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ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

BY W. C. BROWNLEE, D. D.,

tiW THE COLLEGIATE PROTESTANT REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH, NEW YOBK.

** Teritas omnia Tiucit.»'--IteT, ri. 58—4.

Second Edition, revised and enlarged.

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR PHILADELPHIA, J. WHETHAM : HARTFORD, D. F. ROBINSON.

1834.

^

-V^ S • N ' , A ' ^s N ^

Entered according to Act of (fongress, in the year 1834, by

WM. c. browni.ee, d. d.

In the Clerk's office of the District Court for the Southren District <^ New-York.

BOWHK, WUNKR A CO. PRINTERS.

in 3

DEDI C ATI 0N«

TO THE PEOPLE,

AND TO THE MAGISTRACY, AND MINISTRY

OF THE UNITED STATES.

J'ellow Citizens : — I come not before you as a sectarian : nor merely as a polemic. The subject of this discussion enlists the feelings of every patriot. It involves not only the deepest interests of our holy religion, but the very exist- ence of our liberties, and the perpetuity of our Repifblic.

We come not before you to oppose the Roman catholic religion, merely as a religion* We have a higher, and we trust, a holier aim. Having detected in it, a lurking enemy, conspiring against religion, and the essential interests of our country, we have dragged it forward into the light ; and have brought it up to YOUR tribunal, for public judgment in the case.

In our pleadings at your bar, we shall demonstrate that the Roman catholic religion is not found in the Holy Bible ; that it has diverged far, in its erratic course, from primitive and pure Christianity ; that it stands now separated from it by a gulph, wide as that which separates the prophet of Arabia's Koran from the holy Scriptures of God: and that, as an ancient religion, it is, in fact, the perpetuation of Greek and Roman paganism, — baptised under a new no- menclature.

But, we shall not rest satisfied with proving each of these positions. Impor- tant as is their truth to the christian community, they cannot, as such, claim national attention. But there is a point in this controversy which does claim your attention, as a nation. For, while pure apostolical Christianity, like its Lord, has not its kingdom of this world: while it shrinks from the unhallowed union with the state ; and seeks no political aggrandisement , no civil establish- ment ; no worldly power, or earthly grandeur ; while it neither aims at making a tool of statesmen, and politics, nor permits its ministry and sacred things to be- come the willing tool of a carnal policy ; the Roman catholic system is, in all points, the reverse of this.

It is, as we shall see from its creed, and from historical documents, a system of mere human policy ; altogcthcir of a foreign origin ; foreign in its support ; and bringing with it, over the fice of society, wholly a hostile foreign inlluence. Its pope and priests are politicians, men of the world, and mere men of pleasure. It is, in the hands of a singular foreign despotism, precisely what the Koran is

I

CEDICAT10?f-

in the hands of the Grand Turk, and his Mufti. It is a tremendous weapon of mischief, the hilt of which is at Rome. It wields its holiest things in a constant war of proud domination; not only iinitlng, as it does always unite, church and state : but uniformly making an abused and insulted tool of nations and govern- ments, wherever it has the ascendency. It is not only illiberal, but intolerant in its politics, cis well as its religious cteed. It has put forth claims to tax, with- out the consent of the people, not only its own subjects, but even the citizens of other nations, under the ghostly plei of its divine right to tithes, and spiritual offerings ! It has claimed, as a temporal-spiritual power, not only to rule its own Roman states, but to interfere with every government of Europe, South Ameri- ca, and Mexico. It has not only ruled, with a rod of iron, its own spiritual armies of prelates, priests, monks, and friars, with their trodden down victims ; but it has interdicted nations ; dethroned kings; dissolved civil governments: suspended commerce; annulled national laws ; and paralyzed the authority of the magistrates. Hence, each of all the nations, where its withering influence, like the terrible Simoom of the desert, has been felt, has, in its turn, been thrown into the utmost confusion. It has, from its very genius of despotism, uniformly denied the rights of the people to self-government. Wherever it has had power over a nation, it has warred against the freedom of the press; the progress of knowledge ; the rights of conscience ; and the liberties of mankind ! Its one grand aim, — that is to attain wealth, pleasures, and boundless power, — it has ' pursued with a step as steady as time, and with an appetite as keen as death.' To compass its object, it has employed dungeons, racks, chains, inqui- sitions; and the fire and sword of exterminating persecutions !

All this, as we shall demonstrate from historical documents, it has done, in times past.

We shall review passing events to show that, even now, it is in the very act of executing its deep laid conspiracy against the institutions and liberty of our Re- public— b}' means of foreign gold ; by its imported colonies of vicious and ignorant men, the vassals of the pops; and by its bests of Jesuits and priests, — the household troops of his holiness ; the emissaries of the Holy Alliance!

