St. Peter, the power to feed, " to rule, and govern the Catholic church, as it is ex- " plained in the acts of the CEcumeninal Councils, and in the " Holy Canons." (" Dupin's Ecclesiastical History, trans- " lated from the French, London, 1699, Fol. Vol. XI. Fifteenth " Century, p. 45.") The expression in the original is stronger than either of the translations. " K«* uvlu Iv 1u ixuKccpiu ntl^u " loti 'jroii/.anvsiv, Kcct ovdvvnv, xai x.vQv^i/ctv Tij* K«9o^»k>!V ixuXriaiciv " vvo lov xvplov viiA.ut Iviaov X^ttrrov 'TrX'n^ri i^ovaiocv 'TTct^oioteoa^on, " xaO ovlpo'Trov xon iv to*? TTfajtltxo*? tuv oniovi/.£i/ixuv avvoeaiy, teat ly " To?s Is^oTi nctivocrt ^ia\a,^/J^oi,vi\on. Et Ipsi in beato Petro pas- " cendi, regendi ac gubernandi universalem ecclesiam a do- " mino nostro Jesu Christo plenani potestatem traditam esse ; *' quemadmodum etiam in gestis aecumenicorum conciliorum, " et in sacris canonibus continetur." L'Abbe's Councils, Paris Edition, 1672, Tom. XIII. p. 515. CHARLES BLUNDELI., ESQ. xxxv is baptized, and whatever be the faith of the per- son who baptizes him, he becomes, on the instant of his baptism, a member of the holy CathoHc church, mentioned in the Apostle's creed. 2dly, That he receives on his baptism, justifying grace and justifying faith. 3dly, That he loses the for- mer, by the commission of any mortal sin. 4thly, That he loses the latter by the commission of a mortal sin against faith, but does not lose it by the commission of a mortal sin of any other kind. 5thly, That without such wilful ignorance or wilful error, as amounts to a crime in the eye of God, a mortal sin against faith is never committed. And 6thly, That except in an extreme case, no indi- vidual is justified in imputing, even in his own mind, this criminal ignorance, or criminal error to any other individual. I extract these propositions from " Charity and " Truth,'' a work of the greatest authority among Roman Catholics, and recently republished under the sanction of the venerable prelates of the Roman Catholic church in Ireland. Such, then, being the tenets of the Roman Ca- tholic church on this important point, may want of charity upon it be objected to her ? It cannot be objected to her by a Protestant of the Established church of England, as the Athanasian creed and its damnatory clause, form a part of her liturgy ; — or by a Protestant of the Established church of Scotland, as the Protestants of that church, in their profession of faith of 1568, say, that out of the c 2 xxxvi LETTER TO church there is neither life nor everlasting happi- ness ; or hy a Protestant of the French Huguenot church, as in their catechism they profess, in their explanation of the tenth article of the creed, that out of the church there is nothing but death and damnation. VI. 6. Mr. Blanco White (p. 34, &c.) justly observes, that neither the belief, or disbelief of the Pope's deposing power, is an article of the Roman Catho- lic faith; and that the Roman Catholic church tolerates each opinion : this is unquestionably true. His theological disquisition upon this subject, it is not my province to discuss; all that I contend for is, that as an explicit profession of allegiance, and an explicit denial of the Pope's deposing power, have been sworn to by the English, Irish and Scottish Catholics, the belief or maintenance of that doc- trine cannot, with any justice, be charged upon them, or considered to form a part of their creed, or even ranked among their opinions. Their de- nials upon oath of the deposing power, were, from the first, known to the Pope : the slightest murmur of his disapprobation of them has not been heard ; and I am confident, that, although the disbelief of the Pope's deposing power is yet a tolerated opinion, there is not a single Catholic in the- universe who believes it. VI. 7. Mr. Blanco White (p. 41) expresses his dis- CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. xxxvii Satisfaction with the questions proposed to the foreign Universities ; and with their answers. As the questions satisfied Mr. Pitt, there certainly is reason to presume that they were framed pro- perly, Mr. Blanco White wishes that the follow- ing question had been substituted in lieu of the three actually proposed : — " Can the Pope, in vii^tue of xvhat the Ro- " man Catholics believe his divine authority^ " command the assistance of the faithful^ in " checking the progress of heresy, by any " 7neans not likely to produce loss or danger " to the Roman Catholic church ; and can *' that church acknowledge the validity of any " engagement to disobey the Pope in such " cases?''' My answer shall be short and explicit; and will, I trust, be satisfactory. The Pope rnay^ in virtue of xvhat the Ro- man Catholics believe his divine authority^ command the assistance of the faithful in checking the progress of heresy, by preaching and teaching, in the manner prescribed by the Gospel; but by no other means: — and the Roman Catholics may acknowledge the validity of any engagement to disobey the Pope, in any case in xvhich he should command them to check heresy, by any other means than those of preaching and teachings in the mannef prescribed by the Gospel. C3 xxxviii LETTER TO This, the Universities, by their unqualified de- nial of the Pope's divine right to temporal power, in their answers, ; — this, the English, Irish and Scottish Catholics, by their unqualified denial of it in their oaths, have most distinctly asserted. VI, 8. One further observation on the work now before me, I shall offer you. In page 60, Mr^ Blanco White informs us, that " he knew very few " Spanish priests whose talents or acquirements " were above contempt, who had not secretly re- " nounced their religion." I have never been in Spain, and have known few Spanish priests : but I have conversed with many Spanish, and many English and Irish Roman Catholic gentlemen, in- timately acquainted with the opinions, the manners, and the habits of the inhabitants of Spain. All assure me that there is not the slightest ground for this accusation. — Mr. Blanco White intimates, that something similar may be the case of the English Catholic priesthood, on account of " the support *' which they seem to give to oaths so abhorrent ** from the belief of their church, as those which " must precede the admission of members of that " church into Parliament." These are the Oaths of Supremacy and those against Transubstantiation and Popery. Here Mr. Blanco White has been miserably deceived. There is not, and there never was, a Roman Catholic priest, who supported these oaths or a similar oath; or who did not believe, and, CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. xxxJx if called upon, did not explicitly declare, that a Roman Catholic would, by taking them, absolutely abjure the Roman Catholic religion. VII. Letter to Charles Butler, Esq. of Lincoln's Inn, in Vindication of English Protestants from his Attack upon their Sincerity, in his 'Book of the Roman Catholic Church.' ByC. J. Bloomfield, Bishop ofChester. Third Edition. To which is added, a Postscript, in Reply to Mr. Butler's Letter to the Author. 8vo. Mawman. To this Work I replied by " A Letter to the Right Rev. C. J. Bloom- " field. Bishop of Chester, from Charles " Butler, Esq. in Vindication of a Passage " in his ' Book of the Roman Catholic " Church,' censured in a Letter addressed " to him by his Lordship." 8vo. Murray. Vlll. Letters to Charles Butler, Esq. on the Theological Parts of his 'Book of the Ro- man Catholic Church,' with Remarks on CERTAIN Works of Doctor Milner, Doctor LiNGARD, AND on SOME PaRTS OF THE EVIDENCE of Doctor Doyle, before the Two Commit- tees OF the Houses of Parliament, by the Reverend Henry Philpotts, d.d. Rector of Stanhope. 8vo. Murray. AS fair specimens of the spirit and style of this publication, and of the worth of the charges brought in it against me, I select from it — I. The author's c 4 xl LETTER TO criminations of my statements of the Romart Catholic doctrine of Purgatory ; — II. His crimina- tions of my statement of the Roman Catholic doctrine of Sacramental Absolution ; — III. And his criminations of the expression " Dom'mium album,'" used by me in a former work, to describe the Pope's spiritual authority, in extraordinary cases of a spiritual nature, and exerted by Pius VII, in his transactions Avith Napoleon.* Beginning with the first, I shall copy from " the " Book of the Roman Catholic Church," the pas- sage respecting Purgatory, reprehended by Doctor Phillpotts ; — 2, then copy his remarks upon it, and his citation from Calvin, of the passage in that author, to which I referred; — 3, then copy the parts of that passage which are omitted by Doctor Phill- potts ; — 4, then state the results. I. Transcription of the Passage in *' The Book of the Roman Catholic Church" (p. 104), respecting Pur- gatory, which is reprehended hy Dr. Phillpotts. ** As I am not writing a work of controversy, ** I shall say httle on the articles in your (Dr. " Southey's) present chapter, which remain to be " discussed. " As to the existence of Purgatory, for the belief " of which the Roman Catholics have been so " often and so harshly reviled, do not all, who call • LoUer X. S«,'ct. 2. CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. xli themselves ' rational Protestants, ' think with us, that, (to use the language of Dr. Johnson), * the generality of mankind are neither so obsti- nately wicked, as to deserve everlasting punish- ment ; nor so good, as to merit being admitted into the society of blessed spirits ; and that God is therefore generously pleased to allow a middle state, where they may be purified by a certain degree of suffering.' With those who profess this doctrine, does not your own opinion accord ? And what is this, but the very doctrine of the Roman Catholic church respecting purgatory ? " As to prayers for the dead, the council of Trent* has decreed, * that there is a Purgatory, and that the souls detained in it are helped by the suffrages of the faithful.' " The nature and extent of these suffrages are thus explained by St. Augustine : t * When the sacrifice of the altar, or alms, are offered for the dead, then, in regard to those whose lives were very good, such sacrifices may be deemed acts of thanksgiving. In regard to the imperfect, they may be deemed acts of propitiation ; and though they bring no aid to the very bad, they may give some comfort to the living.' " Tradition in favour of the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory is so strong, that Calvin confesses • exphcitly, that 'during 1,300 years before his * Sess. XXV. Decretum de Purgatione. p. 286. t Eucbird, c. X. c. torn. 2^ p. 83. xlii LETTER TO " time,' (1,600 before ours,) ' it had been the prac- ** tice to pray for the dead, in the hope of procur- *' ing them relief.' " You yourself will scarcely " venture to assert, that there is any thing substan- " tially wrong in this devotion, when you recollect *' that Archbishop Cranmer said a solemn mass for " the soul of Henry II, of France ; that bishop " Rid ley preached, and that eight other prelates *' assisted at it in their copes.'' I. 2. Dr. PhiUpotts's Comment (p. 146,) upon this Passage. His Citation from Calvin, of the Passage to which it refers. He quotes a passage from Bishop Fisher ; — then says, " Choose between him and Dr. Milner, " whether you will seek for your church such ad- *' vantages only, as can be obtained by fair and " manly argument, or will prefer the specious, but *' in the end, the ruinous course of aiming at a *' little temporary triumph, bi/ the artifices of the ** sophist, or the calumniator. At present, I am *' sorry to say, (while / wish to acquit you of ca- " lumny), that in sophistry you are too apt and " forward a pupil of your great master (Dr. Milner). " Hence it is, that you have ventured to eke out " your meagre section on the question before us, " with the following miserable attempt to mislead " your readers. ' Tradition in favour of the Ca- " tholic doctrine of Purgatory is so strong, that " Calvin confesses explicitly, that during 1,300 CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. xliii " vears before his time (1,600 before ours}, it had " been the practice to pray for the dead, in the " hope of procuring them relief.' You have not *•' thought fit to give any reference to the particular ** work of Calvin, from which you make this " notable quotation, though you require of us to " mention always the work, the edition of it, and *' the page in which it is contained. * Left there- *' fore, as we are, to hunt for the passage through " nine ponderous folios, I am so illiberal as to " suspect, either that it does not exist at all, in the " precise form in which you exhibit it ; or, if it " exists, that it would be found in company, which " you would be very sorry it should be seen to " keep. Permit me to ask. Sir, whether you ever " read what Calvin has really written on this point? " If you have not, will you acknowledge any obli- '' gation to me for informing you, in that writer's " own words, what he thought and taught on — " Tradition in favour of purgatory, " * As to Purgatory, we know that there were •' ancient churches which made mention of the " dead in their prayers ; but that was rare, was " sober, and contained in few words ; such, in " short, as showed that they only wished to tes- " tify incidentally their own charity towards the '' dead. The architects, who built up that Pur- *' gatory of yours, were not yet in existence. I " will not suffer, Sadoletus, that the name of the * Book of the Roman Catholic Church, &c. p. 10. xUy letter to " church be inscribed on such flagitious tenets, " that you shall so defame it in violation of all " that is just or sacred, and raise against us a " prejudice in the minds of the ignorant, as if we " were resolved to wage war* with the church. " For, while I admit, that there were sown long ** ago certain seeds of superstition, which were " somewhat degenerating from the purity of the " Gospel, yet you know well, that the monstrous * Resp. ad Sadolet. j). no f. " Since writing the above I " have found the passage (Inst. I. 3, c. 5, s. 10) which you " have had in view. It is, what I suspected, as will be ap- " parent from the following extracts : ' Quam mihi ohjiciunt " ' adversarii, ante mille et trecentos annos usu receptuni '* * fuisse ut precationes fierint pro defunctis, eos vicissim in- " * terrogo, quo Dei verbo &c. factum sit.' ' Cajtereim ut " ' concedam vetustis ecclesiie scriptoribus pium esse visum ** ' suftVagari mortuis, &c.* ' Verum, ne glorientur adversarii " * nostri, quasi veterem ecclesiam erroris sui sociam habeant " * dico esse longum discrimen,' ' Agebant illi memoriam " ' mortuorum, ne viderentur omnium de ipsis curam abjecisse : " < sed simul fatebantur, se dubitare de ipsorum statu. De " ' purgatoris certe adco nihil assererent ut pro re incertd habe- " ' rent' ' Quinetiam nonnulla veterum testimonia preferre, - " ' nobis baud difficile esset qua; tunc usitatae eraut manifesto " ' evertunt/ It is thus that Calvin ' confesses explicitly, that " during 1,300 years before his time (1,600 before ours) it had " been the practice to pray for the dead, in the hope of pro- '* curing them relief" t " Nemesis," says Doctor Jolinson, in his Life of Milton, " is alwajs " on the watch." In the present instance Doctor Phiilpotts leaves lue to liunt for this passage " in nine ponderous volumes of Calvin's works," in thf same manner as he taunts me for Laving left him to hunt among them ii)T the passage v\bich I had cited. CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. \W '^ impieties, against which our warfare is directed, " were but recently either first called into existence, " or at least, carried to their present magnitude. " Against your whole proud system, to take it by " storm, to trample it to the earth, to scatter it to " the winds, we are armed not only with the " strength of the Divine Word, but also with the " authority of the Holy Fathers.' " " This, Sir, is an account of the tradition re- " specting Purgatory, given by Calvin, ' that **' * Blasphemer Calvin,' as he is called by the " meek and holy Dr. Milner. Avail yourself of" " it if you can." " We have thus seen the doctrine of your church " respecting Confession and Absolution. You, in " this instance (as I have been sorry to find in dif- " ferent degrees is almost invariably your practice), ** have contrived to evade the whole of the real " question at issue between the two churches, and " have affected to perceive no difference between " them. For this purpose you cite a passage from *' Dr. Milner's End of Controversy, and another " from Chillingworth, which do not at all touch on *' the points of difierence. Consult your own heart, *' Sir, and let that tell you, whether you have not " here deeply, 1 had almost said, shamefully pre- " varicated. You know that Auricular Confession " is with you an essential part of a sacrament, " which, as you value your soul's salvation, you " must perform. You also know, that with us the ** same confession is not at all required as a no- xlvi LETTER TO " cessary service, not as a part of repentance, not " even of discipline — that it is merely a matter " recommended to those sinners whose troubled *' consciences admit not of being quieted by " self-examination, however close and searching, " nor any other instruction, however diligent, " that he only who, ' reguireth father comfort " ' or counsel^ after all that he can do for him- " self, is invited to repair to some discreet and " learned minister of God's word, and oyen his '* ^r/e/*, that by the ministry of God's holy word " he may receive the benefit of absolution, together *' with ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting " of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and " doubtfulness." 1.3. Transcriptions from Calvin's Institutiom, and Translations of them. If the accuracy of my citation from Calvin had rested upon the language in which it is cited by Dr. Phillpotts, I believe every candid reader would have thought that I deserved no harsh words for citing it to prove my assertion. But, how much of the passage which I had in view, and which Dr. Phillpotts had under his eyes, is concealed by him. 1. He omits the two first sentences, which fully and incontrovertibly prove the accuracy of my assertion — " At vetustissi??ia " fuet ecclesia observatio. Hanc objectionem solvit " Paulus, dum suam quoque astatem in ea sententia " compreliendit, ubi denuntiat jacturam operis sui CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. xlvii " facere oportere omnes, qui in ecclesiae structurA» '' aliquid fundamento minus consentaneum po- " suerit." " Our opponents will r^eply, that it has " been a very ancient opinion in the church. " Paul removes this object ion j when, he comprx- *' hends even his own age in this sentence, xvhere " he denounces that all must suffer the loss of their " work, who, in the structure of the church, should *' ylace any thing not corresponding to the founda- " tion,' Surely Calvin's answer, while it contro- verts the propriety, admits explicitly the antiquity of the practice. Calvin allows that it was a very ancient practice, but asserts that it was contrary to the word of God. Now, I have not cited him for asserting its conformity to the holy word ; I have only cited him for admitting its antiquity. This he unequivocally allows ; and his allowance of it is so clear, that the editor of his work (perhaps himself), thus abridges the passage in the margin : — " Vetusta quidem est hasc opinio, quam vetustior '' Apostolus refellit." " In fact, it is an ancient " opinion, but a more ancient Apostle refutes it'' 2. — Then follows the passage which Dr. Phill- potts has cited : — -" Quum ergo mihi objiciunt " adversarii ante mille et trecentos annos usu " receptum fuisse, ut precationes fierent pro de- " functis, eos vicessim interrogo quo dei verbo, &c. " factum sit." " When our adversaries therefore " object to mCy that, to offer prayers for the dead, ** has been the practice of more than i, $00 years, " / inquire of them, on the contrary, by what xlvlii LETTER TO " word of God^ S^c. it is sanctioned." Here the antiquity of the practice, at the distant period of 1,300 years, is expressed ; it is not controverted by Calvin. He confines his objection, as before, to its propriety. 3. — Then follows another important admission, which Dr. Phillpotts wholly omits : — " Ipsi etiam *"*" veterxs qui preces fundebant pro mortuis, et " mandato Dei et legitimo exemplo hie se destitui " videbant. Cur ergo audebant ? In eo, dico " aliquid humani passos esse ideoque in imita- " tionem trabendum non esse contendo, quod " fecerunt : Fuit etiam instar facis recepta con- " suetudo." '' E'ven the Fathers themselves, ** who offered up prayers for the dead, saw that " they had neither a Divine command nor a legiti- " mate example to justify the practice. Why then " did they presume to adopt it? In this, I say, they " discover themselves to be but men ; and therefore " / contend, that what they did ought not to be " enforced on the imitation of others. The custom " also, ivhen received, was like a flame, kindling " ardour in the minds of multitudes." 4. — In the same spirit Calvin writes in the following passage, — also omitted by Dr. Phillpotts : " Abrepti etiam ipsi fateor in errorem fuerunt, " nempe ut inconsiderata credulitas privare judicio " solet homnium mentis." " / confess they wci^e " also involved in ei^ror themselves, from an incon- " siderate credulity, which frequently deprives the " human mind of judgment'' CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. xlix 5. — Afterwards follows the passage cited by Doctor Phillpotts : — " C'ceteriim ut concedam ve- " tustis ecclesiee scriptoribus pium esse visum *' suffragari pro mortuis I" But, though I concede *' that the anticnt icriters of the church esteemed " it a pious act to pray for the dead,"" &c. ; the other passage also cited by him«follows. The foregoing citations are copied from the edition of the " Institutiones," published at Am- sterdam in 1677. L. 3. c. 5. sect. 10. In the version of the passages which I have cited, I have availed myself of Mr. Allen's translation of them, in 3 vols. 8vo. 1813. 1.4. The, Result. All the passages are now before you and my other readers. The question to be decided is, whe- ther my assertion, that " Calvin confesses explicitly " that, during 1,300 years before his time, (1,600 " before ours), it had been the practice to pray for " the dead, in the hope of procuring them relief," is proved. I aver, that the passages cited prove it be- yond controversy. Calvin reprobates the doctrine. Then mentions its being objected to him, that it is " a very ancient practice." " That it had been in " use before 1,300 years antecedent to his time." He does not deny the fact ; but contends that the practice, however ancient, was contrary to the word of God; and thus, though ancient, was unjustifiable. / never said or hinted, that Calvin was favour- able to the doctrine of Purgatory ; his reprobation of it is unquestionable I said, ^ and I now trium- d I LETTER TO phantly repeat, that Calvin allowed the anti- quity of the practice of prayers for the dead ; or, to repeat the words, in " the Book of the Roman " Catholic Church," " that, during i ,300 years " before his time, (1,600 years before ours), it had " been the practice to pray for the dead, in the hope " of procuring them relief." — Read again all that he concedes. II. 1. / now proceed to the passage in " The Book of the Roman " Catholic Church," respecting Sacramental Absolution, which is criminated by Dr. Phillpotts. I shall first transcribe all that is said on this subject in " The Book of the Roman Catholic Church." Adressing myself to Dr. Southey, I there thus express myself: — " In respect to the Auricular " Confession, I hope you will be convinced, that it " does not deserve a bitter word, when you have " perused the following testimonies in its favour : " The Lutheran," says Dr. Milner, in his End " of Controversy, " who are the elder branch of *' the Reformation, in their confession of faith, and " apology for that confession, expressly teach, that *' absolution is no less a sacrament than baptism, *' and the Lord's supper; that, particular absolution *' is to be retained in confession; that, to reject it, " is the error of the Novatian heretics ; and that, " by the power of the keys, (Matth. xvi. 9), sins " are remitted, not only in the sight of the church, " but also in the sight of God.* Luther himself, *' in his catechism, required that the penitent, in * Confess. August. Art. XI. XII. XIII. Apcl. CHARLES BLUNDFXL, ESQ. H * confession, should expressly declare, that he be- * lieves the forgiveness of the priest to be the for- ' giveness of God.* What can Bishop Porteus, ' and other modern Protestants, say to all this, ' except that Luther and his disciples were infected ' with Popery ? Let us then proceed to inquire ' into the doctrine of the most distinguished heads. ' In the order of the communion, composed by ' Cranmer, and published by Edward Vl. the ' parson, vicar or curate, is to proclaim this among ' other things, * If there be any of You., whose ' conscience is troubled and grieved at any things ' lacking comfort or counsel, let him come to me, or * to some other learned j^riest, and confess and open ' his sin and grief secretly, 8^c. that of us, as a ' minister of God, and of the church, he may re- ' ceive comfort aiul absolution.]' Conformably with ' this admonition, it is ordained in the Common ' Prayer Book, that, when the minister visits any ' sick person, the latter should be moved to make ' a special confession of his sins, if he feels his ' conscience troubled with any weighty matter ; ' after which confession, the priest should absolve ' him, if he humbly and heartily desire it, after ' this sort : Our Lord Jesus Christ, ivho hath left ' power to his church to absolve all sinners, who ' truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy, ' forgive thee thine offences ; and by his authority, ' committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy * In Catch. Parr. See also Luther's Table Talk, c. xviii. on Auricular Confession. f Bishop Sparrow's Collect, p. lo. d2 lii LETTER TO " s'm,s, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, " and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.