errorum colluviem inde prorumpentem satis cumulate compensari ex libro aliquo, qui in hac tanta pravilatum tempestate ad Religionem ac veritatem propugnandum edatur.-Nefas profecto est, omnique jure improbatum, patrari data opera malum certum ac majus, quia spes sit, inde boni aliquid habitum iri. Numquid venena libere spargi, ac publice vendi, comportarique, imo et obbibi debere, sanus quis dixerit, quod remedii quidpiam habeatur, quo qui utuntur, eripi eos ex interitu identidem contingal?

Verum longe alia fuit Ecclesiæ disciplina in exscindenda malorum librorum peste vel ab Apostolorum ætate, quos legimus grandem librorum vim publice combussisse.* p. 367.

This Scriptural authority is followed up by references to the decrees of the Fifth Lateran Council and the encyclical letters of former Popes of blessed memory, all condemning the toleration of works containing impure doctrine. The Tridentine

Fathers, it is remarked, made this a matter of their chief solicitude, applying as a remedy to this so great evil, that most salutary decree, de Indice librorum quibus impura doctrina contineretur conficiendo. We exclaim against the Mohammedan barbarians who made war against libraries and literature; but the Lateran and Tridentine doctors are their rivals in this unintelligent and intolerant zeal.

Waxing warmer as he proceeds, Pope Gregory, in insisting upon the duty of passive obedience to all emperors and kings,

* Hither tends that worst and never sufficiently to be execrated and detested liberty of the press, for the diffusion of all manner of writings, which some so loudly contend for, and so actively promote. We shudder, Venerable Brethren, at the sight of the monstrous doctrines, or rather portentous errors, which crowd upon Us in the shape of numberless volumes and pamphlets, small in size, but big with evils, which stalk forth in every direction, breathing a malediction which we deplore over the face of the earth. Yet are there not wanting, alas! those who carry their effrontery so far, as to persist in maintaining that this amalgamation of errors is sufficiently resisted, if, in this inundation of bad books, a volume now and then issue from the press in favour of religion and of truth. But is it not a crime then, never sufficiently to be reprobated, to commit deliberate and greater evil, merely with the hope of seeing some good arise out of it? Or is that man in his senses, who entrusts poison to every hand, exposes it at every mart, suffers it to be carried about on all occasions, aye, and to become a necessary ingredient of every cup, because an antidote may be afterwards procured which chance may render effective?

Far other hath been the discipline of the Church, in extirpating this pest of bad books, even as far back as the times of the Apostles, who, we read, committed a great number of books publicly to the flames.'

thus inveighs against those who, with detestable insolence, contend for popular liberty.

‹ Huc sane scelestissima deliramenta, consiliaque conspirarunt Waldensium, Beguardorum, Wiclefistarum, aliorumque hujusmodi filiorum Belial, qui humani generis sordes, ac dedecora fuere, merito idcirco ab Apostolica hac Sede toties anathemate confixi. Nec alia profecto ex causa omnes vires intendunt veteratores isti, nisi ut cum Luthero ovantes gratulari sibi possint, liberos se esse ab omnibus: quod ut facilius celeriusque assequantur, flagitiosiora quælibet audacissime aggrediuntur. Nequè latiora et Religioni, et Principatui ominari possemus ex eorum votis, qui Ecclesiam a Regno separari, mutuamque Imperii cum Sacerdotio concordiam abrumpi discupiunt. Constat quippe, pertimesci ab impudentissimæ libertatis amatoribus concordiam illam, quæ semper rei et sacræ et civili fausta extitit ac salutaris.

At ad ceteras acerbissimas causas, quibus soliciti sumus, et in communi discrimine dolore quodam præcipuo angimur, accessere consociationes quædam, statique cœtus, quibus, quasi agmine facto cum cujuscumque etiam falsæ religionis ac cultus sectatoribus, simulata quidem in religionem pietate, vere tamen novitatis, seditionumque ubique promovendarum cupidine, libertas omnis generis prædicatur, perturbationes in sacram et civilem rem exscitantur, sanctior quælibet auctoritas discerpitur.** p. 370.