And we shall draw aside the mask which it contrives to adjust so carefully over its visage, in our country ; and shall exhibit its unblushing claims to Infal- libility, AND Immutability ; in order to establish the unquestionable fact, that Romanism, spiritual and political, is even here, at this day, as resolutely as ever, the same that it was in the Dark Ages; and, moreover, that it will ever remain, in reality, the same malignant genius of evil, and the Lawless One, until the holy vision of St. John be consummated, at the close of the predes- tined period of the 1260 years ! How far I have succeeded in doing this, you are now to decide,

I am, fellow citizens, your humble, and most devoted servant,

W. C- BROWNLEE.

CONTENTS.

Dedication. J"

The challenge and acceptance.

Part I.

1

LETTER I. Rule of faith is the Holy Scriptures— The judge of controversy is the Holy Ghost speaking in them — this, our only tribunal of appeal — tradi- tions— the fathers— contrast of the Protestant, with the Roman catholic rule, and judge. Their charge of our divisions — repelled— charged on Popery. 3 LETTER n. Review of the priest's letter i. — point at issue — wherein we agree — and differ — -The only, and infallible rule, — no defect, nor obscurity in the Bible — proofs— refutation of the priest's declamatory invective against the infallible rule, and judge. What is, in reality, their rule? What is their judge. 6

LETTER to Dr. Varela— his separate attack on the Scriptures — refutation—

in answers to his fourteen queries. 12

LETTER n[. Verbiage — Roscoe- — priest's besetting infirmity — their decep- tion in the use of the word Scriptures: — their tribunal of judgment, the pope and hi.3 clergy — all men bound on pain of damnation, to submit to them! — farther discussion of the rule of faith — origin of the popish dogma relative to theif rule — Chillingworth quoted — dissection of the popish rule, the 1st and 2d arguments— closed with a review of the priest's errors, and mis-statements, in their Letter ii., in six particulars. J6

PRIEST'S LETTER JIL, Extracts from. 28

LETTER IV. Rule of faith, continued — the priests never quote our definitions fairly — they have, unexpectedly, laboured to convert this into a deistical, in- stead of papal controversy-^priests yield a main point to deists — external a«d infernal evidence — anecdote illustrative of our argument — the copper kettle — the 3d, 4lh, and .5th arguments against the Romish rule. 30

PRIEST'S LETTER IV. Extracts from, 39

LETTER V. Rule of faith, continued — genius of popery, its elasticity— it la- bours to conceal its real dogmas, in our Republic — it is the same unchanged, as in the darkest ages — despotic — hostile to free instUutions — our citizens for- get that the Jesuits claim immutability— outlines of the preceding arguments — Arguments, ()th, 7ih, 8th, 9th, and lOth, against the Romish rule. 40

PRIEST'S LETTER V. Extracts from. 48

DISSERTATION on the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. 5X

LETTER VI. The claims of the popish rule being destroyed, the Protestant rule in without a rival — minute examination of the priest's objections, and ex

CONTEWTS.

rors — their traditions — their claims truly ludicrous — an exposure of these tra- ditions; their fanaticism, extravagance, and impiety: the aristocracy and no- bility of the haughty priests — treatment of the R. C. laity — genuine priest- craft— the vicious circle, specimen of it — Jesuitical defence of their adding the apocrypha to the Bible — reply to the objection against a written rule, that the Hebrews were without the written word for fourteen generations — and that before Moses, and in Christ's and the apostles' time, there was no written rule. Reply to the repeated objection, that Christ did not command the apostles to write the New Testament — and that the primitive Christians had not the Scrip- tures in their vernacular. They confound objective and subjective infallibility, and make all infallible who have the infalUbJe rule? "Twenty books of the Old Testament are lost," — this refuted — E])islle of Barnabas — "The Arian Cobbler" — pope Joan — Milner, the dead lion. 55

PRIEST'S LETTER VI. Extracts from. 63

LETTER VII. Review of the priest's infidel objections, continued — Textual difficulties removed — "the Protestants separate the Bible from oral teaching" — this refuted — "the rite of baptism, and change of the Sabbath can be esta- blished only by tradition" — this refuted — the Vulgate — farther examination of this incorrect version — different from Jerome's version — Clementine and Sextine edition of the Vulgate — the Douay translation — the Roman catho- lic church has, in fact, no authorized version of the Bible in English :— the fa- ther's quoted — no unanimous consent of them on the popish rule — Marcelli- nus — infallibility, where lodged — Jesuits oppose our rule by an argument ta- ken from sectarian abuse of it — Intention — tendency of popery — deism — hostility to the rights of conscience and liberty. 65

PRIEST'S LETTER VIL Extracts from. 77

LETTER to Dr. Varela — reply to his letter— St. Ambrose, and saint worship —St. Augustine— -Romish conversion, what?— image worship— popish doc- trine of grace— Dr. V.'s false quotation— power to appoint neiv articles of faith —seven sacraments— ordinances— of God— of the pope — reply to the charge of Protestant divisions— efTecls of the ))riest's defective education— specimen of popish sophisms — reply to the charge of "falsehood," respecting the Tren- tine addition of new articles of faith. 80