^ I may add, " that soon after James I. became, at the same " time, the member and the head of the Enghsh " Church, he desired his prelates to inform him, in " the conference at Hampton Court, what autho- " rity this church claimed in the article of abso- " lution from sin. When Archbishop Whitgift " betran to entertain him with an account of the " general confession and absolution, in the com- " munion service, with which the King not being " satisfied, Bancroft, at that time Bishop of London, " fell on his knees, and said, it becomes us to deal " plainly w ith Your Majesty. There is also in the " book, a more particular and personal absolution " in the Visitation of the Sick. Not only the con- '' fession of Augusta, (Augsburg), Bohemia and " Saxony, retain and alloiv it, but also Mr. Calvin " DOTH APPROVE BOTH SUCH A GENERAL AND " SUCH A PRIVATE CONFESSION AND ABSOLU- " TiON." To this the King answered, ' I exceed- " inoly well approve of it, being an apostolical and " godly ordinance, given, in the name of Christ, '' to one that desireth it, upon the clearing of his " conscience.'" t * " Order of the Visitation of the Sick. — N. B. To encourage " the secret confession of sins, the Church of England has made " a canon, requiring her ministers not to reveal the same. See " Canones Eccles. A. D. 1693. d. 113." t " Fuller's Ch. Hist. B. x. p. 9. — Seethe Defence of Bancroft's '' successor in the see of Canterbury, Doctor Laud, who endea- '' voured to enforce auricular confession, in Heylin's Life of Laud, " part2, p. 415. It appears from this writer, that Laud was CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. M Thus far Dr. Milner :— The Book of the Roman Catholic Church, then proceeds immediately, — and without any comment, — as follows : — " I bejT leave to add the words of the * immortal *' Chillingworth,' for by this epithet, he is fre- " quently distinguished by Your writers." " Can any man be so unreasonable as to imagine, *' that when our Saviour in so solemn a manner, — " having first breathed upon his disciples, thereby " conveying and insinuating the Holy Ghost into " their hearts, — renewed unto them, or rather con- *' firmed that glorious commission, &c. whereby " he delegated to them an authority of binding and " loosing sins upon earth, &c. Can any one *' think, I say, so unworthily of our Saviour, as " to esteem these words of his for no better than *♦ compliment? Therefore, in obedience to His " gracious will, and as I am warranted and enjoined *' by my holy mother, the Church of England, I *' beseech you, that, by your practice and use, you "■ will not suffer that commission, which Christ *' hath given to his ministers, to be a vain form of " words, without any sense under them. When " you find yourselves charged and oppressed, &c. " have recourse to your spiritual physician, and " freely disclose the nature and malignancy of your " disease, &c. and come not to him only with such '' confessor to the Duke of Buckingham ; and from Burnet, that " Bishop Morley was confessor to the Duchess of York, when a " Protestant. Hist, of his own Time«." d3 liv LETTER TO " mind as you would go to a learned man, as one " that can speak comfortable things to you ; but as " to one that hath authority delegated to him from " God himself to absolve and acquit you of your " si?is:' * " To these testimonies," (I thus say, in the " Book of the Church," continuing my address to Doctor Southey), — " which should have so much " weight with you, — I shall only add the same ob- " servation as I have just made on our doctrine " of prayers for the dead ; that in the G?rek " church, and in the numerous oriental churches " of the Nestorians, Eutychians, and Alonothelites, *' who separated from the Church of Rome in an " early age of Christianity, Auricular Confession " is retained and practised. Does not this circum- " stance incontrovertibly prove its early admission " into the church ? In ecclesiastical doctrine and " discipline is not such early antiquity always *' respectable ?" IT. 2. Doctor Phillpotts's Crimination of the pasmge in the " Book of the Roman Catholic Church" respecting Sacramental Absolution. " We have just seen the doctrine of your " church respecting Confession and Absolution. — " You, in this instance, (as I am sorry to find, ' in different degrees, is almost invariably your * Serm. vii. Relig. of Prot. pp. 408-409. CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. It. practice in others), have contrived to evade the whole of the real question, between the two churches, and have affected to perceive no difference between them. In this passage, you cite a passage from Doctor Milner's End of Controversy, and another from Chillingworth, which do not at all touch on the points in dif- ference. Consult your own heart. Sir, and let that tell you, whether you have not here deeply, I had almost said, shamefully, prevaricated. You know that Auricular Confession is with you an essential part of a sacrament, which, as you value your soul's salvation, you must perform. You also know, that the same confession is not at all required as a necessary service, not as a part of repentance, not even of discipline : that it is merely a matter recommended to those sinners, whose troubled conscience admits not of being quieted by self-examination, however close and searching, nor any other instruction, however diligent, that he only ' wJio requireth ^further comfort or counsel,' after all that he can do for himself, is invited to repair, ' to ' some discreet minister of God's word, and open ' his grief; that by the ministry of God's holy * word, he may i^eceive the benefit of absolution, ' together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the * quieting of his conscience of all scruple and doubtfulness.'" d4 Ivi LETTER TO III. 3. The Result. I HAVE thus stated the whole of the passage, in " The Book of the Roman Catholic Church,' which is the subject of the present discussion, and have copied, in his own words, the language which Dr. Phill potts addresses to me upon it. Are not you — are not all my readers quite satis- fied, that I have not deserved the language which Doctor Phillpotts has applied to me ? How can it be said, that " I evade the question at issue " between the two churches ? " Was this question proposed to me ? — Did I- profess to discuss any question ? Did I mention, did I refer to any ? Can I be said " to have affected to perceive no " difference between them ?" I neither said, nor insinuated, that there is no diff'erence between them, I never said that the difference between them was slijiht : I said nothing about difference. I know it to be great. — All I say in " The " Book of the Roman Catholic Church," — all I insinuate in it, is, " a hope, that Doctor " Southey would be convinced that Auricular Con- " fession, as practised in the Church of Rome, " does not deserve a bitter^ word, when he should " have perused the following testimonies produced " by me." I then produce a passage from Doctor Milner's " End of Controversy ;" another, from Dr. Chillingworth. Then, without a single obser- vation, after half a dozen lines, \vhich mention the practice of Auricular Confession in the Oriental churches, I leave the subject altogether. CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. iVu? " Consult," these are Doctor Philpotts own words, " consult your own heart, and let that tell " you, whether you have not deeply, I had almost said shamefully prevaricated.'' — I ask, in what? " You know," says the Doctor, " that Auricular " Confession is with you an essential part of a " sacrament, which, as you value your soul's sal- " vation, you must perform." This I certainly did, and do know. Have I said, have I insi- nuated the contrary ? — " You also know," con- tinues Dr. Phillpotts, " that with us, it is not at " all required, as a necessary service ; not a part of " repentance, not even of discipline ; that it is " merely recommended to those, whose troubled " consciences admit not of being quieted by self- " examination, however close and searching." Without acquiescing in the accuracy of this repre- sentation of the doctrine of the Church of Eng- land on the point in question ; or inquiring, whe- ther it be reconcilable with the passage just be- fore cited by me from Doctor Chillingworth, I accept Doctor Phillpotts statement, — I admit my- self to have known all the Doctor says I knew. But, how can all this justify Doctor Philpotts's charging upon me the foul crime of " deep and " shameful prevarication." Prevarication, Doctor Phillpotts well knows, is separated by a very thin line, from the crime described by the unutterable monosyllable. I ask, — not, if it be just to impute it to me : — but, if it be possible to frame such a charge upon my words ? — Have I said, have Iviii LETTER TO I insinuated, that the doctrines of the churches are the same ? Have I affected to perceive no differ- ence between them ? Have I said any thing respect- in^ their ditierence ? Nothing Hke it.— All I have said is, that " I hoped that Doctor Southey, after " perusing the passages I was about to cite, would " not think our doctrine on the subject deserving " a bitter word." In this I may have been mis- taken. After perusing these passages, Dr. Southey may think --he may even be right in thinking, that Auricular Confession, as practised in the Church of Rome, does deserve a bitter word : Still, where can prevarication be found ? Such is the charge M^hich Doctor Phillpotts has brought against me ; — such the language in which he conveys it; — and such its truth. III. Charge brought by Doctor Phillpotts, on Mr. Butler's having allowed, in a former Publication, the Dominium Altum of the Pope. — Reply to the Charge. I SHOULD not detain your attention to Doctor Phillpotts's publication any longer, if he had not, towards the conclusion of it, brought, or rather insinuated against me, a charge, which seems to call in question the sincerity with which I have taken the oaths of allegiance, prescribed by the i8th and 31st of his late Majesty, to his Roman Cathohc subjects; and which may be thought to implicate the general body of the Roman CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. Ux Catholics in the accusation. I shall state the charge in his own words. III. 1. The Charge. " In the year 1800, the late Pope Pius VII. " addressed his late Most Christian Majesty, the " eldest son of the church, Louis XVIII. as " lawful King of France and successor of St. " Lewis, and made to him, as such, the usual com- " munication of the intelligence of his election to " the Popedom. In the following year, on " April 10th, 1801, the same Pope entered into " a concordat with Buonaparte, which instrument, " besides suppressing 146 episcopal and metro- " politan sees, and dismissing their bishops and " metropolitans without any form of judicature, " absolves all Frenchmen from their oaths of alle- " giance to their legitimate sovereign, Louis XVIII. " and authorizes an oath of allegiance to the First *' Consul. The Pope's words are, * Consensimus, " ut episcopi antequam episcopale munus susci- " plant coram Primo Consuli juramentum fideli- " tatis emittant." " Consensimus ut parochi," &c. &c. " In reference to this affair, a book was printed " in London, in the year 1 807, with the name of " a most respectable gentleman of your church in " the title-page, from which you will permit me " to present my readers with the following most " instructive passage : — ' The ecclesiastical divi- " sion of France by the Pope and Buonaparte, has Ix LETTER TO *' not been acquiesced in by some of the Gallican " prelates: they appear much pe?'ple.ved between '* allegiance to the Bourbons, and duty to the Pope. " They invoke the canons ;' and their appeal to *' the canons must be decided in their favour, " if the case should be tried by the ordinary rules " of the ecclesiastical polity of the Roman Catholic " church. But at the time we speak of, no se?i- *' tence, founded on those rules, could be carried *' into execution. Such was the extraordinary " state of things, that nothing short of the *' DoMiNUM Altum, or the right of providing *' for e.vtraordinary cases by extraordinary cases " of authority, could be exerted with effect; and " that DoMiNUM Altum the vejierable prelates " cannot, co)isistently with their own principles, " deny to the successors of St. Peter. " I have called this a most instructive passage, *' and some of my readers will probably agree with " me in so considering it. It tells us of anew secu- *' rity for our existing institutions in church and " state (as far as the Pope can endanger them), if *' the proposed bills should pass : it is this, that no " harm shall be done to them, no exertion of the " DoMiNUM Altum, if — no extraordinary case " shall arise, which may require to be provided for *' by an extraordinary act of authority. " Having thus stated the obligation we owe to *' this writer, I will no longer withhold his name " from the grateful commemoration of my fellow ^' Protestants, it is ' Charles Butler, of CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. ha " Lincoln's-Inn, Esquire,'* who with be- " coming modesty, wishes at present to be chiefly " known, as author of ' the Book of the Roman " Catholic Church ;' a book at which I am " now going to take, (I rejoice to say), one part- " ing glance." III. 2. The Reply. Words cannot express a stronger disbehef ot the right of the Popes to temporal power, direct or indirect, or a stronger detestation of their claim to it, than I have repeatedly expressed in the work cited by Doctor Phillpotts. In the 31st page, he will find, that, after observing that some Popes had taken upon themselves to tiy, condemn and depose sovereigns, to absolve their subjects from allegiance to them, and to grant their kingdoms to others, I add these words : " That a claim so '' unfounded and impious, so detrimental to reli- " gion, so hostile to the peace of the world, and " apparently, so extravagant and visionary, should *' have been made, is strange ; stranger still is the " success it met with." In page 159, I mention some circumstances, " which, for a time, preserved to the Popes their " temporal power in the states that acknowledged *' their spiritual supremacy." I proceed to observe, '^^ Butler's Works, Vol. II, p. 13. Proofs and Illustrations. *' Revolutionsof the Germanic Empire, London, 1807. I readily " admit, that there are in the same work several strong passages " against the Pope's temporal power." — Why did not Doctor Phillpotts do me the justice,— for this justice was due to me,— to copy them? Ixii LETTER TO that " the influence which this gave them, made " them venture on those enormities, which now " excite so much astonishment, the bulls by which *' they absolved the subjects of Henry IV. of " France and our Elizabeth, from their allegiance, " their approbation of the massacre of St. Bartho- " lomew, their concurrence in the league, their *' blessing of the Armada," &c. In page 161, I expressly intimate my opinion, that the distinction between the Pope's direct and indirect power in temporals is merely verbal. Finally, in page 163, 1 give an explicit opinion, that " the claim of the Pope to temporal power, is one " of the greatest misfortunes that have befallen *' Christianity." With these passages before him, it is a matter of astonishment to me, that Dr. Phill potts should charge me with ascribing to the Pope, a power of transferring allegiance, or any thing which resembles it. I certainly think, that, in extraordinary cases of idi spiritual nature, and for the spiritual advantage of the people, the Pope may make spiritual arrangements of the spiritual concerns of the church, though contrary to its established canons. This is all that is expressed, or can decently be inferred, from the passage referred to by Doctor Phillpotts. Upon this subject I shall only add, that the objections of the Irish prelates. Dr. IVIilner, or Mr. Plowden, to the Gallican declaration of 1682, which are referred to by Dr. Phillpotts, did not relate to the first of the four articles of which the CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. Ixiii declaration is comprized. This declares the inde- pendence of the temporal on the spiritual power of the Popes. The objections related only to the three remaining articles ; these regard the discipline of the church in spiritual concerns ; with these the temporal powers have no right of interference ; this has been repeatedly explained. IX. Letter to Charles Butler, Esq. of Lincoln's- Inn, containing Brief Observations upon HIS Question, What has England gained by the Reformation? By a true Catholic. 8vo. 1825. Hatchard & Son. X. The Accusations of History against the Church of Rome, examined in many of the Principal Observations in theWork of Mr. Charles Butler, entitled, " The Book of THE Roman Catholic Church." By the Reverend George Townsend,M.A. ofTrinity College, Cambridge. XI. An Apology for the Church of England, by the Right Reverend John Jewell, D.D. Lord Bishop of Salisbury. Faithfully trans- lated FROM the original LaTIN, AND ILLUS- TRATED WITH COPIOUS Notes, by the Reverend Stephen Isaacson, B.A. of Christ College, Cambridge. To which is prefixed, a Memoir OF his Life and Writings, and a Preliminary Discourse on the Doctrine and Discipline OF the Church of Rome; in Reply to some Observations of Charles Butler, Esq. Ixiv LETTER TO ADDRESSED TO Dr. SoUTHEY, ON HIS " BoOK OF THE Church." 8vo. 1825. Hearne. It is remarkable, that although Dr. Isaacson explicitly adopts Dr. Middleton's opinion, against the continuation of miracles, after the apostolic age, he yet cites,*' without any animadversion, from Fuller's Life of their Common Hero, the mira- culous warnings of death, given by the Almighty to Bishop Jewell, Bishop Ridley, and to Cyprian and Bradford, the Marian Martyrs. Ridley was certainly guilty of high treason to Queen Mary, his lawful sovereign. " Dr. Ridley," says Stow, (annum 1553), " vehemently persuaded the people " on the title of the Lady Jane, and inveighed *' earnestly against the title of Lady Mary." Is it recorded in history, that the Almighty favoured any other person, guilty of high treason, with a super- natural communication r . XIL A Defence of the true and Catholic Doctrine OF the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ : with a Confutation of SUNDRY Errors concerning the same. By the Most Reverend Thomas Cranmer, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. To which is prefixed, an Introduction, historical and critical, in Illustration of the Work; and IN Vindication of the Character of the Author, and therewith of the Reformation inEngland, against some of the Allegations which have been recently made by the Reverend Doctor Lingard, the Reverend * Life of Bishop Sewell. p. Ixxiv. CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. Ixv Doctor Milner, and Charles Butler, Esq. BY THE Reverend Henry John Todd, M.A. F,S.A. Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty, and Rector of Settrington, Yorkshire. I am sorry that the respectable writer of this work finds any thing to reprehend in my pages ; I trust he will find nothing that displeases him in the following brief defence of some of them against his charges. 1. The principal and most important of them relates to what I have said of Archbishop Cranmer. Without a minute and full investigation of every topic which it presents for discussion, it would be impossible to decide with justice between us. In such an investigation I may hereafter engage ; at present I can only generally express my acquiescence in what Doctor Lingard has said in the preface to the last volume of his excellent history : " that the " attempt of Mr. Todd to place in a more favour- *' able light the labours of this celebrated prelate, " has not been successful." I have no hostile feeling to the Archbishop's memory. In my history of the English, Irish, and Scottish Roman Catholics,* I have mentioned with praise, " this prelate's protection of the Princess " Mary from the fury of her father, — his en- *' deavours to save Sir Thomas More, Bishop " Fisher and Cromwell, — his resistance to the " passing of the sanguinary enactment of the *' Six Articles, and his encouragement of letters * Vol, 1. p. 361. third edition. 6 Ixvi LETTER TO " and learned men." In my Life of Erasmus recently published, I took care to notice the arch- bishop's liberality to him. Having presented my Historical Memoirs to Doctor Parr, I received from him a letter, in which he censures, in the severest terms, my language upon, what I consider the blameable parts of the archbishop's character. The whole of this vituperation I inserted in my Reminiscences.^ In a note to it,t I thus express myself: — " If a new edition of the Historical " Memoirs shall be called for, the Reminiscent " will reconsider, with the attention due to all " that falls from Doctor Parr, what is said on the *' unfortunate and wickedly treated prelate. In the " mean time, he wishes both his descendants and '^ the members of the church of which that prelate '' was a distinguished founder, to be in possession " of the spirited, elegant, and amiable extenuation, " of what may be thought vulnerable in that " prelate's character." I conclude mv account of him in the Historical Memoirs,;]: with these words : — " The sentence, " which, after he had been pardoned for his treason, " condemned him to the flames for heresy, was " execrable. His firmness under the torture to which " it consigned him, has seldom been surpassed " It presents an imposing spectacle, and we then " willingly forget what history records against him. " But, when we read in the Biographia Britannica, * App. Note II. p. 340. t P. 345. X Hist. Mem. Vol.1, pp. 202, 203. CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. Ixvii *' that ' he was the glory of the Enghsh nation, " and the ornament of the Reformation,' his mis- '' deeds rush on our recollection, we are astonished " at the effect of party, and the intrepidity of the *' biographer." 2. Mr. Todd asserts, that I charitably say, " that Cranmer and his association wished Mary " and her associates to be exposed to their pro- " jected persecution."* I am surprised at this remark. Would not Mary have been exposed to the Reformatio Legum Antiquariim, if it had been sanctioned by the legislature ? Did not Cranmer and his associates wish, did they not exert them- selves to their utmost to have it passed into a law ? Does not Strype, as he is cited by Mr. Todd, describe it " a very noble enterprise ? " Does not Burnet, also cited by Mr. Todd, describe it " a " noble design, so near being perfected in Edward's " timer" I believe Cranmer to have been a learned man ; naturally kind, and disposed to moderate councils : but that, unfortunately for him, he was born in times, to which his virtue was very unequal ; — I believe that this is the opinion, which all well in- formed and moderate Protestants entertain of him. 3. — Mr. Todd (p. 24) accuses me of " unfairly " citing Bishop Jeremy Taylor, on the subject of " Transubstantiation, and the Mass." He refers to " The Book of the Roman Catholic Church," (p. 327), and to my "Enquiry as to the Declaration * Mr. Todd's Critical Introduction, pp.QQj lOO- e 2 Ixviii LETTER TO " against Transubstantiation, &c. published sepa- " rately in 1822, and copied into the 18th chapter " of the Book of the Roman CathoHc Church." My object in the Enquiry, was to show that the Oath and Declaration against Transubstan- tiation, prescribed by the 30th Charles II, as a qualification for sitting and voting in parliament, could not be conscientiously made or taken by a Protestant. I suggested the negative : I assign for it, as one reason, that the person, who makes the declaration and takes the oath, swears by it, that " there is no transubstantiation, and that the sa- " crifice of the Mass is superstitious and iHola- " trous." I observe, that no one can conscien- tiously affirm any thing upon oath, unless he has previously ascertained by due inquiry, the truth of the affirmation. I proceed to state, that the superstition and idolatry charged upon the Ca- tholics by the declaration and oath, must be in a certain degree problematical, as it has been doubted by many eminent Protestants. For this I quote Doctor Jeremy Taylor, Mr. Thorndyke, Bishop Cosin, and Bishop Kenn, and transcribe the passages. To that which is cited from Doctor Taylor, Mr. Todd opposes a passage from the same author',^ '* Dissuasive from Popery," which he says, asserts the contrary.