*These illustrious examples of unshaken subjection to Rulers, necessarily flowing from the ever holy precepts of the Christian Religion, loudly condemn the insolence and impiety of those who, maddening in the free unbridled passion of untamed liberty, leave no stone unturned to break down and destroy the constitution of states, and, under the appearance of liberty, to bring slavery on the people. This was the object of the impious ravings and schemes of the Waldenses, of the Beguardins, of the Wickliffites, and of the other children of Belial, the refuse of human nature and its stain, who were so often and so justly anathematized by the Apostolic See. Nor had they any other object than to triumph with Luther in the boast," that they were independent of every one;" and to attain this the more easily and readily, they fearlessly waded through every crime.

Nor can we augur more consoling consequences to religion and to governments, from the zeal of some to separate the Church from the State, and to burst the bond which unites the priesthood to the Empire. For it is clear, that this union is dreaded by the profane lovers of liberty, only because it has never failed to confer prosperity on both.

But in addition to the other bitter causes of Our solicitude, and of that weight of sorrow which oppresses Us in the midst of so much confusion, come certain associations, and political assemblies, in which, as if a league were struck with the followers of every false religion and form of worship, under a pretended zeal for piety, but in reality urged by the desire of change, and of promoting sedition, liberty of every kind is maintained, revolutions in the state and in religion are fomented, and the sanctity of all authority is torn in pieces.'

These impotent denunciations against the Protestant churches are very consistently followed up with a deliberate and solemn profession of idolatrous faith in the Virgin, the favourite object of worship in the Church of Anti-Christ, which, it has been remarked, might with more propriety be termed the Marian Church than the Christian.

Sed ut omnia hæc prospere ac feliciter eveniant, levemus oculos manusque ad Sanctissimam Virginem MARIAM, quæ sola universas hæreses interemit, Nostraque maxima fiducia, imo tota ratio est spei nos

træ.

It is true, Jesus Christ has the compliment paid him, in the close of the paragraph, of being Auctor et Consummator Fidei; but neither the honour due to him as Mediator, nor the trust which he claims as the Son of God, is ascribed to Our Lord by this Pontifical head of Apostate Christendom; both are given to another. The Mediators invoked are, Peter, Prince of the 'Apostles, and his co-apostle Paul.' The Hope and Trust of Pope Gregory is the Virgin Mary.

We must surely consider such a document as an authentic republication of the Roman Catholic faith; and we agree with Mr. Mendham, that it exhibits that faith as neither changed nor improved. If, in any country, Roman Catholics are no longer chargeable with holding the superstitious and abominable tenets taught and prescribed by the Church to which they professedly adhere, we must seek an explanation in other circumstances than any change in Popery itself. It has always been one distinctive feature of superstition, that it allows of an esoteric and a vulgar creed, and presents to those who soar above the implicit credulity of the priest-led multitude, the philosophy of its fables, which gratifies the pride of reason without making any demand upon the faith. Hence, a decent scepticism has always afforded shelter from the grossness of idolatry to men of letters and science, from the days of Socrates down to the time of Julian, and not less so within the pale of nominal Christianity. The esoteric faith of the Romish Church is a refined or concealed deism, which has at all times extensively prevailed among the higher orders of its hierophants. Hence, the liberality of enlightened Romanists is, too often, only the liberalism of unbelief; differing as widely from Christian charity, as does credulity from faith. The Romish Church, in teaching doctrines not merely without evidence, but at variance with it, shuts up its votaries to the alternative of an

* But that all may have a successful and happy issue, let us raise our eyes to the most Blessed Virgin Mary, who alone destroys heresies, who is our greatest hope, yea, the entire ground of our hope.'

implicit reliance upon her own authority, or a pathless scepticism.