* He observes, that the " Liberty of Prophesy- " ing," was written by Doctor Taylor in his * He cites, Chapter II. Section XII. In IMr. Heber's edi- tion of the prelate's works, it is to be found in Section XI. CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. Ixix younger years ; the " Dissuasive from Popery'" in his mature age. But was this so ? The former was written by Doctor Taylor in his 34th, the latter in his 53d year. Is it settled, that a scholar, who like Doctor Taylor has lived in books from his in- fancy, writes better at 53 than at 37. However this may be, after repeated serious peru- sal of the passage cited by Mr. Todd from Dr. Tay- lor's " Dissuasive from Popery," I am convinced that it does not substantially contradict the passage cited from his " Liberty of Prophesying." I ad- mit that it appears, — that it may be thought, — that it may be construed to contradict it : that it sounds like, — that it approaches very near to a contra- diction ; but I aver, that it is not a contradiction. The fact evidently is, that for some reason. Doc- tor Taylor wished to be thought to contradict the doctrine expressed in the " Liberty of Prophe- *' sying ;" and that for some other reason, he wished not to do it explicitly, and therefore adopted middle expressions. If I had been aware of the passage cited from the " Dissuasive from Popery," — which I assm^e Air. Todd I zvas ?iot, — I should not have inserted the passage from the " Prophesyings ; " for al- though I think the former is not affected by the latter, I think the latter renders the sense of the former debateable. I shall only add, that those who discuss the point, should read the whole pas- sage in " The Dissuasive," and judge from the whole ; and should also bear steadily in mind, that the question is not, whether the doctrine be true, Ixx LETTER TO or what was Doctor Taylor's opinion upon it ; but whether Doctor Taylor thought the Catholics, with their notions of the real presence, could, with justice, be deemed idolaters, for their doctrine of transubstantiation and the Mass.* 4. — Mr. Todd, (p. 26), by a very harmless, and I am sure, a very honourable mistake, charges me with citing Bishop Gia2?uiig, " for the same doc- *' trine, — conceahng what should be added respect- *' ing him, that after the bill was passed, he took " the oath." Mr. Todd refers to the " Book of the^ Catholic Church," (p. 327). I have more than once perused this page, — some pages immediately preceding, and some immediately following it, — and the article '' Transubstantiation," in both editions of the " Book of the Roman Catholic " Church," and can find in them no citation from Bishop Gunning, or even any mention of that prelate's name. * I have been blamed for saying, in the " Book of the Roman Catholic Church," that the oath declares Iransuhstantiation to be idolatrous, when it only declares this of " the Mass." But is not transubstantiation the very essence of the Mass ? I avail myself of this opportunity to mention what I should have noticed before, that Doctor Phillpotts has filled his work with pretty stories of the saints in heaven, and souls in pur- gatory. Not one of these do I believe. Some, he says, are related in the Roman breviary. The parts of Scripture, and decrees of general councils, inserted in the Roman breviary, are of faith : the rest is matter of history, and entitled to historical credit, and to nothing beyond it. In the diocese of Paris, and most other dioceses in France, the Roman breviary has been superseded, and another substituted. All Catholics agree, that the Roman breviary wants reform. CHARLES BLUNDELL, ESQ. Ixxi XIII. It remains for me to mention, that " The " Book of the Roman CathoHc Church," has been a subject of regular criticism in The British Critic, British Review, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, The Christian Observer, — Quarterly Review, — Quar- terly Theological Review, — Westminster Review, and probably in some journals which I have not seen. The last Quarterly Review informs the public that Dr. Southey is arming, and intimates that Dr. Phillpotts, the Rev. INlr. Townsend, and the rest have left him nothing to reply to. Such, I cannot think, is the general opinion. At length I close my letter ; Doctor Phillpotts closes that, which he has addressed to me, by bidding me — " Good night :" — To you, to him, and to all my other critics, I present the same wish, — and permit me to do it in the words of the priest, at Complin.—- Noctein quietam, et fineni perfectam, Concedat nobis Dominus omnipotens ! With the greatest respect, I have the honour to be, Your most obedient, and most obliged humble servant, Charles Butler. Stonor Park, 6th January, 1826. ERRATA. Page 12, line 2, for Christianity, read the Roman Catholic religion. 36, last line, for 86, read 96. 60, sixth line from the bottom, for doctrine, read notion. 73, third line from the bottom, ybr happiness, read wisdom. LETTERS TO THE REV. GEORGE TOWNSEND, IN REPLY " His Accusations of History against the Church of Rome'' PRELIMINARY LETTER. SIR, 'VT'OUR ^' Accusations of History against the Church of Rome," in a series of Letters addressed to me, are highly injurious to the Roman Catholic religion. As my " Book of the " Roman Catholic Church " occasioned your pub- lication, I feel myself called upon to answer it. In every part of it you call us " Romanists." When this word is used to denote our religious communion with the see of Rome, we do not object to it : when it is used to impute to us any political or civil adherence or subserviency to that B 2 PRELIMINARY LETTER. see, we think it slanderous : when it is used with a sneer, it evidently is an intentional affront. As several acts of the Legislature style us, and permit us to style ourselves, " Roman Catholics," and this is our favourite appellation ; we trust gentlemen will always give it us. Whatever tends to prevent or soften the asperities of controversy, a true Christian is always ready to adopt. Before I proceed to my reply, I must observe, that my " Historical Memoirs of the English, " Irish, and Scottish Roman Catholics," should always be taken in conjunction with my " Book " of the Roman Catholic Church." It could not be expected that I should re- write " the Memoirs " in " the Book." I continually refer in it to them : and was much pleased to find that they always were under Your eye when You were employed upon Your publication. I. Your assertion, that a decree of the Council of Constance, which an article of the creed of Pope Pius IV. compels exicry conscientious Rotnanist to adopt, sanctions the doctrine that faith is not to be kept with heretics. IN your preliminary letter, (page 1 7), you cite the last article but one of the creed of Pope Pius IV, in which the subscriber of it " professes to receive " all things defined and declared by the sacred *• canons and general councils, particularly by the " Council of Trent." You then cite the decree of the 1 ^th session of PRELIMINARY LETTER. 3 the Council of Constance, which declares, that " safe " conducts granted to heretics, by a secular prince, " shall not prevent any ecclesiastical judge from " punishing such heretics, even if they come to the " place of judgment, relying on such safeguard, ** and would not otherwise come thither." You assert, that " this decree, which the creed " of Pope Pius IV compels every conscientious " Romanist to adopt, sanctions, as plainly as words *' can make it, the doctrine, which you truly say, " ' I reject with abhorrence,' and which the four *' foreign universities consulted by Mr. Pitt's direc- " tion, likewise rejected, — ' that no faith is to be " kept with heretics.' " I answer, 1st, — That all persons, who are ac- quainted with the jurisprudence of the times in which the council was held, must be sensible, that the canon only intimates, that, when any prince grants a safe conduct, which conflicts with the faith or morals of the church of Christ, or with the legal or constitutional rights of the church of any state, he has exceeded his legitimate authority, and that this exercise of his power is consequently null. Such certainly is the doctrine of every Protestant church, episcopal or aerian. If, before the late act for the relief of the Anti-Trinitarians, a per- son had published, within any part of the united empire of Great Britain and Ireland, a work against the Trinity, and been prosecuted for it, and then had fled the country, and made some place beyond the seas his residence ; and his Majesty had granted B 2 4 PRELIMINARY LETTER. him a safe conduct to any part of bis cismarine dominions ; this safe conduct would not have pro- tected the offender against the process : the judge would not even have allowed it to be pleaded. I answer, 2dly, — That the council directs that *' the safeguard ought not to prevent any ecclesi- " astical judge from punishing such heretics." Now an ecclesiastical judge, can, as such, punish only by ecclesiastical censures. No safeguard can prevent an ecclesiastical court from punishing a delinquent by these. This is the acknowledged doctrine, of the Roman Catholic, the Anglican, the Lutheran, and the Calvinian churches. Thus, the question of the lawfulness of breaking faith with heretics does not arise upon this decree. If the Council of Constance had decreed it to be lawful, it would have covered itself with indelible infamy. I beg leave to add, that having, in every stage of my long life, lived in habits of intimacy or acquaintance with all descriptions of Roman Catholics, — the young, the old, the literate, the illi- terate, natives of this country, foreigners, ecclesi- astic and secular, I have never known one, who did not treat the charge of our holding it lawful to break faith with heretics with indignation, and con- sider it as an execrable calumny. You know the indignation with which the foreign universities express themselves upon it. PRELIMINARY LETTER. ft II. Yuitr insinuation, that the Author of " the Book of the " Roman Catholic Church" deserves a harsh name, for intimating, knowing it to be otherwise, that Romanism, is founded on Scripture. IN page 19, You express yourself in the follow- ing words : — " Pardon me, if I inquire whether " some part of your third section of the Intro- " duction, (])age 9 J, does not deserve a harsh name. " You believe the doctrines of your church to be " unchangeable : your faith is now what it has " ever been ; but this proposition, you observe, is " confined to the articles of your faith, and no " doctrine is of faith unless it be delivered by " revelation, and is proposed as such by your " church. You resolve, therefore, all the deci- " sions of councils, and all the dogmas of faith, " into the authority of Scripture, or you otherwise " reject them as doctrines of your faith. If this " be your meaning, receive my congratulations ; if " not, we must look to the formulary of Pope " Pius and the Council of Trent. You, no doubt, " wish to persuade yourself and us, that Romanism " is founded on Scripture." If I rightly under- stand the charge expressed, or rather insinuated by You in this passage, it is, that I wished the reader to believe, although I knew the contrary, that the Roman Catholics hold no article to be of faith, if it be not contained in the Scriptures. If this be your meaning, and You intimate that the passage which You cited from my work, B3 6 PRELIMINARY LETTER. deserves, on this account, a harsh name, I must say, that you entirely misapprehend my words, and are wholly ignorant of the Roman Catholic doctrine upon tradition. The Roman Catholics believe, that both the articles of faith recorded in the Scriptures, and the articles of faith transmitted to them by tradi- tion, were delivered by the revelation of Christ to his church, while he dwelt among men. Nothing, as far as we know, of the doctrine revealed by Christ, was committed to writing during his life. Thus, while he lived, and during many years after his death, all the doctrines which he taujrht, were divine traditions. Portions of the doctrine thus orally revealed by Christ, were re- corded successively, and by portions, in the Gospels and Apostolical Epistles. Roman Catholics be- lieve, that the whole of the doctrine revealed and taught by Christ, was not so recorded ; but that the memory of some portion of it, derived origi- nally from the revelations of Christ, was left to remain upon tradition. Thus, to make any doc- trine an article of the faith of the church, it must have been revealed by Christ in his life-time. To ascertain, for the security of the faithful, that what the church proposes to them for their be- lief, was thus revealed by Christ, it is required that this should be declared by the church. Hence, to constitute an article of faith, it is, in our opinion, essential ; first, that it should have been revealed by Christ; secondly, that it should have been PRELIMINARY LETTER. 7. transmitted either' by the Scriptures or uninter- rupted traditions; and thirdly, that the church should propound that it was thus revealed, and has been thus transmitted. After this explanation of the doctrine of the church upon this head, I call upon you to declare, whether there be the slightest ground for insinuating that I wished to induce my readers, by an ambi- guous expression, to believe what I knew to be untrue, and deserved, on this or any other account, a harsh name, for what I have said in in the pas- sage, you have thought proper to criminate ? If I have mistaken your meaning, I beg you will excuse me ; I have taken great pains to dis- cover it. III. Your assertions respecting Bossuet's " Exposition of Faith:' I AGREE with you that " the catechism of the " Council of Trent, is the best ejcposition of the " Roman Catholic creecV But, as I have observed in my introductory letter to Doctor Southey, a proper perusal of that document requires attentive study. I have, therefore, recommended to those who are unable to give it such a perusal, Bossuet's " Exposition of Faith,'' and the other works I have specified. You say, that " Bossuet's E.vpo- " sition, contains only the sentiments of a pious " individual." Bossuet was certainly a pious indi- vidual, but he was much more. Eloquence, power of argument, and erudition, were united in him in B4 8 PRELIMINARY LETTER. so high a degree, as to render it very doubtful whether the Christian or Pagan world can produce even one person, in whom they have all been united in the same degree. Nor is the " Exposition of " Faith'' to be considered merely as the work of an individual. The formal approbation of the archbishops of Rheims and Tours, and the bishops of Chalons, Usez, Meaux, Grenoble, Tulle, Auxerre, Tarbes, Bezieres and Autun, are prefixed to it. Cardinal Bona, Cardinal Chigi, Hyacinthe Libelli, master of the sacred palace, also approved it. Pope Innocent XI sanctioned it by two briefs. The clergy of France, in their assembly of 1682, signified their approbation of it, and declared it to contain the doctrines of the Roman Catholic church. It has been translated into the language of every country, in which the Roman Catholic religion is either dominant or tolerated. Roman Catholics have but one opinion of it : all, without exception, acknowledge it to be a full and faultless exposition of the doctrines of their church.* I could not, therefore, have referred Protestants to a more authentic exposition of the Roman Catholic creed. You tell me that Bishop Stillingfleet answered Mr. G other's " Papist Misrepresented and Repre- * Permit me to refer you to my Life of Bossuet, chap. VI, or rather to '* Histoire de J. B. Bossuet, Eveque de Meaux, compose sur les maiiuscrits originaux, par M- L. B. de Bausset, ancien Eveque de Alais, vol. I. livre premier, sect. XXXIXe. M.De Bausset was afterwards raised to the archiepis- copal See of Toulouse, and honoured with the Roman purple." PRELIMINARY LETTER. 9 sented : "• — Mr. Gother triumphantly replied to Stillingfleet's answer. Doctor Challoner's " Garden of the Sour'' having been mentioned by me, as the most po- pular prayer book of the English Roman Catholics, you ask me, (p. 2 1), " Whether, if I am a father, " a brother, or a husband, I would place in the " hands of any woman, the contents of pages 2 1 3, " 214," meaning, I suppose, that part of the Ex- amination of Conscience which contains the sins against the Sixth Commandment? If you ask, whether I should place those very pages in the hands of a woman ; I answer, that such an act would be abominable. If you ask, whether I should place the book in her hands, and recom- mend it as an excellent manual of prayer ; I an- swer, without hesitation, that I should. Not- withstanding the loves, and something worse than the loves of the patriarchs, the story of Judith, and the song of Solomon, You place the Bible in the hands of children and adults of each sex, and recommend it as an excellent book for their pe- rusal. You trust that they will only read it in moments of seriousness, and pass over the noxious passages, when the perusal of them is improper : — We do the same. IV. Your assertion, that Arminianism, Calvinism, Quakerism and Socinianism, may be found in the writings of the Romanist divines. AT the end of your letter, (p. 23), You inform me that, " You could have selected from the 10 PRELIMINARY LETTER. " writings of the Romanist divines, nearly every " doctrinal opi?iion ivhich is advocated by the ja?^- " ring sectaries of your church." " Arminianism," you tell us, " was the doctrine of the Jesuits ; " Calvinism, of the Jansenists ; Quakerism, of the " Franciscans ; Socinianism, in all its gradations, " from Arianism to Belshamism, was taught by " the authors enumerated in the Roma Raco- " vianar Here, You do the Roman Catholic church, and her communities, — You even do the unhappy Jansenists, — great injustice. No Roman Catholic can advocate any of the jarring doc- trines You mention, without incurring, in the opinion of their church, the guilt of heresy. The Jesuits are not Arminians, the Jansenists are not Calvinists, — (but v/hat they are is of no consequence to the Catholic church, as she has re- jected them from her communion) ; — nothing can be more unlike to another than the Franciscans are to the Quakers ; and if any Roman Catholic held Socinian doctrines, in any of the gradations you mention, he would be thought, by all Roman Catholics, to have abandoned the Roman Ca- tholic faith. Nothing, except Atheism, or Deism, is so much opposed to the Roman Catholic reli- gion as Socinianism. The late Dr. Hey, the Norisian professor, instructing the Enghsh youth from a theological chair at Cambridge, could say, unblamed, " We and the Socinians are said to differ; " but about what ? not about morality or about na- " tural religion. We differ only about what we do not " understand, and about what is to be done on the PRELIMINARY LETTER. 11 " part of God ; and if we allowed one another " to use e.rpressions at will, ( and what g7xat ^natter " could that be, in what might be called unmeaning " e.vpressio7is ? ) we need never be on our guai^d *' against each other.'' Permit me, Sir, to assure you, that if in any part of Christendom, in which the Roman CathoHc rehgion prevails, a professor had uttered these, or similar words, he would have been instantly expelled from his professor's chair ; and no explanation, no retractation, no penance, would have restored him to it. V. Yonr assertion, that all the new orders of the Romanists appeal to Popery, and protest against the Scripture. YOU then say to me (p. 23), " the fanaticism of new ^' sects among us, was the same with that of new *' orders among you ; yet all these appeal to popery, " and protest against the Scriptures^ Here, for want no doubt of proper information, You do us an injustice, that cries to heaven. All the orders of the Church of Rome receive — all bow to the Scrip- tures — all would consider a protest against them to be blasphemy. Traditions contradictory of the Scriptures, or derogatory from them, are held by all Roman Cathohcs to be impieties. 12 LETTERS. LETTER I. EXTENSIVE DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY. Yom' vindication and adoption of Doctor Southey's expres- sio7i, that the Roman Catholic Religion is " a prodigious *' structure of imposture and wickedness J' I. 1. IN my first letter to Doctor Southey, after describ- ing the extent of the Roman Catholic religion, and observing that Doctor Southey, in the last line of his tenth chapter, describes it, " as a prodigious " structure of imposture and luickedness;'" I ask that gentleman, whether " it be decorous to apply this " opprobrious language to a religion professed in " such extensive territories, several of which are " in the highest state of intellectual advancement, *' and abound, as Dr. Southey must acknowledge, " with persons, from the very highest to the very " lowest condition of life, of the greatest honour, " endowments and worth?" I then inquire, if the religion of this large proportion of the Christian world really be, " this prodigious structure of im- " posture and wickedness, " the gates of hell have not, contrary to the solemn promise of the Son of God, prevailed against this church ? LETTER I. 13 To the first of these questions, you give no an- swer, and therefore your sentiments upon it can only be inferred from your own pages. To the second, You reply, (p. 24), that " the " promise of God has not failed, because his pure " church is reduced to the smaller number." Permit me to suggest, that " smaller' is not, in this place, the proper word. You should have said " a number incalculably small.'" For, what is the proportion of the Lutherans — the most nu- merous of all Protestant denomination of Chris- tians, — compared to that of all other Christians? Is it not incalculably small ? Has not the promise of God failed, if it has only been kept to this, or to any other incalculably small proportion of individuals ? To make the proportion of Christians such, as will save the promise, must not the Roman Ca- tholics be taken into account ? Then, can the Roman Catholic church be that " prodigious struc- " ture of imposture and wickedness," described by Doctor Southey, and by You ? 1.2. You intimate (p. 25), " that if the adherents " to Rome are as inmierous as I represent^ " your vigilance must be proportioned to your " danger."" If, by the words, " adherents to Rome," you mean to describe the English, Irish and Scottish 14 LETTER I. Roman Catholics, as adhering in politics, or as having a political attachment or subserviency to the Roman see. You affix to them an opprobrious description which they do not deserve, and which they reject with scorn; and You offer to the whole body, and to every individual of which it is com- posed, a personal insult. But, let me ask, — have the Protestant Powers on the Continent shown more attachment to England than the Roman Catholic? In Marlborough's wars, who adhered longest to the banners of Eng- land, the Austrians, or the Dutch ? In the con- test with America, which preserved their allegiance to their sovereign, the Catholic or the Protestant colonies ? In the French revolution, which soonest deserted England, Austria and Spain, or Den- mark, Sweden and Holland ? Who was Great Britain's last and most honourable ally, through the whole of that tremendous contest? The Pope. Which party in France now most curses the suc- cess of the British arms at Waterloo ? and most wishes the complete humiliation of the British nation? The Anti-Catholic. LETTER II. & III. 15 LETTER II. & III. . THE ANGLO SAXONS. II. &III. 1. Identity of the doctrine 'preached to them, and the doctrine of the Council of Trent. I HAVE asserted, as you justly observe (page 29), and I now confidently repeat the assertion, " that " the doctrines of the Church of Rome were the same " in the days of St. Augustine, when the Anglo- *' Sa^roiw were converted, with those which are now " received as established by the Council of Trent'' In opposition to this assertion, you produce from Bishop Stillingfleet, thirteen instances, in which they differ. I lament that I have not time to dis- cuss them, as I think I could, with very little trouble, show, even to your satisfaction, that, in all the instances of a supposed disagreement between the two churches, which you produce from the works of that prelate, there is not even one, in which he does not misrepresent either the doctrine of the Anglo-Saxon church, or the doctrine of the Council of Trent, or both ; or propound conclu- ■sions which his premises do not warrant. 10 LETTER II. & III. To convince you that my assertion is founded, I beg leave to refer you to " The Protestant'' s Apo- logy for the Roman Church, by John Brerely, priest,'' (Tractate 7, section i , p. 57. J He shows, beyond the possibility of disproof, that the most powerful adversaries of the Church of Rome have unequivocally acknowledged the identity of the Anglo-Saxon and Trentine doctrines, and re- proached the memory of the Apostles of the Anglo-Saxons with this identity. The adversary writers, who so describe it, " are " not," says Mr. Brerely, " writers of vulgar note ; *' but, such as are for learning most accomplished : " as namely. Dr. Humfrey, Carion, Luke Osiander, " the Century-writers of Magdeburgh, and others. " These," he says, " describe the particulars of the " religion as then taught and professed by St. Gre- " gory and St. Augustine. They recite and affirm " the said confessed particulars to be altai's, vest- " mentSj images, chalices, crosses, candlesticks, " censers, holy vessels, holy water, the sprinkling " thereof, r cliques, translations, and religious de- " dicating of churches to the hones and ashes of " saints, consecration of altars, chalices and cor- " portals, consecration of the fonte of baptism, " chrism and oyle, consecration of churches with " spritikling of holy water, celebration of mass, " the Archbishop's pall at solemn mass time, (Ro- *' manarum cceremoniarum codices), Romish mass *' bookes, (et onus caremoniarum) ; a bu?^den ofcere- " monies; also, free will, merit and indulgences, LETTERS Il.&rir. 17 '^ purgatory, the unmarried life of priests, publigue " iitvocation of saints, and their worship, and the " woi'shiping of images, exorcisms, pardons, vows, *' 77ionachism, transubstantiation, prayer for the " dead, offering the healthful host of Christ's body " and blood for the dead; the Roman Bishops '' claim for the exercise of Jurisdiction, and pri- *' 7nacy over both churches ; and lastly, (reliquum- *' que Pontificice superstitio7iis chaos), eve7i the " whole chaos of a popish supej^stition.'' Upon each of these heads, Mr. Brerely refers to the chapter and verse of the authors, whom he cites. His work being scarce, permit me to offer You the loan of it. I am confident, that if You seriously com- pare Dr. Stillingfleet with Mr. Brerely, You will find that the prelate, when put into the scales with Brerely, kicks the beam as rapidly as when he ventured into scales with Locke. II. 2. Miracles. The remainder of your letter, contains several passages which I think reprehensible ; but I shall confine myself to what You say in page 49, upon the subject of miracles. You express yourself very inaccurately, when, in contrasting your church with ours, you say, " The " Protestant may reject the opinions which reason " or Scripture convince him are absurd. The " Romanist is permitted to reject nothing which " his church has once sanctioned." C IS LETTERS II. & III. All opinions which the church sanctions, by J>ltOPOUNDING THEM TO HAVE BEEN REVEALED, we are bound to believe : All other opinions she leaves to our reason. You say, " we are compelled to assert the mira- " culous powers of our church.'' This is true. " We are therefore,'" you tell us, " compelled to " allow that our most absurd legends may be true.'* Here you are completely mistaken. We know and proclaim, that all absurd legends, are, and must be, untrue. " You dare fwt," sa.y you, "resign the " miracles of the darkest age to their fate." We dare, and we do resign them all to their fate. Did not Cardinal Bellarmine,* in the fifteenth century, profess general incredulity of the miracles related by Metaphrastes ? Did not Lewis Vives,f in the sixteenth century, cry aloud, " What a shame it is ' to the Christian world, that the acts of ou3 38 LETTER IX. monarch ** between two precipices, equally dan- " gerous;he was under a necessity of casting him- " self down one or the other." These are the words of Rapin,* If the monarch refused the offers of the pontiff, he must have surrendered his kingdom absolutely and without reserve to the French monarch : if he submitted to the pontiff, he would retain his kingdom, — shorn it is true, of its beams, — but still, one of the most powerful kingdoms of Europe : — The monarch and the barons preferred the latter. From this time, their contest was not with the Pope, or with the French monarch, acting under or executing the commands of the Pope, but, with the French monarch, acting independently of the Pope, and in the most direct opposition to him. Ail historians agree in describing the rage, the resentment and the hostilities of Philip. j\Iy expression therefore is justified. IX. 2. Your charge, that the third canon of the Fourth Council of Lateran, is an article of the faith of Roman Ca- tholics ; — that it declares the Pope's divine right to Temporal Dominion ; — and that the disclaimer of it by the Roman Catholics, is not valid and cannot he de- pended upon, in consequence of their acknowledgment of the paramount authority of the Coumil. This disclaimer You contend, is " unsatis- factory;" and You proclaim that '' it will be un- " justifiable in Protestants to rely upon it, till the " Pope and his government shall formally dis- * Fol. Edit. Vol. i. p. 272. LETTER IX. 39 " claim the right of the Pope to temporal domi- " nion beyond his own temporal territories," I collect that the following is an out-line of Your reasoning upon this subject : — 1. The creed of Pius IV. contains an article, by which the subscribers of the creed recognize and o declare their belief of all the doctrines of the general councils : 2. The fourth Council of Lateran was a general council, and was confirmed by the Council of Trent, also a general council : 3. The third canon of the fourth Council of Lateran enjoins the deposition of heretical princes : 4. It is therefore an article of the faith of Ro- man Catholics, that it is their duty, or, at least, that it is lawful for them to depose heretical princes : 5. By this tenet, they recognize the temporal dominion of the Pope in all Christian states, to be an article of their faith : 6. It is true, that this doctrine has been dis- claimed by the English, Irish and Scottish Catholics upon oath : 7. But, it is also true, that their oaths on this sub- ject cannot be relied upon, because they are neces- sarily taken with the reserve of the obedience due by Catholics to the canons of general councils, — and consequently, with the reserve of the obedience due by them to the third canon of the fourth Council of Lateran, — if the Pope should require their obedience to it : D4 40 LETTER IX. 8. Hence their oaths and declaimers are not absolutely valid : i). And nothing can give them absolute validity, or that validity which it is justifiable for a Pro- testant to rely upon, except a declaration of as high authority as that which enacted the canon. I have endeavoured to express your sentiments accurately : I trust I have succeeded. I shall discuss them separately. But before I proceed, — I must protest against the great impropriety of requiring from Roman Cathohcs, any thing like argument or proof, to show that their oaths, or even their mere declara- tions, are to be relied upon. When such a body as the British and Irish clergy, nobility and gentry, solemnly deny their belief or disbelief of a particular doctrine, — to put them to the proof of the truth of this belief or disbelief, is to insult the Broad-Stone of honour : Every gentleman feels they should be believed without parlance. But since proof is called for, — humbling as it is, « — let us produce it : — LETTER IX. 41 IX. 3. Disaission of the Charge. 1. — I shall first transcribe the Article in the Creed of Pius IV. " I also profess, and undoubtedly receive, all " other things delivered, defined, and declared " by the sacred canons, and general councils, and " particularly by the Holy Council of Trent ; and " likewise, I also condemn, reject and anathema- " tize all things contrary thereto, and all heresies " whatsoever, condemned and anathematized by " the Church." , Here, allow me to make two observations, which, in the present discussion, and in every discussion of the same nature, should always be kept in mind : — 1. That the councils mentioned in this article of the creed of Pope Pius IV. are general or oecumenical councils, and none other : — 2. And that the decrees, even of these councils, are only articles of faith, when they propound doc- trines to be believed as articles of faith by the universal church. All doctrines propounded by particular councils, or even propounded by g^eral or cEcumcnical councils, but not proposed by these to be articles of faith, a Roman Catholic may dis- believe, without ceasing to be a Roman Catholic. This, in discussions like the present, should never be forgotten. 2. — I shall now briefly state the formation of the fourth Council of Lateran. 42 LETTER IX. Pope Innocent III. had convened this council to meet at the patriarchal church of St. John, at the Lateran-gate, in the city of Rome. Being the fourth council held in this church, it is usually called the fourth council of Lateran : it is con- sidered by Roman Catholics to be the eighth general or oecumenical council. It was attended by 412 prelates, among whom were the patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusa- lem, and by 71 primates or metropolitan prelates, by 800 abbots or priors, and by a considerable num- ber of deputies from absent ecclesiastical dignitaries. Frederick, the emperor elect of Germany, the em- peror of Constantinople, the kings of England,, France, Hungary, Jerusalem, Cyprus and Arragon, and several princes of the second order, attended it by their ambassadors. Thus, it was not only a general or oecumenical council : it was also a convention, both of the ecclesiastical and temporal states of Europe, acting in person or by their deputies. The Pope presided in person over the council. His holiness presented to the council seventy canons, which he had caused to be framed. The first is a profession of faith, containing several counter-positions to the errors of the Albigenses ; and a denunciation of anathema against all the heretics which it proscribed. 3. — The third canon of this Council of Lateran is expressed in these terms. It enjoins, that " heretics shall, after their con- LETTER IX. 43 demnation, be delivered over to the secular powers. The temporal lords are to be admo- nished, and, if it should be found necessary, compelled by censures, to take an oath in public, to exterminate heretics from their territories. If the temporal lord, being thus required and ad- monished by the church, shall refuse to purge his land from heretical pravity, he shall be excommu- nicated by the metropolitan and his suffragans : on his neglect, during twelve months, to give them satisfaction, this shall be notified to the Pope, and, upon such information, his holiness shall denounce the offender's vassals to be ab- solved by law from their obligation of fealty, and expose his lands to be occupied by catholics, who, having exterminated the heretics from it, shall possess them without any contradiction, and preserve them in the purity of the faith, saving however the right of the superior lord, provided that he raised no objection to impede the pro- ceeding. The same method of discipline is like- wise to be observed tow^ards those who have no superior lord." IX. 4. Particular Discussion of the third Canon of the Fourth Council of Later an. Thus far, I believe, we are agreed. Your re- maining positions set us asunder, far as pole from pole. As the subject is of importance ; as the argu- 41 LETTER IX. ments, which you draw from it, are highly injurious to the Roman CathoHc Church ; and, as they are the groundwork of your publication, and incessantly occur in it, I shall give this celebrated canon parti- cular consideration. I. — I must first observe, that, what are termed the canons of the fourth Council of Lateran were not decreed by the council, but o)dij propounded to it by the Pope ; and that the members of the council separated, without having come to any resolutions upon them.* * This is proved by Dupin in his work, " De Antiqua Ec- " clesias Disciplina, Dissertationes Historical; Dissert. VII. " ch. iii. s. 4." I shall transcribe his words : — He cites the canon, and the assertion that it proves the doctrine of the deposing power, and then proceeds in these words: — " Respondeo primo : Nee ecclesiam, nee concihum " generate earn repraesentans quidquam habere juris in tempo- *' ralia regum bona, nee de iis aliquid statuere posse ; quippe *' cum regum potestas immediate a Deo sit, nemo earn iis *' auferre potest, aut aliquid juris alteri in earn tribuere, prseter " ipsummet Deum. Ergo, etiam si ecclesia vel concilium " hujusmodi sibi arrogaret autoritatem, non propterea regibuS " ed cedendum foret. Sicut ecclesia non debet legibus prin- " cipum parere, cum in destructionem legis Dei conditse sunt. " Et certe definitiones conciliorv.m etiam generalium nullam " vim habent, si ferantur circa res, quae non pertinent ad " religionem & fidem, puta circa res naturales, astronomicas, *' atque etiam politicas ; & si quid de iis statuant, non tenemur " eorum decretis tanquam infallibilibus adhaerere ; quapropter " canon ille, cum sit de negotio civili, nullam vim habere " potest nisi ex consensu regum. " Respondeo secundo : Hunc canonem non fuisse ab universo " concilio conciliariter, ut loquuntur, conditum ; sed a solo LETTER IX. 45 It necessarily follows, that those canons only of the council can be considered as decrees of the " Papa Innocentio, qui concilii canones ipse composuit & " digessit. Primo enim testantur historici complures nihil *' in eo concilio statui potuisse. Sic loquitur Nauclerus gene- " rats. 4. ad annum 1215. Venire, inquit loquens de concilio, " multa turn in consuUationein nee decerni tamen quidquam " petuit. Et mox. Editce tamen nonnullce constitutiunes re- " periuntur. Idem tradit Platina in Innocentio III. Veiiere " multa turn quidem in consultationem, nee decerni tamen quid- "■ quam aperte potuit. Quod, Sf Pisani tf Genuenses maritimo et " Cisalpini terrestri bello inter se certahant : Eo itaque prqficis- " cens toUendce discordice eaiisd Perusii moritur. Godefridus " Viterbiensis ad annum 1215. In hoe concilio, inquit, nihil " dignum memorid quod commendari possit, actum est, nisi quod " orientalis ecclesice se suhditain Romance exhibuit. Et certe si *< in eo concilio promulgati sunt canones, qui sub ejusdum " concilii nomine feruntur ab Innocentio III, non h. toto " concilio conditi sunt. Hinc in titulo hujus concilii a Jacobo « Middemportio inter opera Innocentii III. edita Colonial apud « Cholinum anno 1607, sic babetur. Sacri concilii generalis " Lateranensis sub dumino Innocentio Tontijice maximo hvjus " nominis tertio celebrati, anno Domino 12 15. Decreta ab eodem " Innocentio conscripta. Eadem habentur ex Matthxo " Parisiensi, in Historia Anglice ad annum 1215. Celebrata "■ inquit, est Romoe synodus universalis prcesidente Papd domino " Innocentio III. in qua fuerunt episcopi 412, SfC. His om- <' nibus c.ongres:atis facto prius ab ipso Papd exhort ationis " sermone recitata sunt in pleno concilio sexaginta capitula, quce " aliis placdbilia, aliis videhantur onerosa ; tandem de negotii " crucijixi terrce sanctce verbum prcEuicationis exorsus, S^c. Idem, " autor in Historia Minori, ut refcrtur in antiquitatibus Bri- " tanicis in vita Stephani Langthoni, Concilium inquit, illud " generale quod more Papali grandia prima f route pros sese tulit " in risum 8f scomma; quo archiepiscopos, episcopos, ablates 40 LETTER IX. church, so far as they were subsequently accepted by her : But the church never has accepted the third canon : Therefore it is no canon of the council. II. — It is also to be observed, that the third canon is an interpolation.* III. — But taking the authenticity and validity of the canon for granted, it must be considered, — 1st. — That, according to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, neither the Pope nor the church has any power to interfere in the temporal concerns either of catholics or non-catholics, or to inflict temporal penalties of any kind, or for any cause, upon either: " otnnesque ad concilium accedentes artificiose ludificatus est, ** desiit. lilt tnim cum jam nihil geri in tanto negotio cernerenf, " redeundi ad sua cupidi, veniam sigillatim petierunt, quibus Papa " non concessit, antequam sibi grandem pecuniam promississent " mercaforibus Rumanis prius accipere mutuo Papceque solvere " coacti sunt antequam discederc Romd potuissent. Papa jam " acceptd pecunid quaetuosum hoc concilium dissolvit gratis, *' totusque clerus abiit tristis. Hie autem historicus ne sus- " pectus habeatur, laudatus est ab Innocentio IV. ut constat " ex litteris ejusdum Innocentii, quas ipse refert in Historid " Anglice. " Itaque nulli a concilio canones sunt conditi sed qua:>dam " a Pontifice Romano decreta sunt confecta & in concilio lecta " quorum nonnulla plerisque videbantur onerosa : sed vel ex " ipsd istorum canonum lectione patet eos non fuisse a con- " cilio editos, vel non eo modo qui nunc habentur." * Collier's; Ecc. Hist. Book H. p. 424. LETTER IX. 47 2d. — That, when a council is assembled, and both spiritual and temporal powers attend, or act in it, the proceedings of the council, so far as they regard spiritual concerns, or the exercise of spiri- tual authority, derive their origination and effect from the spiritual power; and, so far as they regard temporal concerns, or the exercise of temporal authority, derive their origination and effect from the temporal powers. 3d. — And that, whenever any temporal power withdraws its concurrence in any temporal legis- lation of a council, that legislation ceases in the state thus withdrawing its concurrence. It follows, — 1 St. — That the third canon of the fourth Council of Lateran, — (taking its authenticity for granted, which for the sake of argument, I allow, but do not admit), — being, so far as it respected the tem- poral penalties inflicted by it, an act of temporal legislation, — was no longer in force, in respect to any state, than the concurrence of that state in the temporal legislation of the canon, continued : 2d. — That all the temporal states represented in the Council of Lateran, having withheld or with- drawn their concurrence in the temporal legislation of the third canon of the council, the canon, as to the temporal penalties inflicted by it, became, if it ever was in force, an absolute nullity in respect to these : 3d. — And that the same may be said of every other canon or ecclesiastical provision of the 4» LETTER IX. church, which relates to a temporal concern, or is to be carried into effect by temporal power. Such a canon or provision never had any legal effect in any state, unless it had the sanction of that state, and its legal effect in it continued no longer than the state sanctioned it. * That this is the proper construction of the canon is proved beyond controversy, by a transaction, which took place soon after the council broke up. Pope Honorius, who succeeded Innocent, required the Emperor Frederick, to insert in the constitu- tions of the empire, a canon similar to the third canon of the fourth Council of Lateran. The Emperor inserted it, but with a mateiial alteration.'\ Is not this a direct acknowledgment by the Pope himself, that, without the sanction of the temporal power, the canon, so far as it contained temporal provisions, had no effect. The manner in which the Council of Trent has been received by Roman Catholic states, renders every discussion of this subject unnecessary. All the Catholic powers agreed both theoretically and practically, that, so. far as the council affected to ref^ulate temporal concerns, or inflict temporal * See Bossuet's Defense de la Declaration du Clerge de France, L. IV. ch. 1,2,3, 4, ou Ton demontre par I'histoire, que r Eglise ne faisait rien a 1' regard des Seigneurs, et des affaires et de leur consentment. See Goldastus Const. Imp. Tom. II. p. 295. t See the writer's Historical Memoirs of the English, Irish, and Scottish Catholics. Appendix, Note HI. LETTER IX. 49 penalties in their dominions, the vaHdity of its provisions depended on their pleasure. There is not in Europe a Roman Catholic state, in which the council has been received without this limitation. IV". — Admitting, however, the authenticity of the canon, and that it cannot be defended on die ground which has been suggested, still the canon was not a dogma of faith, or propounded as such by the council ; it was merely an ordinance of exterior discipline, which had no force upon individuals till received by the ecclesiastical power in what con- cerned the church, and by the civil power in what concerned the state.* Thus, — I have clearly and incontestibly demon- strated, that the third canon of the fourth Council of Lateran, expresses no dogma of faith, or article of Catholic doctrine, which, at this time, binds, im- plicates, or affects the persons or consciences of Catholics, either as a body or as individuals. IX. 4. Alledged insufficiency of Catholic Disclaimers of the Pope's Temporal Dominion. You tell us, (page 98), that " neither our dis- " claiming the principle," — (of the Pope's universal temporal dominion), — " nor all the Romanists " unitedly disclaiming it, can be sufficient to justify * Dr. M liner's fourth Letter to a Prebendary. E 50 LETTER IX. " a Protestant in believing the validity, though he " will not doubt the sincerity of our denial. The " power, which once claimed universal temporal " dominion still exists, and still asserts the truth " of the principles on which that claim was " founded." In a further part of your work, (page 122), You say,— " These doctrines of the Roman Church " have been promulgated by councils, popes and '' canonists. They must be rescinded by the same " authorities, or they may be again revived. The " Pope in council must deny them. Neither " the united voice of the Romanists in England, nor " of Europe, nor of all the universities, are a suffi- " cient guarantee against it. The Pope, the " council, the church of Rome, as we recognize it " by its government, must publicly retract the " past ; and then, and then only, the accusations " founded on history will be withdrawn." I have stated your charge in your own words. You declare by it, explicitly, that " neither our " disclaiming the principle, nor all the Romanists '' unitedly disclaiming it, can be sufficient to justify " a Protestant in believing the validity, though " he will not doubt the sincerity of our denial." Our denial, You w^ell know, has been given, and is continued to be given upon oath. By the expression which I have just quoted, You declare, that " a Protestant is not justified in " believing the validity of this denial." Thus far, I understand You; but, when, after LETTER IX. hi saying, that " a Protestant is not justified in be- " lieving the validity of our denial," You add, " although he will not doubt its sincerity,'' (given as You are aware it is, upon oath), — I am not cer- tain that I do understand Your meaning. In my opinion, the validity and sincerity of an oath, so far as respects the conscientious obligation, or the con- scientious integrity of the person who takes it, are convertible terms. Does this passage mean, that, sensible as You must be, that " telling a gentleman that You doubt his " oath," is offering him the greatest possible INSULT, — You thought that the insult would be gentler, — or that the intent to insult would become debateable, by inserting the words — " tho' he " will not doubt it. " — thus, not expressly saying, but most unquestionably implying, that his oath may, with propriety, be doubted ? If this be the meaning of the expression, it im- ports neither more or less, than that, You think Protestants are unjustifiable, if they do not doubt the oaths, which we have taken in compliance with the acts of his late Majesty. Connecting this passage with your requisition in page 122, that " the denial, to be valid, should " be made by the Pope and his government," I con- jecture, that the result of all You say is, that a Ca- tholic's oath of allegiance, and his disclaimer of all principles incompatible with it, cannot be relied upon, — because, while he takes the oath, or dis- claims the principles incompatible with it, he re- E 2 52 LETTER IX. cognizes a paramount authority, which can discharge his conscience from the obligations of the oath and disclaimer. If this be the fact, —if, while the Catholics take the oath, or make this disclaimer, they recognize a paramount authority, which may dispense with its obligations, — they are perjured villains ! ! ! There is no medium. And their villainy is aggravated, by the circum- stance, that in the same oath, in which they swear allegiance to his Majesty and his successors, they swear to the disclaimer of the dispensing authority. " And, I do solemnly," says the Roman Ca- tholic in this oath, — " in the presence of God, " profess, testify and declare, that I do make the " declaration and every part thereof, in the plain " and ordinary sense of the words of this oath, " without any evasion, equivocation or mental " reservation whatever, and without any dispensa- " tion already granted by the Pope, or the authority " of the see of Rome, or any person whatsoever, " and without thinking that I am or can be ac- " quitted before God or man, or absolved of this " declaration or any part thereof, although the " Pope, or any other person or authority what- " soever, shall dispense with or annul the same, or '* declare it was null or void. So help me God." If your meaning be what I have represented, the charge which it brings against thii Catholics, is most horrible : Antd is most unjust. LETTER IX. 53 " When I consider," said Mr. Fox, in moving the CathoHc claims in i 805,* " the state of reh- " gion in Europe, of nhich perhaps three-fourths *' of the people are Roman Catholics, I am asto- " nished that such opinions respecting that religion " are entertained. Is it possible, that any man can '• be found bold enough to say, of three-fourths of " the inhabitants of civilized Europe, that they are " not to be believed upon oath .? Such an assertion " implies that Roman Catholic nations are not " only incapable of the relations of peace and " amity, but unfit for the relations of any society " whatever. Every enlightened mind, every man " who wishes well to his country, must treat it " both with scorn and indignation." This is the language of a gentleman, a states- man, and a scholar. With all the rest of the world it will have weidit : — but with You ! — You yourself assure us, it has none. " Will you allow " me," You thus address me (p. 308), " to recom- " mend to you in your next edition, to expunge " the frequent argument, which is rather insinu- " ated than expressed, arising from the use of such " names as Pitt, Burke, Fox, Grattan, Canning, " the Earl of Liverpool, and many others. Be- " lieve me, they have no weight with him who " desires facts, and rests his argument on this " soHd foundation." — I shall not take your advice : * Proceedings and Debates upon the Petition. Printed for Cuthell and Martin, in 1805, 8vo. 54 LETTl^R IX. no opportunity of using these names to serve the Catholic cause shall ever occur, in which I will not use them. Names so honourable to the Roman Catholics, and so serviceable for the justi- fication of the Catholics against the horrid charges too often brought against them, nothing shall in- duce me to expunge. In my memory they shall ever live ; and while my humble pages shall remain, my humble pages shall record their names, their kindness to us, and our gratitude to them. IX. 5. Alleged Jiecessilj/, that to give va/idih/ to Catholic denial of the Pope's universal Temporal Dominion, the Pope and his government must deni/ it. I confidently assert, — 1st, that such a denial by the Pope and his council, is perfectly unnecessary : 2dly. — That, whether necessary or unnecessary, it has been given : 3dly. — And that it is the universal opinion of the Roman Catholic church, that Roman Catholics may conscientiouly believe that the Pope has no RIGHT, DIVINE OR HUMAN, to Universal temporal dominion, or to any temporal dominion, except in his own temporal territory. 