Faith, superstitious belief, and disbelief, are the only three conditions in which the minds of men can, so to speak, subsist. Where true faith or the spiritual perception of revealed truth has not been produced, either the conscience must find repose in a false religion, or must harden itself in irreligion,-in some modification of atheism. All the various systems of belief resolve themselves into one of these;-true religion, based upon faith and a sense of accountableness to God; superstition, based upon fear and accountableness to the priest; and scepticism, accompanied with the notion of irresponsibility. The Romish superstition, in its vulgar form, meets the case of the ignorant, the unintelligent, and those in whom the passions and animal nature preponderate over the reasoning powers. To such persons, it offers a welcome relief from cheerless doubt, a religion soothing to the imagination, and operating as a narcotic upon the conscience. Unregenerate man finds it an easier and pleasanter thing to be saved by a priest, than to depend upon an Invisible Saviour. Priestcraft, therefore, is the effect, rather than the cause of the corruption of true religion; for human nature is the author of its own delusions. Nothing can possibly prevent the springing up or the spread of false religion, where the light of Scriptural truth has not quickened the spiritual principle; and we see in that deposite of the dark ages, Popery, the ultimate form into which the natural superstition of the human mind has a constant tendency to settle. Popery was, in fact, the relapse of society into a masked paganism, which, in all ages and all countries, is the natural religion of mankind, varying only in costume and nomenclature. It borrowed from the ancient idolatry, its altars, its mass, its hagiology, its virgin goddess, its miracles, its purgatory, and its priesthood. Rome is nearly as Pagan now as in the days of Augustus. The religion of Italy, Sicily, Spain, Portugal, and Austria, is genuine Popery; and that of Turkey and Persia is not less Christian.

But, while we fully admit that Popery is what it ever was, it is impossible to deny that there has sprung up, within the pale of the Romish Church, especially in Protestant countries, a religion calling itself the Catholic, and acknowledging the authority of the symbols of the Romish Church, but differing widely indeed from Popery. Not to go back to the times before the Reformation, when a remnant, who had not bowed the knee to Baal, were found witnessing for God in the darkest times, amid the surrounding apostasy, we may refer to the Jansenists of France as affording a striking instance of the phenomenon in question. In our own country, the English Catholic has always differed very characteristically from the genuine Roman Catholic. The

very soil and climate would seem to have exerted a modifying influence upon the exotic superstition of the South. The pantomime and spectacle of Popery, and its Virgin worship, are far better adapted to the sensual and voluptuous nations of the Mediterranean, than to the phlegmatic and robuster inhabitants of Northern Europe; just as the worship of Krishna and Kali appears unsuited to the temperament of the Tatar tribes north of Imaus. But besides this, the free circulation of knowledge, the character of our political institutions, and the reflex operation of Protestantism, have powerfully contributed to render English Romanism a very different thing from Cisalpine Popery.

With some controvertists, the whole difference is resolved into deception. Not only is every Roman Catholic held responsible for all the errors and abominations of his Church, but his disavowing any of them is represented as either a dishonest pretence, or the result of delusion and ignorance. In acknowledging the infallible authority of the Church, he stands pledged and bound, it may be said, to subscribe to all the doctrines which are clearly taught in its authorized documents. And the attempt to conceal or explain away the points offensive to Protestants, is but a Jesuitical artifice, worthy of a Church which teaches that no faith is to be kept with heretics. Or, if there are Roman Catholics who are deceived by the specious glosses under which the errors of Popery are veiled, they are the dupes of sacerdotal fraud.

Now we must confess that we cannot satisfy ourselves with this summary explanation. In the first place, it is irreconcileable with facts. The Jansenists were neither knaves nor dupes, and yet they openly contended against the doctrines of Popery, while clinging to the false Church. And many of the early reformers were slow in disclaiming allegiance to that authority with which they found themselves brought into collision. It is not less true than strange, that men will give up every doctrine of their Church, before they will renounce the authority that prescribes those doctrines, or forsake the communion in which they have been accustomed to worship. How reluctant were the Nonconformists to leave the bosom of the Church of England, from which they were ejected! And how large a proportion of those who regard themselves as true Church of England men, disavow those very doctrines which constituted the original grounds of Nonconformity! Nay, what Churchman of the present day really holds and observes all that his Church teaches and prescribes, not merely in the Thirty-nine Articles and the Rubric, but in the constitutions and canons ecclesiastical, which are still binding on every clergyman, although no part of the law of the land? How unfair would it be thought, to describe, as the belief of each individual member of the Church of England, every point for which the authority of that Church might be cited! Candour and justice