1. — All your arguments to show the necessity of requiring from the Pope and his government a denial or disclaimer of his temporal dominion, rest on your reasoning upon the third canon of the Fourth Council of Lateran ; — I have abundantly LETTER IX. 65 shown, that this canon, if, as to its temporal pro- visions, it ever was in force, does not now exist. Such a denial is therefore perfectly unnecessary. '2. — It has, however, been given. A few hnes Avill place this beyond controversy. I beg you to recollect the total disregard shown to Pope Innocent's protestation against the treaty of Westphalia; the Galilean declaration of 1682; and the oaths of the English, Irish, and Scottish Catho- lics, by which the universal temporal dominion of the Pope is absolutely denied. I request you to observe, that I use the words " universal temporal dominion of the Pope," be- cause they are your words. In my use of them, I wish them considered to extend also to any temporal dominion zv/i at soever beyond the limits of his own realm. 3. — Now, mark my two syllogisms. I. — It is the universal opinion of the Roman Catholic church, that whenever the church of any country professes a religious doctrine, — and the Roman see, and the other Roman Catholic churches, being apprised and aware of her holding it, continue in communion with her, — the Roman see, and the Church of Rome, acknowledge that the doctrine so professed by that church, is consistent with the the faith of the Roman Catholic church : But, the Galilean declaration of 1682, — the dis- regard of Pope Innocent's protestation against the peace of Westphalia, and the oaths of the English, Irish, and Scottish Roman Catholics, are explicit 4— E 4 6 LETTER LX. and unqualified disclaimers of the Pope's temporal dominion ; — and the Roman see and the other Roman Catholic churches, have heen apprised of them from the first to the present time ; — yet the Roman see, and the other Roman Catholic churches, have always been in communion with the churches, and the states, in which these explicit and unqualified disclaimers have been made : Therefore, — the Roman see and the Roman Catholic church have acknowledged and do ac- knowledge, that this disclaimerof the Pope's tem- poral dominion is consistent with the faith of the Roman Catholic Church : II. — iYow, if the Pope, or the Roman Ca- tholic Church, can, in the opinion of Roman Ca- tholics, absolve or discharge them from the oaths of allegiance and disclaimer taken bv them, it can only be, because those oaths contain something contrary to the faith of the Roman Catholic Church : But, by communicating perseverantly with the churches in which these oaths of allegiance and disclaimer have been taken, the Roman see and the Roman Catholic church, acknowledge that these oaths of allegiance and disclaimer accord with the faith of the Roman Catholic church : Therefore, — neither the Pope nor the Roman Catholic Church can absolve or discharge Roman Catholics from these oaths of allegiance and dis- claimer. It remains only to observe, — that this acknow- LF/lTEll IX. 67 ledgment of the Pope and the univeral church, is ecjuipoUent to a decree of a council ; and is, i i ore sense, more than equipollent to it, as the church is the j)rincipal^ or instituant ; the council is its representative, or instituted organ. Thus, my propositions are proved. You have all you have called for. The Pope and the universal church have acknowledged, as fully and as ex- plicitly as can be done by words or deeds, that they have no authority, human or divine, to ab- solve the members of the Roman Catholic Church from their oaths of allegiance. Their allegiance therefore is valid, and may be depended upon. " I have heard," said the Earl of Liverpool, in the debate upon the Catholic question in the year 1810, " allusions this night to doctrines, " which I do hope, no man now believes the " Catholics to entertain ; nor is there any ground " that the question is opposed on any such pre- " tence. The explanations, which have " been given on this head, are com- " pletely satisfactory." E 5 68 LETTER X. LETTER X. VIEW OF THE ROMISH SYSTEM. T. — I EVIDENTLY meant, that what I said upon this subject in " The Book of the Roman CathoHc " Church," should not be considered as a theolo- gical discussion of the truth of her doctrines : I merely wished to present a succinct account of some which are objected to by Protestants, for the purpose of showing that these contained nothing inconsistent with morality or good government ; and that this had been acknowledged, in many in- stances, by Protestant writers of distinction. Upon this part of my work, You and others have attacked it. Thus the subject is before the public, and to their conclusions upon it I shall leave it. With some observations, however, I shall now trouble you. 2. — The Roman Catholic religion satisfied the reason of such men at Bossuet, Fdn^lon, Bourda- loue, Massillon, d'Aguesseau and Pascal. If I de- serve what You intimate in this letter, (p. i o i , 1 02), for my belief of her doctrines, may I not comfort myself with the thought, that all you say applies as much to those great men as to me ? In page 107, I find this sentence addressed to me, — " I omit your sneer at the amount of a proc- LETTER X. 59 " tor's bill. It was not made with your usual cour- " tesy ; neither was it relative or necessary." My letter contains no sneer : and I am quite confident, that there is not in the profession even one person, who will believe that any thing I have written con- tains a sneer at any class of its members, or any individual member of it. — Was ?/owr remark relative or necessary? 3. — In page 1 38, You say — '* You are incorrect '* in your assertion, that the Howards and Stour- " tons are excluded from Parliament, merely be- " causeof their belief in transubslantiation. They " are so excluded, because the assertors of this " doctrine are said to render imperfect allegiance " to their sovereign." The allegiance of the Howards and the Stour- tons to their sovereign, is perfect. They consider it the grossest of affronts, to be told that it is not. — * Allegiance to the Pope is perfect nonsense. ' * Addresses of the present writer to the Pubh'c, upon '' the " Coronation Oath," and the alleged " Divided Allegiance of " the Roman Catholics," are inserted in the Appendix. e6 go LETTER XI. LETTER XL RISE OF THE REFORMATION.*— THE MENDICANT ORDERS.— PERSECUTION UNDER THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER. 1. — (i .) In pages i 23, 1 24, and 1 30, of your work, You thus address me :■ — " Lamentable indeed, was *' your error of judgment, when you ventured to " repeat the scandal of a former age, and to attri- " bute the rise of the Reformation to the general *' diffusion of the opinion of Manes." (2.) — " You ascribe also to the Albigenses, the " doctrines of that notorious heresiarch. The " reader, who is not well acquainted with history, " would conclude from your statement, thjit the " sentiments of the reformers, in the age of " Cranmer and Luther, and consequently the opi- " nions of the Protestants of the church of Eng- " land at present, are the identical errors which " are imputed to Manichaeus." (3.) — " No controversialist was ever more un- " fortunate in his argument than You have un- " wittingly been, in reviving the exploded notion, " that the faith of Protestants was the creed of '' Manichfeus." * The Title given by Doctor Southey to the Chapter, to which this letter is an answer, and therefore prefixed to this letter. LETTER XI. 01 (4.) — " As you only insinuate, that the poii- " tical opinions of the Manichaeans, were the " real prelude to the doctrines of Hberty and " equahty, so frightfully propagated in our own " time, I shall not enter upon that discussion. The " design of the insinuation is obvious, and it is " unworthy, indeed it is unworthy of You." Each of these sentences convey an heavy accu- sation against me, and each of these accusations is absolutely groundless. I have said, — and it is certainly true, — that both Catholics and Protestants agree, that the opinions and conduct of these religionists " led to " Henry's reformation ;"* and that *' Lollardismf " prepared the public mind for the religious in- " novations which afterwards took place." But I have not said, what You attribute to me, in the passages which I have cited from your work. (1.) — I have not, in any of my Letters to Doctor Southey, or in any of my works, attributed the rise of the Reformation to the " diffusion of the " general opinions of Manes." I believe, — and I have always believed the contrary. (2.) — I have not, in any of my Letters to Doctor Southey, or in any other work, said or insinuated, that " the sentiments of the Reformers, in the age " of Cranmer and Luther, and consequently the " opinions of the Protestants of the Church of * Hist. Mem. Vol I. Ch. x. p. 94. tlbid. p. 118. 62 LETTER XI. " England at present, are the identical errors " which are imputed to Manicheeus : " I believe, — and have always believed the contrary. I have even said the contrary in " the Book of the " Roman Catholic Church."* I have there said, in conformity with Bossuet's assertion in his Contro* versy with Claude, that, " when the church of the " Reformers first separated from the one, the holy, " the Roman Catholic Church, their church could " not, by their own confession, enter into commu- " nion with a single church in the whole world." I have also said the contrary in my " Revolu- " tions of the Germanic Empire." f I there men- tion the " rough attack made on the Popes by the " Albigenses, Wickliffites, Waldenses, Lollards and " other heretics of the 14th and 15th centuries. " It must be admitted on the one hand," I then say, " that these maintained several doctrines irre- " concilable with those of the Gospel and civil " society ; so that it is amazing that the reformed " churches should be so anxious to prove their " descent from them ; and on the other, that they " brought charges against some temporal usurpa- " tions of the Popes and churchmen, to which " their advocates could make no reply." (3.) — I have never said that the faith of Pro- testants was the creed of Manichjeus. — I believe, — and I have always believed the contrary. * Page 39, second edition, t Part IV, Sec. II. 2. LETTER XI. C3 (4.) — I have not insinuated, that the " political " opinions of the Manichaeans were the real pre- " lude to the doctrines of liberty and equality, so " frightfully propagated in our times."-— All I have stated is, that, " the writers whom I have men- " tioned, have said little on the political tenets of " the sectaries ; that those, who should investigate " the subject, should consult MonetcE adversus " Cathai^os et Valdenses, lihri qu'inque \''' and that I wished Dr. Southey M'ould undertake the investi- gation ; but that he " would not complete it in the " manner his friends would wish, without ransack- " ing foreign libraries, — I observe that the great " 'point for investigation is, whether these sectaries " did not, by their disorganizing tenets, prelude " to the doctrines of liberty and equality." In what I have said, is there one word that insinuates an opinion of my own, that they did } I have read and thought much on the subject ; but I have met with no satisfactory evidence for the aftirmative, though I think I have met with both facts and authorities for it, which deserve consideration. 2. — Most sincerely do I condemn the persecution of the Lollards, and e'very other persecution, either by Catholics or non-Catholics, with which the annals of history are stained. No person has spoken with greater harshness than I have done of the Inquisition, or of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, — and I have studied the history of each with attention. If the recent outrages at Nismes have been fairly represented, — of which I entertain 64 LETTER XI. some doubt, — I think they deserve all the abuse which they have received in this country. I say the same of the persecution of the Wal- denses. But I have not seen a Roman Cathohc account of this persecution ; and I never come to a conclusion upon any subject, before I have heard both sides. For the honour of my church, I hope that much exaggeration of the accounts given by Protestants of the persecutions of this worthy and unhappy people, can be proved. If it cannot, there is not in language an expression of condem- nation, or, in the human heart a feeling of de- testation, which they do not deserve. In page 141, — You mention my account of *'the " serene demeanor of some nuns, in the French " Revolution, who chaunted their hymns to the '' Virgin, till the sounds ceased only with the exe- " cution of the last of their number. — You after- '' wards say, — let me not seem harsh, if I inquire, " whether active virtue, as well as passive resig- " nation, would not have been as ornamental to " the sufferers, and more useful to society } Would " not the cause of virtue, religion, morality and " order, have been more promoted by the good ex- " ample which these excellent women might have *' set, as mothers, daughters and sisters, in social " life, than by their learning the Litanies of the " Virgin in the cloister, and singing them in their " way to the scaffold ? " In the first place, — allow me to say, that, speak- ing generally, the ladies, with whom convents were LETTER XI. 05 filled, were in those scanty circumstances, which make poor and uncomfortable sisters, and poor and uncomfortable aunts, and either prevent marriage or occasion poor and uncomfortable marriages, and thus fill the world with beings that are wretched in themselves, and a burthen to the state. To ladies of this description, a convent was an invaluable retreat ; and, from my own know- ledge, I most confidently affirm, an abode of happi- ness. In the next place, allow me to ask, whether it was not greatly to the advantage of the state, that it should possess such permanent institutions' as convents of females, for the instruction of the female portion of the community of every rank and every condition ? Can it be justly said, that such an employment was not active virtue of the most useful kind ? Is it fairly described, by saying, that " the inmates learned the litanies of the Vircfin, '^ and sung them in their way to the scaffold. " What confirmed habits of faith, of hope, of charity, must they have acquired in the convents, to have so died ? 3. — No person admired or felt more than I did, the reception of the French e.v'des in this country. An humble tribute of admiration which I paid to it, I transcribe in a note.* * " At the respectable and afflicting spectacle which so " many sufferers for conscientious adherence to religious prin- " ciple, presented, the English heart swelled with every ho- ** nourable feeling. A general appeal to the public was resolved ** upon. The late Mr,.Tohn ^Vilnnot, then member of Parlia- F GO LETTER XI. You return to our Legetids. -rl have told you, and I tell you again, that they make no part of the <' merit for the city of Coventry, took the lead in the work of " beneficence. The plan of it was concerted by him, Mr. Ed- " mund Burke, and Sir Phillips JNIetcalfe. An address to the " public was accordingly framed by INlr. Burke, and inserted " in all the newspapers. It produced a subscription of " £-33>775- ^5^- 9id. This ample sum for a time supplied '* the wants of the sufferers. At length, however, it was ex- " hausted ; and in the following year, another subscription was " set on foot. The venerable name of King George the Third " appeared first on this list. This subscription amounted to the " sum of £.41,304. 12S. 6|r/. But this too was exhausted. " The measure of private charity being thus exceeded, Par- " liament interposed, and from December 1793, voted annually " a sum for the relief of the ecclesiastics and lay emigrants. " This appears by an account which the writer received from " INIr.Wilmot, to have reached on the 7th day of June 1806, " the sum of f. 1,864,825. 95. Sd. The management of these ♦' sums was left to a committee, of which Mr.Wilmot was the " president ; and the committee confided the distribution of the " succours of the clergy to the Bishop of St. Pol de Leon. A " general scale for the distribution of the succours was fixed : " the bishops and the magistracy received an allowance some- '* what larger than others : but the largest allowance was " small, and none was made to those who had other means of " subsistence. The munificence of Parliament did not however, " suspend the continuance of private charity. Individual " kindness and aid accompanied the emigrants to the last. " Here the writer begs leave to mention an instance of the " splendid munificence of the late Earl Rosslyn, then Chan- " cellor of England. It was mentioned at his lordship's table, *' that the Chancellor of France was distressed, by not being " able to procure the discount of a bill which he had brought " from France, ' The Chancellor of England,' said Lord " Rosslyn, * is the only person to whom the Chancellor LETTER XI. 67 Roman Catholic creed. I leave them wholly to their fate. Every person has my permission to " of France should apply to discount his bills.' The money " was immediately sent, and while the seals remained in " his hands, he annually sent a sum of equal amount to the " Chancellor of France. At Winchester, at Guilford, and in " other places, public buildings were appropriated for the " accommodation of the cleigy. In the hurry in which they " had been forced to fly, many of them had been obliged to " leave behind them their books of prayer. To supply in part " this want, the University of Oxford printed for them 2,000 " copies of the Vulgate version of the New Testament from the " edition of Barbou ; and the late INIarquis of Buckingham *' printed an equal number of the same sacred work, at his own " fcxpence. Every rank and description of persons, exerted " itself for their relief. There is reason to suppose, that the " money contributed for this honourable purpose, by individuals " whose donations never came before the public eye, was equal " to the largest of the two subscriptions which have been men- " tioned. To the very last, Mr. John Wilmot continued his " kind and minute attention to the noble work of humanity. " It adds incalculably to it's merit, that it was not a sudden " burst of beneficence : it was a cool, deliberate, and system- " atic exertion, which charity dictated, organized and continued " for a long succession of years, and which in its last year, " was as kind, as active, and as energetic, as in its first. " Among the individuals who made themselves most useful, one " unquestionably holds the first place. ' At the name,' says " the Abbe Barruel, ' of Mrs. Dorothy Silburn, every French " * priest raises his hands to heaven to implore its blessings on " ' her.' The bishop of St. Pol took his abode in her house ; " and it soon became the central point, to which every French- " man in distress found his way. It may easily be conceived, " that great as were the sums appropriated for the relief of the " French clergy, the number of those who partook of them were " so largte, us to make the allowance of each a scanty provision F 2 C8 LETTER XI. speak of them as he pleases. I only request, that, where he finds that any of these legends possess that " even for bare subsistence ; so that all were obliged to submit " to great privations, and, from one circumstance or other, " some were occasionally in actual want. Here INIrs. Silburn " interfered. Where more food, more raiment, more medi- " cine, than the succours afforded, was wanted, it was generally " procured by her or her exertions. Work and labour she " found for those who sought them. The soothing word, the " kind action, never failed her ; all the unpleasantness which " distress unavoidably creates, she bore with patience. Her " incessant exertions she never abated. The scenes thus de- " scribed by the writer he himself witnessed : and all who " beheld them, felt and remarked, that much of the success, " and the excellent management which attended the good " work, was owing to her. To use the expression of a French " prelate, ' the glory of the nation, on this occasion, was in- " ' creased by the part which INIrs. Silburn acted in it.' On " the final closing of the account, his Majesty was graciously " pleased to show his sentiments of her conduct by granting to " her an annual pension ofioo/. for her life: — never was a " pension better merited. " On the other hand, the conduct of the objects of this " bounty was most edifying. Thrown, on a sudden, into a " foreign country, differing from theirs in language, manners, " habits and religion, the uniform tenor of their decorous " and pious lives obtained for them universal regard. Their '* attachment to their religious creed, they neither concealed " nor obtruded. It was evidently their first object to find op- " portunities of celebrating the sacred mysteries, and of " reciting the offices of their liturgy. Most happy was he, " who obtained the cure of a congregation, or who, like the " Abbe Caron, could establish some institution useful to his " countrymen. Who does not respect feelings at once so res" *' pectable and so religious ? Hence flowed their cheerfulness '* and serenity of mind above suffering and want. ' I saw " ' them/ a gentlemen said to the writer of these pages, LETTER XI. eD amount of historical fact, M'hich, by the acknow- ledged rules of evidence, entitles them to credit, he should permit me to believe them : — that, as a gen- tleman can always tell a truth, however offensive, in gentlemanly language, he should speak of those he disbelieves, in terms that are not ungentlemanly, — and that, while he laughs at the legend, he should admit the virtues, if they are well authenticated, of the saint whom the legend was sillily intended to ornament. These are such as Christians of every denomination must admire. Who is the canonized or beatified king, — that was not the father of his people : the canonized or beatified bishop, — that was not the incessant preacher of the word of God, and the father of the poor, denying himself all but necessaries, to supply their wants? Who, the ca- nonized or beatified prebendary — whose regular and devout attendance, in every day of the year, at the seven canonical hours of the Roman Catholic church, was not a continual tribute of praise and adoration to the Deity, and an edifying excitement to devotion? Who, the canonized or beatified curate, that did not consume himself in the service of his parishioners ? What canonized or beatified " ' hurrying in the bitterest weather, over the ice of Holland, " ' when the French invaded that territory. They had scarcely " ' the means of subsistence; the v/ind blew, the snow fell, the " * army was fast approaching, and they knew not where to " ' hide their heads, yet these men were cheerful.' They did " honour to religion ; and the nation that so justly appreciated " their merit did honour to itself." F3 70 LETTER XI. husband or wife was not eminent for conjugal virtue ; for every parental and every domestic merit ? Surely, when so much pains are taken to disgrace the Roman Catholic religion, by bringing forward the miserable legends by which some of her silly children have often deformed their accounts of her saints, justice requires that the heroic vir- tues of those saints should be equally produced. If this be not done, one side only of the question is brought forward, and great injustice done to the Roman Catholic Church ; — she glories, — and she justly glories in her saints ; When Milton assigns to the Paradise of Fools, " Eretmtcs andfriara, — " Blach, xvhite and grey, and all their trumpery" You tell us that " he has given all, their proper " place." He has not " given all, their proper place." — I am surprised that You should cite IMilton as an authority on such a point. What place v^ould he have given You and Your brother prebendaries ? Read the ribaldrv vvith which he has treated Your prelates ? The friars, whom it pleases You to mention thus contumeliously, were incessantly employed in the service of the poor : in preaching to them, in teaching them their catechism, in at- tending them on their sick beds, and preparing them for their passage to eternity, in aid of the the curates. Was there an epidemic illness, a lire, or an inundation ? friars were sure to be there. LETTERS Xll. & Xlll. 71 In hos{)itaIs, in prisons ; amid the wounded ajid the dying in the field of battle, friars were always found. Those, who had no other friend, always found one in a friar. Many friars reached the highest emi- nence in the arts and sciences. Surely you have heard of Father Roger Bacoji, The best inter- j)reter of Descartes, was father Mersenne, a minim friar : the best edition of the Priticipia of Newton, is that of Jacqider , and Le Seur, both minims : St. Thomas of Aquln, Bartholomexv de las Casas, were Dominican friars. Cardinal Ximenes was a Fran- ciscan. An hundred other friars illustrious for talent, virtue and learning, might be quickly men- tioned. Is it decent to call, or to wound the feel- ings of Catholics by calling, such men, trumpery? F4 72 LETTER S XII. & XIII, LETTERS XII. & XIII. THE REFORMATION.— HENRY VIII.— EDWARD VI. IN your twelfth letter, you assert, (page 146, 147), that, " the only real points in debate at the time " of the Reformation, were these ; — Are the doc- " trines of the church of Rome supported by " Scripture and antiquity? Shall the Pope or " Monarch be supreme over the people ? " The first of these points included the question of the Pope's spiritual supremacy. It was wrested from him, in many parts of Europe, by the Protestant reformers ; but these, instead of establishing evangelical liberty, strove, equally by the sword and the pen, to substitute themselves and their creeds, in the chair of authority. Their attempts filled Europe both with war and debate.* Proceeding in the order of investigation which I have susgested in the letter to which You now refer, You " inquire, whether England has been benefitted by the Reformation, I. In Temporal hap- piness ; — II. Spiritual wisdom ; — III. Or morals; — IV. And, whether the revival of letters was mate- rially promoted by the Reformation. On each of these topics You conclude for the affirmative. * Seethe article in the Edinburgh Review, No. LIIl. Art. 8, on the " Toleration of the fir^t Reformers." LETTERS XII. & XIII. 73 •* Christianity," you say, " not Romanism, ex- " tricated us from Paganism." You have not shown that the Creed of St. Au2:ustine ivas not. — o I have referred to a work, which abundantly shows, by the confessions of Protestant writers of the first eminence, that it was, the creed of the Council of Trent. You ask, (page 148), " if your parochial clergy " will not bear comparison with the monks?" — The proper persons to whom your parochial clergy should be compared, are the parochial clergy of France. I beg leave to transcribe what I have said of these in another publication.* •' A French country curate was truly the father " of his flock. There was not in his parish a sub- " ject of joy or distress in which ]ie did not " feelingly participate. " Le pauvre 1' allait voir, et revenait heurf ux. Volt. Henriade. " Generally speaking, his income was small. " If it fell short of what the French law termed " the portion congruej about eighteen pounds a " year of our money, but taking into calculation " the relative value of specie, and the relative " price of provisions, about sixty pounds a year " of English money, in its present worth, the state *' made good the deficiency. It is evident, that " with such an income, the cure could spare *' litde. Whatever it was, he gave it cheerfully, " thriftily, and wisely ; and the soothing word, * History of the Church of France, Ch. II. Sect. 3. 74 LETTERS XII. & XIII. the compassionate look, the active exertion to serve, were never wanting. In the house of mourning the curate Mas always seen ; the greatest comfort of the aged was to perceive him enter their doors. The young never en- joyed their mirth or pastime so much, as when they saw him stand near them and smile. But the cure never forgot that he was a minister of God. The discharge of his functions, particu- larly of his sacred ministry at the altar, w^as at once the pride and the happiness of his hfe. There was scarcely a curate who did not thoroughly instruct the children of his parish in their catechism, and his whole flock in their duties ; who did not every Sunday and holiday officiate at the morning and evening service ; who did not regularly attend his poor parishioners through their illnesses, and prepare them, in their last moments, for their passage to eterniLy. The last act of his life, was to commend his tlock to God, and to beg his blessing on them. In every part of France, the peasant spoke of him as his best friend ; ' Notr'e hon curt^ was his universal appellation. This is not an exaggerated picture of these venerable men. Their merit was at once so transcendent, and so universally recognized, as to defy calumny. On every other rank of men, the philosophers and witlings of France exhausted abuse and ridicule ; but they left untouched the worthy and edifying cur6. Voltaire himself, in more pas- LETTERS XII. & XIII. 75 " sages than one of his works, pays due homage " to their useful and unpretending virtue." When You have read this passage, I wish You to say, if the comparison between your and our parochial clergy is unfavourable to the latter? Against your description of the Pope, (page 148), I absolutely protest. When you commented (p. 1 48) on my mention of " the interruption of the night by the psal- " mody of the monks," You surely forget that it was an imitation of our Saviour ; an imitation also of the son of Jesse, who so often and so feelingly mentions, in his Psalms, " his rising in " midnight, to confess to the Lord." XII. & XIII. 1. Has the Reformation produced an Increase of Temporal Happiness in the Nation. 1. — You next inquire, whether there has been an increase of temporal happiness in the nation^ since the era of the reformers. I admit all that can be said of its great advances in agriculture and com- merce, and the useful or ornamental arts : but, when I consider its eviscerating national debt, its pau- perism, and the numbers exanimated by premature, excessive, consuming and exhausting labour, I greatly doubt its increase in happiness. XII. 8c XIII. 2. Has it produced an Increase of Spiritual Happiness. 2. As to the national increase in spiritual wis- dom, — place to our account the superstition, which Te all and every one of these things the more inviolably, as I am firmly convinced that there is nothing contained in them which can be contrary to the fidelity I owe to the most serene King of Great Britain and Ireland, and to his successors to the tJirone. So help me, God, and those holy Gospels of Godo Thus I promise and eno-as.e. " Dated at Rome, in the house of the said Sacred Congregation, the 23d day of June 1791- " L. Cardinal Antonelli, Prefect. " A. Archbishop Adanen, Secretary." * Bishop of Cloyne's Translation. [ 203 ] TRANSCRIPTIONS OF THE FOURTH LETTER ADDRESSED BY DOCTOR PHILLPOTTS TO MR. BUTLER, CONTAINING A CHARGE BROUGHT BY HIM AGAINST DOCTOR LINGARD. DOCTOR LINGARD'S REPLY. Doctor Henry Phillpotts, D.D. Rector of Stanhope, in the diocese of Durham, has published " Letters to Charles Butler, esq. on the Theolo- " gical Parts of his Book of the Roman Catholic " Church, with Remarks on certain Works of " Doctor Milner and Doctor Lingard, and on some " parts of the Evidence of Doctor Doyle before " the Committees of the Houses of Parliament." The fourth of these Letters is entitled, " Doctor *' Lingard: his Unfaithfulness in Translation^ This letter, and Doctor Lingard's reply to it, in a letter, which he has done the writer of the pre- ceding letter the honour to address to me, are now presented to the reader. I. DOCTOR PHILLPOTTS'S CHARGE. "In inquiring, in my last letter, into the Acts of the II. Nicene Council, I said that " Dr. " Lingard protests altogether against such in- " quiry, and declares that your Church acknow- 204 CHARGE OF DOCTOR PHILLPOTTS " ledges only the Council's doctrinal decree " passed in its last session." In answer to this statement, I then satisfied myself with showing, that the previous Acts of the Council are ad- mitted, as authoritative, even by the Trent Catechism. But, as this Council's proceedings have been found very important in my view of the doctrine of your Church respecting Images, I now think it right to give more particular attention to Dr. Linsard's assertions, and shall thus at the same time fulfil my promise of addressing to you a few words respecting Dr. Lingard himself. That gentleman is, I believe, among the most distinguished living writers of your Church. By yourself he is repeatedly mentioned in terms of very high respect : for although he is not cited as one of your Vouchers for the doctrines of your Church, yet as an historian, he is warmly com- mended by you, more especially for his accu- racy and precision, and for " constantly citing " the authorities upon which his relations are " founded."* It is said, indeed, by those who have read his history, (I am not in that number), that the main part of your historical facts are derived from him. It is plain, therefore, on all these accounts, that it will be by no means a superfluous labour, to dwell a little more at large on the manner in which he has treated the II. Nicene Council. The result may not only be useful in estabhsh- * " Book," &c. p. 28. note, and p. 193. AGAINST DOCTOR LINGARD. 205 ing more fully the authority of that Council's Acts, a matter of much moment in the inquiry in which I am engaged ; — but it may also afford a specimen of the method in which your mo- dern ecclesiastical historian disposes of subjects which are not quite agreeable to him, and may thus assist his readers in estimating the value of his authority in all questions of doubtful evidence. I have said that I am not in the number of those who have read Dr. Lingard's history ; and I will frankly tell you my reason. It happened to me, several years ago, to be engaged in a controversy with him, — the attack and defence of a charge delivered by the present Bishop of Durham : and, on that occasion, 1 had so frequent opportunities of experiencing the very peculiar use, which he thinks himself at liberty to make of the writings of ancient authors, that I felt no inclination to sit down to a work of his, the merit of which must entirely depend on his faithfulness to the authorities which he cites. In the course of our controversy, I made pretty copious extracts from the Acts of the II. Nicene Council, (of Avhich, indeed, I have not scrupled to avail myself in my preceding letter to you) : and in his answer, which closed the controversy, he makes the statement to which I have before referred. " The Acts of this Coiin- " aV," says he, " are of no authority in the 206 CHARGE OF DOCTOR PHILLPOTTS " Catholic Church. We assent, indeed, to the " doctrinal decree passed in the last session, " which was approved by the Popes: but in the " Acts and Canons much is contained to which the " Roman Church would never impart its sanctio??. " Quce apud nos nee habentur, 7iec admittuntur, " says Anastasius Bibliothecarius, a Roman writer " of the same age."* This passage was not much regarded by me at the time when I first read it ; and I never reverted to it, till my attention was recalled to these matters by my present correspondence with you. I then determined to investigate the grounds of a statement, which I was confident was un- founded, but which I never before had thought worth examining. I now proceed to give you the result of my inquiries. It will be found, that not a single poi7it, whether affirmed, or insinuated, in the passage which I have cited from Dr. Lin- gard, (except your Church's admission of the final Decree of the Council), is there truly stated by him. First, Dr. Lingard is pleased to say of his alleged authority, Anastasius Bibliothecarius, in order to give the greater weight to his testimony, that he was '* a Roman author of the same age"" with the Council. Now, so far is this from being the case, that the tract of Anastasius, from which Dr. Lingard makes his quotation, is inscribed to * Lingard's Tracts, p. 238. AGAINST DOCTOR LINGARD. 207 Pope John VIII. who did not succeed to the Papal Chair till near a hundred years later.* In the next place, Dr. Lingard is so good as to give us the testimony of Anastasius to this alleged fact, that " in the Acts and Canons of " the Council much is contained to which the '' Roman Church would never impart its sanc- " tion ; qiicB apiicl nos nee habentiir, nee acbnittun- " tiirJ" Now, viewing this representation in the most favourable light, it is exactly of that kind which a man of real veracity would scorn to make ; but which one, who halted between the inclination to mis-state and the fear of being exposed in his dishonesty, might bring himself to fancy at once serviceable and safe. The words of Anastasius (to which, by the way. Dr. Lingard with all his accuracy in citing authorities, gives us no further clue than the name of the author) occur in a very short " Pre- " face to the Seventh Synod" (the second Ni- cene) interpreted and edited by him. He was, as his title denotes, the Pope's librarian, and by virtue of that office, had access to all the Papal records and monuments. He had translated the eighth General Council, and thought it, therefore, unfit, that the seventh should remain locked up either in the original or in an existing translation, which was so very bad, as to be hardly intelligible. In the course of his further observations, he says, * The Council sate A. D. 787 ; John VIII. was elected Pope A. D. 873. vid. Baron. Ann. 208 CHARGE OF DOCTOR PHILLPOTTS as follows ; " San^ notandum est, quaedam in hac " Synodo ex Apostolorum et Se.vtce Universalis " Synodi Canonibus et Sententiis inveniri, quae " penes nos interpretata nee habentur, nee admit- " tuntur." This sentence contains the raw material, out of which Dr. Lingard has wrought a main part of his very ingenious statement. On comparing the two passages, it will be perceived, that much of what is most important in the original is loosely slurred over by Dr. Lingard, and, in par- ticular, that the word interpretata, which could not be made to accord with his views, is actually struck out of the clause which he professes to cite verbatim. But in order to make the whole case better understood, I will beg leave to state the following facts connected with it. Neither in the fifth, nor in the sixth General Councils, were any Canons set forth. To supply this defect, certain Prelates (some of whom had sate in the sixth Council) met in a Council, called, from its purpose, " Quinisextum ; " * they there set forth Canons, and said that these Canons had before been passed at the siMh General Council. This " Concilium Quinisextum," not having been duly summoned, and its acts not having received the approbation of the Pope, was never acknow- ledged at Rome, Nevertheless, the Greeks, as appears from what Tarasias, Patriarch of Con- * nwGsxTjj ; fifth-sixth. AGAINST DOCTOR LINGARD. 209 stantinople, says in the fourth Actio of the second Nicene Council, received these Canons as Canons of the sixth General Council. The Latins were not so ready to own them by that name, nor, indeed, to give them any sanction whatever. But as this seventh General, or second Nicene Council, adopting some of these Canons, and thus giving to them the sanc- tion of the Church, calls them Canons of the sixth General Council, Anastasius thinks it ne- cessary to explain what must otherwise seem very strange to his Latin readers, and this he does in the passage cited above. " It is worthy of remark," says Anastasius, that " there are found in this " Council some things from the Apostolic Canons, " and from the Canons and Decisions of the sLvth " General Council^ which are not contained in the '' documents of that Council which we have in " our possession (penes nos), translated into Latin, " (interpretata,)* nor are they admitted by us." He then speaks of both the Apostolic and the other Canons, and says, that John VIII. had now admitted all the Canons of all Popes, Fathers and Councils, which had preceded him, provided they were not contrary to faith and morals. " Therefore," he adds, " the Rules which the *' Greeks say were set forth by the sixth Council, " the See of Rome admits in such manner in this * That this is his meaning, is made still plainer by what he says a httle afterwards, incognitse quia nee interpretatce. P 210 CHARGE OF DOCTOR PHILLPOTTS " seventh Council, that still those of them which " contradict former canons or decrees of Popes or " sound morals, are in no measure received : " * but it is manifest, that those which are admitted by the seventh Council, and have thus the au- thority of the Church given to them, are not in the rejected class ; nor, indeed, till this bold attempt of Dr. Lingard, were they ever pretended to be. Does this sufficiently establish the unfairness of this writer, his intentional garbling, his gross misrepresentation of the passage which he cites ? will it be contended, that he has erred through inadvertence, or in ignorance? This can hardly be believed : for neither inadvertence, nor igno- rance, can account for the omission of a part of the words of his author, so important that the sense of the passage is wholly subverted by the omission. But I pass to another part of the case. Dr. Lingard directly affirms, that " the Acts of this " Council," as contradistinguished from " the *' doctrinal decree passed in the last session," " are of no authority in the Catholic Church''' I defy him to produce evidence of this assertion. Meanwhile, not only does the Catechism of the * " Ergo regulas, quas Graeci a sexta synodo perhibent edi- tas, ita in hac synodo principalis Sedes admittit, ut nullatenus ex his illcB recipiantur, quae prioribus canonibus vel decretis sanctorum Sedis hujus pontificum, aut cert^ bonis moribus in- veniuntur adversoe." Labbe, Concil. t. vii. p. 30. AGAINST DOCTOR LINGARD. ail Council of Trent, as we have already seen, recog- nise those Acts; but Bellarmine, in his book " de " Conciliis," reckons the second Nicene Council as the seventh of those " eighteen, of which there " is not one, that is not approved by the Pope, " and received by Catholics ; " * and this extends to the whole of the Acts of these eighteen, not to auy particulars only : for he next specifies in a different class those v.hich are " partly confirmed, partly rejected, "-j" as the Council of Constance, a part only of whose sessions is accepted, and the '* Concilium Quinisextum," whose Canons, though the Pope was not present at it either in person, or by his Legates, are " partly approved, because " they have afterwards had the approbation of the " Pope, or of other lawful Councils, such, for " instance, as its eighti/-seco?id Ca?io}i ' de piiigendis " Imagimbus,' which was received by Pope Adrian " ayid the seventh Synod (the second Nicene), as " appears from that very Synod, Act two and " fourr Thus does your greatest and most learned divine recognise the authority of these acts of the second Nicene Council, as a matter of course. Indeed, he elsewhere says, " Si ergo ullum est " Concilium generale legitimum, certe hoc est :" '^ a declaration of no trifling importance to my ar- * Bellarm. de Concil. c. 5. t lb. c. 7. I De Imag. 1. ii. p. 806. P 2 212 CHARGE OF DOCTOR PHILLPOTTS gument, not only as against Dr. Lingard, but also as fixing on your Church the full responsibility for all this Council's proceedings. But Dr. Lingard's delinquencies do not end here. He insinuates (and an honest man ought to feel, that to insinuate what is untrue is as bad, as to affirm it) — Dr. Lingard, I say, insi- nuates, that only " the doctrinal decree passed " in the last session," not the acts of this Council at its other sessions, " was approved by the " Popes." This is as utterly unfounded as the rest. It is true, we learn from Bellarmine, that it had been asserted in the very age of the Council, that it had not the approbation of the Pope ; but this assertion extended to the whole of the Council's proceedings, including its final decree ; it would, therefore, if true, prove too much for Dr. Lingard's purpose ; — nay, it went further ; for, it was accompanied with a charge against the Council of maintaining a doctrine, the very con- trary to what is declared in that final decree, namely, that Latria is due to Images. How, there- fore, does Bellarmine treat these averments ? These are his words : '■^Verh mendacia esse, et gudd Sy nodus " Nic(Ena cai^uerit Papce Auctoritate, et quod " decreverit imagines adorandus culta latriae, cer- '* tissimum est."" *' For," says he, " in this very " Council, Act 2. are recited the Letters of Adrian " in favour of Images, and in all the Acts the AGAINST DOCTOR LINGARD. 213 " Legates of Rome are the first who subscribe " their names."* Lastly, there is actually stronger and more particular evidence of the approbation of the Pope having been given to the Acis of this Council^ than to those of any other Council whatsoever, For, in the very volume j* from which Dr. Lin- gard cites his passage from Anastasius, there is a long defence of the Acts of the Council, extending to particulars which occur in every one of the Acts separately, addressed to Charlemagne, by the very Pope Adrian I., who by his Legates presided at it. I have here done with Dr. Lingard; and am sorry that I have been obliged to detain you so long with this discussion respecting him ; a discus- sion which, I fear, not even the interest excited in you for the reputation of a friend, can have wholly prevented from being tedious. Perhaps, however, you will by this time understand, why I now attend " not to what Dr. Lingard may say, but to what '* he may prove : " and that to a history by that writer I do not attend at all. Let us pass to something else." • Bellarm. de Imag. 1. ii. p. 806. t Labb. Concil. t. vii. P3 214 DOCTOR LINGARD'S REPLY. II. DOCTOR LINGARD'S REPLY TO THE CHARGE BROUGHT AGAINST HIM IN THE PRECEDING LETTER. Dear Sir, Seventeen years have rolled away since I met Dr. Phillpotts in the field of controversy. In most cases so long a cessation of hostilities would have sufficed to extinguish every angry feeling, if any such had been excited by the preceding con- test. But with Dr. Phillpotts it seems to be other- wise. The intemperate attack which that learned divine has been pleased to make upon me, in his letters recently addressed to you, will justify a suspicion that angry feelings are still cherished in his breast, and that still HcBret lateri lethalis arundo. During that controversy, in the year 1808, it was my fortune to convict him of having published an unfaithful translation of an ancient document : and now, in 1825, even while he tacitly admits the charge, by adopting in his letters to you a more accurate version (see p. 86), he seeks to retaliate, by accusing me of having made, at the same time, an unfaithful quotation, /was content with point- ing out his offence : he goes further, and infers, from the charge against me, that I am totally un- DOCTOR LINGARD'S REPLY. 215 worthy of belief. But I may ask, is he not then bound by his own rule ? If the mere charge of unfaithful quotation be sufficient to impair my credit, does it not follow, that the charge of un- faithful translation, not merely made, but proved and admitted, has already destroyed his ? It is the usual resource of a skilful disputant, when he feels himself too closely pressed, to divert the attack of his adversary by bringing for- ward new subjects of discussion. Availing himself of this manoeuvre. Dr. Phillpotts, in the contro- versy to which I have alluded, introduced, rather awkwardly, two long disquisitions on the second Council of Nice, and on the opinions of the ancient schoolmen respecting images : the same disquisi- tions in fact, which he has reprinted in his late publication, as if they were something new, and had never been answered. Yet Dr. Phillpotts knows that I returned an answer, which by many readers was considered satisfactory, and in which I ventured to expose what I deemed his mis- statements, to supply his omissions, and to con- trovert his arguments. But of all this he appears to remember nothing : his recollection serves him only to refer to a short passage, which I shall now transcribe for the satisfaction of the reader. Addressing him, I said, '* You will probably be " still more surprised, when I venture to inform *' you that the Acts of this Council " (the daily re- ports of the speeches and proceedings in the second Council of Nice) " are of no authority in the Ca- p 4 216 DOCTOR LINGARD'S REPLY. " tholic Church. We assent, indeed, to the doctri- " nal decree passed in the last session, which was " approved by the Popes : but in the Acts and " Canons much is contained, to which the Roman " Church would never impart its sanction, * Qujb " apud nos nee habentur, nee admittuntur,' says " Anastatius Bibliothecarius, a Roman writer of " the same age." This passage was then neglected by Dr. Phill- potts : it is only of late that he has thought it worth his notice. On examining the work of Anastatius, preparatory to the publication of his letters to you, he discovered some discrepancy between the quo- tation and the original. Immediately his ire against me was rekindled : he sat down to compose a chapter under the head of " Dr. Lingard: his " Unfaithfulness in Quotation;'' and spread the puny efforts of his vengeance over the surface of no fewer than a dozen pages. Those who have read the former controversy between us, know how to appreciate the assertions of Dr. Phillpotts : but, as others may be imposed upon by that tone of confidence and superiority which he assumes, I shall here beg leave to notice the principal of his objections. 1°. — He denies that Anastatius was a writer of the same age. — If by the same age we are necessa- rily left to understand the same century, I must own that the expression was not strictly correct. I conceive that I called him so, because he wrote within a hundred years after the Council, and in DOCTOR LINGARD'S REPLY. 217 the midst of the contestations to which it gave rise. But, in reahty, the later he wrote, the better it is for my argument : since his testimony shows (I shall prove it hereafter), that up to that period the Roman church had refused its sanction to certain things contained in the Acts and Canons of the second Nicene Council. 2". — He next reproaches me with the intentional suppression of the word " interpretata" in the text of Anastatius. — Whence the omission of the word arose, whether from the negligence of the printer, or from my own inadvertence, it is not in my power, at the distance of seventeen years, to dis- cover. That it was not intentional, is most evi- dent. The omission could not strengthen my cause ; it could not weaken his. The word had nothing to do with the question between us, which regarded not the translation, but the admission or non-admission of certain Canons by the Roman Church. 3°. — These, however, are but trifles. " The " head and front of my offending" consists in this ; that, according to Dr. Phillpotts, the passage from Anastatius does not bear in the original the meaning which it is made to bear in my pages. Hence, he charges me with " unfairness, with in- " tentional garbling, with gross misrepresentation, " with doing that which a man of real veracity " would scorn to do, but which one who halted " between the inclination to mis-state, and the " fear of being exposed in his dishonesty, might 218 DOCTOR LINGARD'S REPLY. " bring himself to fancy at once serviceable and " safe." — At such language I feel no surprize : it is familiar to the rector of Stanhope : seventeen years ago he displayed his proficiency in the art of abusing his adversary. To it therefore I shall return no other answer now, than what I returned then. I shall only say with the poet, that A moral, sensible, and well-bred man Will not offend me, and no other can. But I owe it to myself, and to the reader, to dis- prove the charge, and to show that it is entirely founded on the mistakes of the man who made it. The passage from Anastatius stands thus in the original : " Sane notandum est queedam in hac sy- nodo ex apostolorum et sextee universalis synodi canonibus inveniri, quee penes nos interpretata nee habentur, nee admittuntur." Perhaps I need say no more. The meaning of these words is so very obvious, that the reader, if he recollect that they were written eighty years after the Council, must, I think, pronounce in my favour. But to preclude the very possibility of cavil, I will observe, that in the ancient church there were two collections of Canons, called Apostolic Canons, one of which contained fifty, the other eighty-five articles. In 691, a synod of bishops, assembled by the emperor Justinian II. in Constantinople, and since called the council Quini-sext or in Trullo, decreed one hundred and two Canons of discipline, by the second of which the observance of the eighty-five Apostolic Canons was strongly DOCTOR LINGARD'S REPI.Y. 219 enforced. But the following year Pope Sergius rejected the Council and its Canons, and in 769 Stephen IV. decreed that the fifty Apostolic Canons and no more, should be observed. Thus the matter rested till the second Council of Nice, in 787. By this both the larger collection of Apostolic Canons, and that of the Council in TruUo, were not only quoted with applause, but approved and confirmed in the strongest terms. But the Roman Church did not bend to the autho- rity of the Council : it still adhered to its former decisions ; and the two codes of Canons remained without force, and almost unknown, till the pon- tificate of John VIII. That Pope, about the year 872, probably as a measure of conciliation, made a general order, that all Canons of the Apostles and Councils should be admitted under certain limita- tions, by which were excluded such Canons among them, as might be contrary to faith, or morals, or the previous constitutions of the Roman Pontiffs. Perhaps Dr. Phillpotts may think this order an admission of the Canons approved by the second Nicene Council. But it was far otherwise. The Council commanded all the Canons of both collec- tions to be observed : the Pope excepted several. We are assured of it by Anastatius himself. Ergo regulas quas Grasci a sexta synodo perhibent edi- tas, ita in hac (Nicjena) synodo principalis sedes admittit, ut Jiullatenus e.v his illce recipianiur, quas prioribus canonibus vel decretis sanctorum hujus sedis pontificum, aut certe bonis moribus inveni- 220 DOCTOR LINGARD'S REPLY, untur adversas. Let the reader, with this informa- tion before him, peruse once more the passage, which has brought so much abuse upon my head, and say, whether it be possible for any dispassionate man to doubt, that I was justified in the use which I made of it. But what is the meaning attributed to it by Dr. Phillpotts ? That is a mystery which he has prudently locked up within his own breast. He appears only to insinuate, that according to Anas- tatius, the Canons were not admitted, because they had not been translated, and were therefore un- known. But to whom were they unknown ? To the generality of the Latins ! That is undoubtedly true, for they had not been translated into the book of Canons for the use of the Latin church. But were they unknown to the Popes ? to Hadrian, whose legates presided in the Nicene Council ? or to his successors, who Avrote so many letters re- specting the proceedings of the Council ? Now, if they were not, what reason can be given, why these Pontiffs did not notify them to the Latin Church, but that they did not admit them ? In support, as it would seem, of his hypothesis, Dr. Phillpotts has favoured us with an English version of the passage from Anastatius, beginning with Sane notandum, &c. But there is some- thing portentous in its length ; the four lines of the original are multiplied into eight ; and the words, quae penes nos interpretata non habentur, are rendered, " which are not contained in the DOCTOR LINGARD'S REPLY. 221 " documents of that Council, which we have in our " possession, translated into Latin." It will suffice to observe, that this version says much more than Anastatius said : it even says, that which in all probability he could not have said without giving the lie to himself. For he has told us, that the Romans had a translation of the Council, the author of which had rendered the original text word for word. Verbum e verbo secutus. It was in the book of Canons for the government of the Latin church, that they were not translated. He has also favoured us with a translation of the other passage which I have quoted, beginning with Ergo regulas, &c. " Therefore the rules, " which the Greeks say were set forth by the sixth *^ Council, the See of Rome" (who could have expected this rendering of principalis sedes from the orthodoxy of Dr. Phillpotts ?) " admits in " such manner in this seventh Council, that still " those of them which contradict former canons " or decrees of Popes, are in no measure admitted.'^ But does not this very passage speak of some Canons that are not admitted ? Not in the opinion of Dr. Phillpotts, who argues thus : " the second " Nicene Council adopted some of these Canons, " and gave to them the sanction of the Church :" — " it is therefore manifest that such canons are not " in the rejected class ; nor, indeed, till this bold " attempt of Dr. Lingard were they ever pretended " to be." Seldom have so many mistakes been crowded within so few lines. i°. "The Council 222 DOCTOR LINGARD'S REPLY. " adopted some of these (Quinisextian) Canons." It did not adopt some only ; it adopted and con- firmed all without exception. 2°. " It is manifest " that such Canons are not in the rejected class." Yet, if all were adopted by the Council, and some Avere rejected by the Popes, some of those adopted must have been in the rejected class. 3*. " Nor, till this bold attempt of Dr. Lingard's, *' were they ever pretended to be." Yet every writer on these subjects, as far as I have been able to learn, has carefully pointed out to his readers, the very Canons which were rejected by the Pontiffs. Indeed, the Greeks have always made that rejection one of the chief grounds on which they attempt to justify their separation from the Roman Church. I am aware, that I have already trespassed too far on the patience of your readers, and shall dis- miss the remaining charges of Dr. Phillpotts with this general answer : — that Catholics admit the second Nicene Council and subscribe to its decree respecting the faith of the Church ; that they refer to the Acts as an historical document, but not as doctrinal authority binding their belief, and that they censure or approve the opinions of the indi- vidual speakers recorded in the Acts, according to their respective judgments. But as it is evident, that on the subject of general councils he has to learn the very rudiments of Catholic theology, I recommend the following passage to his notice : — " Illud solum et totum est de fide, quod definitur. DOCTOR LINGARD'S REPLY. 223 Hinc plurima continentur in conciliis etiam gene- ralibus, quae non sunt de fide : scilicet quod est in eis obiter dictum ; multo minus quod in sessionibus a variis praslatis, dum sententias proferunt, pro- batum est ; multo etiam minus quae a doctoribus in discussionem rei definiendas preemittuntur aut allegantur." Veron, Reg. Fidei, c. i.§iv. N^v. In conclusion, allow me, Sir, to offer you my congratulations on the eminent services, which by your valuable works you have rendered to the Catholic cause. That tone of moderation and forbearance by which they are distinguished, will place in a more striking light the temerity and intemperance of this your new, and, as far as I can judge, unprovoked antagonist. I have the honour to be, dear Sir, Your very obedient servant, John Lingard." Hornby, Oct. 13, 1825. ( 224 ) APPENDIX. N° I. Opinions of Foreign Ujiiversities on the Temporal Power of the Pope. T N pursuance of Mr. Pitt's suggestions, three ques- tions were sent to the Universities of the Sorbonne, Louvaine, Douay, Alcala and Salamanca. They were expressed in the following terms, and received the fol- lowing answers : — " 1 . Has the Pope or Cardinals, or any body of men, " or any individual of the Church of Rome, any civil " autliority, power, jurisdiction, or pre-eminence what- *' soever, within the realm of England ? " 2. Can the Pope or Cardinals, or any body of men, " or any individual of the Church of Rome, absolve or " dispense with his Majesty's subjects, from their oath " of allegiance, upon auy pretext whatsoever? " 3. Is there any principle in the tenets of the Catholic " faith, by which Catholics are justified in not keeping " faith with heritics, or other persons differing from " them in religious opinions, in any transaction, either " of a public or a private nature ?" The Universities answered unanimously : " 1. That the Pope or Cardinals, or any body of men, " or any individual of the Church of Rome, has not, nor " have any civil authority, power, jurisdiction, or pre- " eminence whatsoever, within the realm of England. APPENDIX. •22.5 " 2. That the Pope or Cardinals, or any body of men, " or any individual of the Church of Rome, cannot ab- " solve or dispense with his Majesty's subjects, from " their oath of allegiance, upon any pretext whatsoever. " 3. That there is no principle in the tenets of the ** Catholic faith, by which Catholics are justified in not " keeping faith with heretics, or other persons differing ** from them in religious opinions, in any transactions, ** either of a public or a private nature," The opinions of the universities of the Sorbonne, Louvaine, and Douay, were first received, and were transmitted to Mr. Pitt with the following letter : — " Sir, " The Committee of the English Catholics have the ** honour to lay before you, the opinions of the univer- " sities of Sorbonne, Louvaine, and Douay, which have " been transmitted to us in consequence of your desire. " You will, we hope, see, from these opinions, that " the sentiments of the most famous foreign bodies per- " fectly coincide with those which we had the honour " of stating to you last year, as our firm and sincere " tenets. " At the same time, we beg leave to call to your re- " membrance, that our opinions were fully stated to you *' previously to the obtaining those of the foreign uni- " versities ; and that they were consulted, not as the *' rule by which we form our ideas of the duties of good " subjects, but as a collateral proof to you, that our " sentiments are consonant to those of the most en- " lightened and famous bodies of Catholic divines on " the Continent, upon these subjects. " We have the honour to be," &c. &c. Q 22G APPENDIX. As soon as the other opinions were received, the committee transmitted them also to Mr. Pitt. A translation of all these answers is inserted in the Appendix to the first volume of Mr. Butler's " Histo- " rical Memoirs of the EngUsh, Irish, and Scottish " Catholics." N° II. The Oath taken by the English Roman Catholics, under the Provisions of the Act passed for their Relief, in the Year 1791. " I, A. B. do hereby declare. That I do profess the " Roman Catholic religion." "I, A. B. do sincerely promise and swear, That I will " be faithful, and bear true allegiance to his Majesty " Kino- Georp-e the Third, and him will defend, to the " utmost of my power, against all conspiracies and " attempts whatever, that shall be made against his per- " son, crown or dignity ; and I will do my utmost en- " deavour to disclose and make known to his Majesty, " his heirs and successors, all treasons and traitorous " conspiracies which may be formed against him or " them : And I do faithfully promise to maintain, sup- " port and defend, to the utmost of my power, the suc- " cession of the crown ; which succession, by an act, " intituled, ' An Act for the further Limitation of the " Crown, and better securing the Rights and Liberties of " the Subject,' is and stands limited to the Princess " Sophia, electress and duchess dowager of Hanover, " and the heirs of her body, being Protestants ; hereby APPENDIX. 227 " utterly renouncing and abjuring any obedience or al- " legiance unto any other person claiming or pretending " a right to the crown of these realms : And I do swear, " that I do reject and detest, as an unchristian and im- " pious position, that it is lawful to murder or destroy " any person or persons whatsoever, for or under pre- " tence of their being heretics or infidels ; and also, " that unchristian and impious principle, that faith is " not to be kept with heretics or infidels : And I further " declare, that it is not an article of my faith, and that " I do renounce, reject, and abjure the opinion, that " princes, excommunicated by the Pope and council, " or any authority of the see of Rome, or by any autho- " rity whatsoever, may be deposed or murdered by their " subjects, or any person whatsoever: And I do promise, " that I will not hold, maintain or abet any such opi- " nion, or any other opinions contrary to what is ex- " pressed in this declaration : And I do declare, that " I do not believe that the Pope of Rome, or any other " foreign prince, prelate, state or potentate hath, or " ought to have, any temporal or civil jurisdiction, " power, superiority, or pre-eminence, directly or indi- " rectly, within this realm : And I do solemnly, in the " presence of God, profess, testify and declare, that I do " make this declaration, and every part thereof, in the " plain and ordinary sense of the words of this oath, " without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reserva- " tion whatever ; and without any dispensation already " granted by the Pope, or any authority of the see of " Rome, or any person whatever; and without thinking " that I am, or can be, acquitted before God or man, " or absolved of this declaration, or any part thereof, " although the Pope, or any other person or authority " whatsoever, shall dispense with or annul the same, or " declare it was null and void." Q 2 228 APPENDIX. A similar oath was prescribed to the Irish Roman Catholics, by the act passed for their relief, in the 33d year of his late Majesty. No Roman Catholic objects to either oath. NoIII. Letter on the undivided Allegiance of Roman Catholics to their Sovereigns ; first inserted in the Old Times. AT the general annual meeting of the Roman Catholics at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, on the 25th of last month. Thanks were unanimously voted to THE GENTLEMEN OF THE ENGLISH BAR, WHO PETI- TIONED Parliament in favour of the late Catholic Relief Bill, — ^With a strong ex- pression OF the general surprise and CON- CERN OF THE MEMBERS OF THE ASSOCIATION, AT the charge OF DIVIDED ALLEGIANCE LATELY MADE IN Parliament against the whole Catholic BODY. 1 . This vote of thanks to the gentlemen of the English bar, who presented petitions to Parhament in favour of the late bill for Catholic emancipation, was certainly very proper. Their petition was highly honourable to the Cathohc cause, essentially served it, and affords us great reason to hope that, in all our future applications to Parhament, and in every other exertion which we shall make to deliver ourselves from the shackles which still enthral us, we shall always have efficient support from the gentlemen of the English bar. None know more than they the L.\rdships of our condition ; none have more kind or more honourable hearts ; to them. APPENDIX. 220 therefore, we particularly look up ; — on their active and effective support we confidently rely. Some of them are yet estranged from us : this we know, and lament ; but we trust the estrangement will not be of long dura- tion. In January 1783, a petition for relief was pre- sented to the Irish House of Commons by the Irish Catholics : eveiy lawyer in the house declared against it ; and on the 1 1 th day of the following February it was rejected, with marked indignity, by a majority of of 208 votes to 23. In March or April 1784, (little more than one year after this contemptuous rejection of the petition), a bill for the relief of the Roman Catholics was brought into the House : every lawyer then voted for it; and it was triumphantly carried through both Houses of Parliament, with scarcely a dissentient voice. Surely it is impossible that the progress of reason should at any time be slower at the English bar, than it was, on this memorable occasion, at the Irish. This sudden chang-e in the Irish House of Commons should never be forgotten. It shows, that a division against us, however numerous, should not appal us, or induce us to relax our efforts ; and that, even when appear- ances are most against us, we may be on the eve of success. 2, In respect to the charge of divided allegiance recently brought against us and our whole body, I beg permis- sion to say, — that when I first heard this charge, I was lost in grief and astonishment, particularly when I heard by whom it was made. I am sure that there is not in the united empire a sino-le Catholic, whatever his rank or condition in life, who was not equally grieved and astonished at this most unmerited nnd most unfounded accusation. Upon what ground is it brought? Is it upon our actions? We defy the mgenuity of man to mention any act of Q3 2a0 APPENDIX. ours that justifies such a charge. Is it upon our prin- ciples ? Then let the alleged principle be pointed out, and if it be of a nature which j ustifies the charge, we shall instantly and explicitly protest against it, and in- dubitably show that it is not, and never has been, a tenet of our creed, and that we have repeatedly rejected it, and every tenet of such a tendency. It is said that we acknowledge allegiance to the Pope. We disclaim any allegiance to him ; he is not our king, our sovereign, or our liege lord. King George IV. and the heirs of Princess Sophia of Hanover, bemg Pro- testants, (to whom the crown is limited by the Act of Set- tlement), — these, and these only, we acknowledge to be our kings, our queens, our royal sovereigns : to them, and to them only, we profess allegiance : and more pure, more perfect, or more undivided allegiance than that which we profess to them does not exist, and cannot be imagined. The Pope has not the shghtest right to allegiance, or to a particle of it from us. This is the universal belief of all Catholics, from the Duke of Norfolk to the footman who waits behind the Duke of Norfolk's chair. To this unreserved, absolute, and undivided alle- giance, we have most explicitly sworn in the oaths prescribed by the statutes of the i8th, 31st, and 33d of his late majesty. This allegiance, the opinions of the foreign universities, taken by the desire of Mr. Pitt, declare to be due from all subjects to their sovereigns by the universal doctrine of the Catholic church : these opinions also explicitly state, that no allegiance is due to the Pope from any subjects but his own. It is said, that the spiritual obedience which we owe to the Pope conflicts with our allegiance, and works a division in it. Mark how I dispose of this objection in a breath ! Divided allegiance is disloyalty — disloyalty is sin; we owe no obedience whatever to the Pope APPENDIX. 231 when he commands us to sin. Let me suppose a case which we think impossible ? that the Pope should pro- pose to us something derogatory of true and undivided allegiance, we should turn from him with disgust. We should say to him, " Arroint ! Thy words are not the " words of God ; they are the words of the Evil One !" — We should answer as our ancestors did to Pope Boniface VIII. when he ordered King Edward I. not to make war on the king of Scotland — " We do not, we " will not, we cannot, we ought not to permit our lord «' the king, to do any of the things aforesaid, even if he " were ever so desirous to do them."* 3. The Popes themselves have unequivocally and re- peatedly disclaimed any right to the allegiance of any subjects hut their own. In 1682, the Gallican church subscribed four articles. By the first they declare, — " That the power of the Pope does not extend to things " civil or temporal ; that in temporals, kings and princes " are not subject to the ecclesiastical power ; that they " cannot, directly or indirectly, be deposed by the " power of the keys, or their subjects discharged by " them from the obedience which they owe to their " sovereigns, or from their oaths of allegiance." This is the first article of the declaration ; the three other articles relate to certain points of ecclesiastical dis- cipline. All the four were signed by all the prelates of France — by all its secular, by all its regular clergy. Out of France, some objections were made to the three LAST articles — none whatever to the FiRST.f Can a more * " Resistance of the Sovereigns and Legislature of England to " the attempts of the Popes to establish in it their Temporal Power." — Historical Memoirs of English, Irish, and Scottish Catholics, Ch. VII. s. 3, p. 36. 3d Edition. t This circumstance I have repeatedly noticed in my " Historical Memoirs," — my " Book of the Roman Catholic Church," and the present publication : I again beg the Reader's attentionto it. Q 4 2i)2 APPENDIX. complete disclaimer to the Pope's right to temporal power, or of his right to the allegiance of subjects, or to any portion of it, be imagined ? Now, up to the moment of the French revolution, every prelate of France signed this declaration, — yet the Pope instituted every such prelate to his see ; every secular, every re- gular priest signed it, — yet the Pope admitted every such secular, every such regular priest into his commu- nion. Nay, more;* — in the negotiations in 1811, be- tween Pope Pius VII. and Napoleon, the latter vehe- mently insisted on the Pope's sanctioning the Galilean declaration of 1 682 ; the Pope refused to sign the three last articles ; but the first — that which confines the power of the Pope to spiritual concerns — that which proclaims the civil independence of sovereigns — that which propounds the absolute and irreversible right of sovereigns to the allegiance of their subjects, and denies it to the Pope — this article, this very article, the Pope assented to without any hesitation. He declared, that " if the dispute turned on that article only, he would " subscribe it without difficulty." What, then, becomes of the charge of divided allegiance ? We reject it ; the Pope disclaims it ; the whole Catholic world laughs at it ; then let us hear no more of it. 4. Permit me now to avow a suspicion, that if those who make this charge would consult their own minds, they would Jind that they themselves scarcely believe it. There are persons who profess to discern some threatening clouds in the north of the political horizon, and to think that they advance angrily, steadily, and not very slowly, towards England. Supposing the prognostics * Official Letters of the Archbishop of Tows, inserted by him in his publication, entitled, " Fragmens relatif a I'Histoire Ecclesiastigue des " premieres Annies du xix Siecle." APPENDIX. 233 of" these gentlemen to be realized — that all these clouds should lour over our coasts, and that the Pope (a most ridiculous supposition) should appear in the midst of them, and direct the storm ! would any one gravely say, that, in the impending conflict, the Catholics should be distrusted ? If the Lord Chancellor should be then asked, whether the allegiance of the Catholic peers, beyond the bar of the House, should be relied on as much as the allegiance of the Protestant peers within it, — would he doubt? — would he not immediately answer in the affirmative ? — If the Speaker of the House of Commons were asked, whether the allegiance of the Catholics in those ranks from which members of the House are usually chosen, should, on such an occasion, be as much depended on as the allegiance of the actual members of his House, — would not he, too, answer in the affirmative ? If similar questions were proposed to the grand juries, or to the magistrates of the quarter sessions, would they not return the same affirmative answer ? What, then, becomes of the charge ? 5. I call upon my countrymen to think of the con- duct of the Catholics when the Spanish Armada threat- ened our coast. Every cruelty, every indignity which the most atrocious policy could invent, the Catholics had suffered from queen Elizabeth and her ministers. The Catholics knew that Pope Pius V. had excommu- nicated the queen — had deposed her — had absolved them from their allegiance to her, and implicated them in her excommunication, if they continued true to her ; that Pope Sixtus, the reigning Pope, had renewed the excommunication — had called on every Catholic prince to execute the sentence ; and that Philip II. by far the most powerful monarch of the time, had undertaken it — had lined the shores of the Continent with troops ready, at a moment's notice, for the invasion of England, and 234 APPENDIX. had covered the sea with an armament which was pro- claimed to be invincible. In this awful moment, when England stood in need of all her strength, and the slightest diversion of any part of it might have proved fatal to her, the worth of a Catholic's loyalty was fully shown. " Some," says Hume, " equipped ships at " their own charge, and gave the command of them to " Protestants ; others were active in animating their " tenants, their vassals, and their neighbours, in de- " fence of their country." " Some," says the writer of an intercepted letter, printed in the second volume of the Harleian Miscellany, " by their letters to the coun- " cil, signed by their own hand, offered that they would " make adventures of their own lives in defence of the " queen, whom they named their undoubted sovereign, " lady and queen, against all foreign foes, though they " were sent from the Pope, or at his commandment ; " yea, some did offer that they would present their " bodies in the foremost ranks." Lord Montague, a zealous Catholic, and the only temporal peer who ven- tured to oppose the act for the queen's supremacy, in the first year of her reign, brought a band of horsemen to Tilbury, commanded by himself, his son, and his grandson, thus perilling his whole house in the expected conflict. The annals of the world do not present a more glorious or a more affecting spectacle than the zeal, the undivided allegiance, shown on this memorable occasion by the poor and persecuted, but loyal, but honourable Catholics ! Nor should it be forgotten that, in this account of their loyalty, all historians are agreed. Then, is it not shameful to charge the Catholic de- scendants of these admirable Catholics with divided allegiance? — thus to spurt disloyalty in their faces? 6. It is remarkable that the kingdom abounds in double allegiance, and no notice is taken of it. At this present APPENDIX. 235 time, the presumptive heir of the Crown owes, as Duke of York, allegiance to King George IV. of England, and also owes, as bishop of Osnaburgh, allegiance to King George II. of Hanover. Has there ever been a Catholic mean enough to talk of this double allegiance of his Royal Highness ? Such meanness never entered into our minds. No! The Catholic religion is the religion OF gentlemen, and of those who think like gentlemen. All they ask is, that their ad- versaries SHOULD THINK AND ACT AS GENTLEMEN IN THEIR REGARD. The duke of Richmond is duke d'Aubigni, and possesses fiefs in France, The duke of Marlborough is a prince of Germany, and possesses a German principality. The duke of Wellington is a grandee of the first class in Spain, and holds large ter- ritorial possessions in Valentia. All these illustrious persons owe allegiance to the sovereigns within whose territories their possessions are situate; all, too, owe allegiance to his Britannic Majesty. This double alle- giance has not been, and ought not to be, reproached to them. But while the questionably double allegiances of all these distinguished personages has ever been passed over in silence, and perhaps never thought of, double allegiance has been invented for Catholics ; and they have been criminated for it, and for all its possible or rather ideal consequences. Is this fair? Is it just? Is it honourable ? No ! Let us, then, hear no more of this charge. How can it enter into the mind of an honourable man to make it ? 7. The belief of Alexander the Great in virtue, when he received the cup from his physician, who was accused of a wish to poison him, has been deservedly praised. Will Protestants, in respect to their Catholic brethren, 236 APPENDIX. never aspire to the same belief in virtue? Will they always remain blind to the loyalty of the Catholics ? — to their immense services in their fleets and armies? — Will they never recollect, that if their ungenerous ac- cusations should drive the Catholics from these, fright- ful indeed would be their solitude? Will the Pro- testants always forget, that, when all her Protestant colonies rebelled against England, Catholic Canada alone was true to her allegiance ? Will they — ^but the subject is endless. If there be one thing more certain than another, it is that which we now confidently assert : That the loyalty of the Catholics of the United Empire is pure, perfect and undi- vided; that it will bear any trial; that, in every trial, it will be found eminently pure; and that it is most ungenerous and most unwise to distrust it. Charles Butler. N° IV. Letter on the Coronation Oath, Jirst inserted in the Old Times, FEW Parliamentary documents possess, in any point of view, so much importance as the speech delivered on the 25th of last month, in the House of Lords, by his Royal Highness the Duke of York, on presenting the petition of the Dean and Canons of Windsor against granting any further relief to his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects. Lamenting, as they must do, that his Royal Highness is so adverse to their petitions, still the Roman Catholics are grateful for his open avowal of his opinions, and of the reasons upon which they are grounded. It allows APPENDIX. 237 them free liberty to discuss them with the respect due to his exalted rank. AvaiUng himself of this circumstance, an humble in- dividual of their number trusts that he may, without offence or impropriety, submit to his Royal Highness some observations upon the following passage in his speech. His Royal Highness states in it, that he " wished to " ask whether their lordships had considered the situa- " tion in which they might place the King, or whether " they recollected the oath which his Majesty had taken " at the altar, to his people, upon his coronation? He " begged to read the words of the oath. * I will, to the " utmost of my power, maintain the law of God, the true " profession of the Gospel, and the Protestant re- " formed religion, established by law; and I will pre- *' serve unto the bishops and clergy of this realm, and " to the churches committed to their charge, all such ** rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain " to them, or any of them.' Their lordships, continued " his Royal Highness, must remember that ours is " a Protestant King, who knows no mental reservation, " and whose situation is different from that of any other " person in this country ; that his Royal Highness, and ** every other individual in this country, could be re- " leased from his oath by the authority of Parliament ; " but the King could not. The oath, as he had always " understood, is a solemn obligation, entered into by " the person who took it, from which no act of his own " could release him ; but the King was the third part of " the State, without whose voluntary consent no act of •' the Legislature could be valid, and he could not relieve " himself from the obligation of an oath." With the utmost deference and respect to his Royal Highness, it is suggested to his consideration, that the '238 APPENDIX. expressions copied from his speech give rise to the following observations : — I. Is it not the bounden duty of the Sovereign of these realms to give his royal assent to every bill pre- sented to him by the two Houses of Parliament, which he himself believes to be conducive to the welfare of the empire ? In an ancient statute, (25 of Edw. III. stat. 6), this is unequivocally expressed. It is there said, that " the right " of the crown of England and the law of the realm, is " such, that upon the mischiefs and damages which hap- " pen to this realm, the King ought and is bound by his " oath, with the concord of the people in Parliament as- " sembled, to make remedy and law." Does it not follow, that if the two Houses of Parliament should present a bill to the Monarch, fort he repeal of the laws remaining in force against the Koman Catholics, and the Sovereign should be of opinion that not to repeal those laws would bring mischief and damage to the realm, he would be constitutionally bound, in the words of the act, to make the remedy, by assenting to the bill of repeal ? Would not any oath taken by the Monarch not to assent to such a bill be a nullity ? Must not every such oath be necessarily understood to be accompanied by an implied condition, that nothing contained in it should oblige him to act against the principles of the constitution, or the rights or welfare of his subjects, or to forbear from assenting to any bill which enacted any measure for their good. II. No prospective act of the Legislature can dis- charge the King from the paramount duty thus imposed upon him, of giving his assent to a bill presented to him by the two Houses of Parliament, which he himself approves of, and deems salutary. In this the highest authorities in the law agree. APPENDIX. 230 We beg leave to call the attention of his Royal High- ness to what is said by Sir William Blackstone of the omnipotence of Parliament ; of its uncontrollable power in " making, restraining, abrogating, and repealing laws *' concerning matters of all possible denomination, " ecclesiastical or temporal." He avers most explicitly, that " Parliament can alter the established religion of " the land." This is the very strongest act of legislation that can be supposed. His Royal Highness must be sensible, that a repeal of the few laws yet remaining in force against the Roman Catholics is immeasurably distant from it. Lord Coke lays it down as a constitutional maxim, and a fundamental principle of law, that " acts against " the power of Parliament bind not." In the 2 1st of Richard II. (Rot. Pari. 50. 52.), an oath was taken by the lords spiritual and temporal, and also by the proctors of the clergy, and the knights in Par- liament, that " they would not reverse, break, irritate, " annul, or repeal any of the judgments, establishments, •* statutes, or ordinances made, rendered, or given in " that Parliament." " But our Lord the King," continues the record, " having advised and deliberated with the " prelacy and clergy of this realm, well understood that " he could not bind his successors. Kings of England, " by their oath or any other means, against the liberty " of the crown." Thus stood the ancient Constitution of England, At the Revolution, the same principle was most directly recognized. It is well known to his Royal Highness, that doubts were, at that time, suggested upon the lan- guage of the then existing coronation oath ; that the Convention Parliament took into consideration the esta- blishment of an oath which should remove those doubts; that a committee was appointed for this purpose ; that 1^40 APPENDIX. the committee prepared the form of a new oath ; that their report upon it was received by the House ; that the bill was framed, and the oath inserted in it ; that the King was made to swear by it, that " he would govern " the people of the kingdom of England, and all the " dominions thereunto belonging, according to the " statutes in Parliament agreed on, and the laws and " customs of the same ; " and that the coronation oath has continued in this form till the present time. While this act was in the House, King William's council had in contemplatian the act commonly called " The Tolera- " tion Act," for the relief of the Protestant Dissenters, which was passed immediately afterwards. A doubt was suggested, whether the King would not be prevented, by the proposed oath, from giving his royal assent to the Toleration Act. The point was debated in the com- mittee ; a proviso was framed to remove the doubt, the proviso was debated, and every speaker declared it un- necessary and unconstitutional. " It is," said Sir Robert Sawyer, " the first proviso of the nature that ever was " in any bill; it seems to strike at the legislative " power." — " T am against the proviso," said Mr. Ford : " these words, * established by law,' hinder not the " King in passing any bill, in the case of Dissenters." — " It is granted by all," said Sir Joseph Tredenham, " that by ' law' is meant what is in the Legislature's " power." The consequence was, that the proviso was unanimously rejected. Might it not be respectfully suggested to his Royal Highness, that what passed in the House of Commons on that occasion, is a complete Parliamentary recognition of all the doctrine which it is necessary for us now to contend for ? III. But let us consider the language of the coronation oath. This, it might be humbly suggested to his Royal APPENDIX. 241 Highness, forms no objection to the Sovereign's giving his royal assent to any bill like that which is now solicited for the relief of his Roman Catholics subjects. By the first clause of the coronation oath, his Majesty swears " to govern the people according to the statutes " in Parliament agreed on, and the laws and customs " of the realm." This was evidently meant to denote, not only the statutes, laws, and customs then existing, but those also which should afterwards become part of the national law, in consequence of any subsequent legislation of Parliament. In the next clause, his Majesty's swears " to main- " tain the Protestant reformed religion established by " law," and to preserve to the bishops and clergy of this realm, and to the churches committed to their care, all such rights and privileges as by law did or should belong or appertain to them or any of them. This could only mean the Protestant reformed religion, the churches, the rights, and the privileges, which from time to time, should, under the actual or any future legislation of Parliament, form the church establishment of the realm. It might also be submitted to his Royal Highness, that even if the coronation oath should be thought to preclude the Monarch from such a concurrence, it would be no objection to his repealing the laws now solicited to be repealed, as the repeal of these laws will not in- terfere with the legal estabhshment of the church, with its hierarchy, with any of its churches, or with any of their temporal or spiritual pre-eminences, rights or privileges. IV. Hitherto our observations have been confined to the Coronation oath. The attention of his Royal High- ness miffht now be called to a circumstance which is inseparately attached to every oath. R 242 APPENDIX. Is it not universally allowed, that in every case where one person takes an oath to another, the person to whom, or in whose favour the oath has been taken, may, at his pleasure, release, either wholly or partially, the person taking the oath from all the obligations to which he bound himself by it? *• The Coronation oath it made to the people, as repre- " sented by Parliament." May I not therefore ask, whether, upon the supposition that the Coronation oath really extends to the present case — (which, however, I must respectfully repeat that it does not)— the people represented by the Parliament, being the persons and the only persons entitled to the benefit of the oath, have not full power and authority to release the Monarch who took the oath, and all his successors, from its obligation ? V. The conduct of his Majesty's august predecessors incontrovertibly shows that they, the Parliament, and the nation, have uniformly construed the Coronation oath in the sense which I have presumed to suggest. 1. Each of the three founders of the Protestant Church of England, Henry VIII. Edward VI. and Elizabeth, swore, at their coronations, to support the Catholic religion as it was then established. Each pro- scribed that religion, and established another. Can any thino- be alleaed in defence of those alterations of the national religion by the monarchs who had thus sworn to preserve it, except that their Parliament consented to the change, and that their consent freed the monarchs from the obligations of their Coronation oaths ? If this defence was available in those eases, why is it not equally available in the present? 2. I have mentioned, that King William III. in the 1st year of his reign, took the Coronation oath in the present form, and swore by it to defend the Protestant APPENDIX. 243 religion ; but almost immediately afterwards he assented to a bill, which altered the oath of supremacy from a positive affirmation of the Crown's ecclesiastical supre- macy in this realm, to a negative assertion, that this supremacy was not possessed by any foreign power. This substitution of one oath of supremacy for another, admitted into power, place, and all other civil rights of subjects, a numerous description of persons who, till that time, had been excluded from them. King Wil- liam's assent to this bill must therefore be considered to be a breach of his Coronation oath, unless our interpre- tation of it be admitted. 3. At a subsequent time the same monarch took an oath to maintain the church of Scotland, which was at that time Episcopalian ; but he soon afterwards made a new settlement of the Scottish church in the Presby- terian form. This was a total alteration of the constitu- tion of the church of Scotland, and only justifiable, in respect to the Coronation oath, by our interpretation of it. 4. When, in the reign of Queen Anne, Scotland was united to England, an oath was formed by the Parlia- ment of Scotland, by which every King was required at his acceseion, to take an oath to preserve the Protestant relio-ion and Presbyterian church government in Scot- land. This Act was confirmed by the Act of Union. Notwithstanding these acts — notwithstanding his own Coronation oath, his late Majesty gave his sanction-to the acts of the 18th, the 31st, the 33d, and the 57th years of his reign, for the relief of his Enghsh, Irish, and Scottish Cathohc subjects. If the pains, penalties, and disabilities, repealed by these statutes were num- bered, it would be found that they amounted to more than three-fourths of the whole penal code. Grateful beyond expression as the Roman Catholics R 2 244 APPENDIX. truly are, for the large extent of relief which these legis- lative acts of wise policy and beneficence have succes- sively extended to them, they yet presume to inquire what objection can lie, from the Coronation oath, to the repeal of the small remaining number of the penal acts, that did not apply, in some manner at least, to each of these salutary acts of his late Majesty? It is said that these acts did no more than confer on the Roman Catholics the blessings of toleration ; but that the relief now solicited would confer on them political power. Taking for granted, but not allowing, this to be the fact, did not the Act of Toleration admit the Protes- tant Dissenters of England — did not the Act for the settlement of the Protestant religion in Scotland admit the Scottish Presbyterians to a full participation of political power with his Majesty's other Protestant sub- jects? — Never did the kingdom abound with abler lawyers — never did the crown possess more able or more constitutional advisers — never was an opposition to the crown more active or more jealous than at the periods in which these laws were passed. Yet, was a murmur of disapprobation of them heard? Was the Coronation oath so much as mentioned ? VI. The claim of Ireland to the relief solicited by the present bill is particularly strong. 1 . When Mr. Pitt proposed the Articles of Union to the House of Commons, he thus expressed himself : — " No man can say that, in the present state of things, and while Ireland continues a separate kingdom, full concessions can be made to the Catholics without en- dangering the state, and shaking the constitution to the centre." Is not this saying that, after the Union should have taken place, full concessions might be made to Ireland without danger? APPENDIX. 245 2. The member who proposed the Union expressed himself in similar terms. 3. Such, also, is the language of the Act of Union. It enacted, " that every of the Lords and Commons of " the Parliament of the United Kingdom, in the first " and every succeeding Parliament, should, until the " Parliament of the United Kingdom should othenvise " provide, take the oaths then provided to be taken," Is not this an explicit intimation that a change of oaths, after the Union, in favour of the Catholics, xoas then con- templated? Was not a sure and certain hope of it held out to them by these words ? Is it not incontrovertible proof, that all the statesmen who favoured the Union were convinced that Catholic emancipation might be granted, without affecting the Coronation oath ? 4. In the debate in the House of Commons on the petition of the Irish Catholics, on Wednesday, the 25th of May 1808, Mr. Elhot thus expressed himself: — ■ " I do not rise for the purpose of entering into any " discussion on the general topic, but in consequence " of what has fallen from my noble friend opposite " (Lord Castlereagh), merely to advert to the circum- " stances of the Union, of which I may be supposed to " have some official knowledge, and of the expectations " held out to the Cathohcs, in order to conciliate their " acquiescence in that measure. My noble friend has " said, that no pledge was given to the Catholics that " their full emancipation was to be the immediate con- " sequence of this measure, in consideration of their " support. It is true, indeed, that no bond was given " to the Catholics on that point ; but there were cer- " tainly expectations, and something like promises, held " out to them, which, in my mind, ought to be more " binding than a bond. So strongly was that idea felt " by my noble friend, and by my right honourable friend 246 APPENDIX. " (Mr. Canning), and by a right honourable gentleman " now no more (Mr. Pitt), that they quitted office " because they could not carry the measure ; and when, " upon Mr. Pitt's return to office, he opposed the going " into a committee, it was not from any objection to '* the measure, but to the time." Here, but with all the deference due to his Majesty's advisers, who are supposed to be hostile to the present " bill, is it not lawful for me to ask, " whether, when " so much is said of the Coronation oath, some regard " should not be had to the expectations held out to the " Roman Catholics at the time of the Union ; and by " which, most confessedly, their co-operation in that '* measure was obtained ? " VII. Strange, however, as after so much has been said on the subject it must necessarily appear, all this discussion, so Jar as Ireland is concerned in it, is absolutely superfluous — a mere waste of words. The Coronation oath was fixed in Ireland by the 1st of William and Mary. In Ireland at that time, Roman Catholics held their seats and voted in the House of Lords ; Roman Catholic commoners were eligible to the House of Commons, and all civil and military offices were open to them. They were deprived of these rights by the acts of the 3d and 4th of William and Mary, and the 1st and 2d of queen Anne. It is most clear, that the Coronation oath can only refer to the system of law which was in force when the act that prescribed it was passed. Now, all the Irish laws meant to be repealed by the present bill are subsequent to that act. To those laws, therefore, or to any similar law, the Coronation oath cannot, with a semblance of propriety, be re- ferred. VIII. Here, at length, I finish my legal disquisition on this important subject. Permit me to add, that APPENDIX. 247 whatever may be the opinion of his Royal Highness upon it, his wishes must, I am confident, be favourable to the cause of the Roman Catholics ? How many of them have been his companions inarms? What multitudes of them have fought and bled in the service of their king and country ? His Royal Highness must know and feel, that his Majesty has no subjects more attached to his sacred person and government ; and that, if the hour of danger should arrive (and the horizon is not without clouds that threaten it), there are none whose loyalty would be of greater value, or more to be depended on, than those sought to be relieved by the present bill. With the following historical fact, and one observation upon it, I shall close this discussion. The chancellor Michel de I'Hospital was the greatest magistrate whom the kingdom of France has produced. " By his conduct," says the President Henault, " the " conduct of every succeeding magistrate has been " always tried." By his counsels and exertions peace was made between the Catholics and Calvinists, and the latter were admitted to the free exercise of their religious worship, and the full enjoyment of their civil rights. Some selfish leaders of the Calvinists could not conceal the vexation which this edict gave them. " This single stroke of a pen," they said, " is the ruin " of more of our churches, than armies would have " destroyed in ten years." The English having taken the town of Havre, the king and queen mother pro- ceeded in person to the siege, and the Chancellor ac- companied them. They were received with acclama- tions of joy. On one occasion, the chancellor remarked to them the ardour and bravery of the troops in mount- ing a branch. " Which of them," he exclaimed to the monarch, " are Catholics — which are Protestants? " which are your bravest soldiers, your best subjects ? ^48 APPENDIX. " All are equally brave and good. This is the effect of " the edict, against which you are cautioned. See how " it re-unites the royal family, restores to us our " brothers, our relations, our friends, and leads us out *' hand in hand against our enemy, and makes him feel " how respectable we are for our virtue and power when *' united among ourselves !" Might not some friend of the Roman Catholics address his Royal Highness in these very terms ? " Favour then," might he not re- spectfully say to his Royal Highness, " the humble " prayer of the Roman Catholics ! Let not the penal " code, which yet remains in force against them, con- " tinue to torment such meritorious subjects. Is not " our excellent constitution a system of comprehension " and humanity ? Does it not prescribe, that the " genius, the talents, the valour, the industry, and the " labour of all his Majesty's subjects, should have equal " openings to exertions, equal shares of rewards ? This " and nothing but this, your Roman Catholic subjects " petition for. This, and nothing but this, is granted " them by the present bill." Charles Butler. FINIS. Luke Hansard & Sons, near Lincola's-Iiin Fields, London. COLUMBIA 'JNIVERSITY 0035518944 ISS^O^NO?