CARD, to the public. 86

LETTER VIII. Besetting errors — Vulgate— no authorized version in English — inextricable difficulty from the contradictions of the fathers— reply to the charge of the corruption of our English Bible — Walton and Selden en the Vulgate— Bellarmine on the pope's infallibility— Dr. Curtis's charge of Bible corruption — reply— Dr. Cardwell's exposure of this— singular instance of blasphemy, by our priests— p. 90 — appeal to the confederated priests, and de- ists—Proof that popery is a novelty, from historical dates of the origin of the chief tenets and rites— -the doctrines which have always been held by the true Church— Historical date of, i. The pope'ssupremacy—ii. Invocation of saints —"Mother of God," criticised— The divine worship of Mary— Specimen — iii. Use of images — iv. Purgatory— v. Celibacy — vi. vii. Transubstantiation and the Mass— cannibalism— viii. Abstraction of the cup, in the Eucharist — ix. Relics — x. The retention of the Bible in a dead language— Extracts of the fathers on these. The question answered, If'hert was your religion before Lu- ther ? 87 PRIEST'S LETTER VIII. Extracts from. 100 LETTER IX. The spirit of the priest's Letter 8., infidelity— "Mother of God" -'-subject of j)resent discussion-— TAe peculiar doctrines, rites, and institutions of popery, originated by fanaticism, and sustained by imposture. Carnal repre- sentations of the Trinity— ofhcial services of the popish saints— canonizing power— miracles of popery— specimens— miracles of statues — doctrines settled by visions — the orders of monks founded by fanatics— also their rites, the Mass. " 104 PRIEST'S LETTER IX. Extracts from. 115

COKTEWTS. VU

LETTER X. The priest's concession about legends — Luther — reply to the taunt of Protestant miracles— the unity in our discussion— traditions— enor- mous bulk of the Romish rule of faith — Romish circle about traditions — the priests constrained lo admit that there is no authorised version of the Bible — i. The exorbitant claims of Rome over the human conscience — proofs, speci- mens— idol worship — m<:>ther of God — a Becket — money on his altar — the pa- pal supremacy — 4 factions on this — papal claims spiritual and temporal— case of F. €ooper in New York Legislature— ii. Rome has lost the spirit of Christi- anity— proofs, specimens — iii. Hersystem jo;enerates ignorance andproffligacy — quotations from their moral writers — Jesuitism. 118

Roman Catholic editorial notice— Card in reply. 131, 132

PRIEST'S LETTER X. Extracts from. 133

LETTER XI. The Douay Bible not sanctioned by the authority of the Romish church—exposure of this — the superstitions and impostures of the Romish sect — reply to C. Butler's plausible appeal — baptism of bells — sacerdotal dress — Latin prayers — superstition of the Mass — prayer to St. Sacrament — incense — holy water — charms — agnus dei — Italian soup — lamps, wax candles — abstaining from meats — penance — popish misrepresentations of St. Patrick — ivood of the cross — Charles X — .Duke of Brunswick's fifty reasons — supererrogation — feast of the Ass — song to the Ass, by his fellows — imposture and fraud of Romanism — specimens— cursing of vermin — Bees adoring the Mass — St. Januarius — souls coming out of purgatory— Crabs in velvet— miracle of exorcising a demoniac — St. Peter's chair, a hoax. 134

Priest's card to Dr. B. 145

Reply to this. 145

Priests' Letter XL, Extracts from. 147

LETTER XII. The marks of the R. C. church,— "The church" is really the object of a papist's faith,— proof, —claim o( antiquity, — refutation of this, — catho- licity,— refutation of this, — Romanism against the christian world, and that against it. 149

Card of Dr. B. to the public. 156

Editorial notice in the Roman catholic print ; and part of Dr. B's letter. 157

Dr. B's card to the public, in reply. 158

LETTER XIII. The marks of the church, claimed by papists, continued. — succession — refutation of this — no succession by ordination, or holiness, or doctrine — the schisms in the Latin church — atrocious popes. 159

The Priests' closing Letter. 167

LETTER XIV. and last to the Priests. Review of their Letter— the genius and spirit of their controversy — Jesuitism — reply to their criticism on the ar- ticles of faith in express texts, in p. 146 — The gracing of their retreat — in a parody on the king of Assyria, and his officers — Rabshakeh's fate, and epi- taph. 168

Part II.

LETTER I. To the members of the Roman catholic church — Introduction — invitation to the discussion; — a parable of olden limes — St. Peter — his com- panion, a chief-priest — dialogue — the genius of Popery appears to them — the result. 173

LETTER II. An appeal to Roman Catholics, on the necessity of moving in the work of their emancipation from priest craft — they are, while under tins mental bondage to y)rie8ts, without liberty — various impostures — anecdote of priest P., and a Dominie — specimen of mental slavery, here — Carbonarian faith 178

LETTER III. The Jesuit rule by which priests are guarded — genius of the revived Jesuitism — the 4lh mark claimed by the j)apists — sanctity — refu- tation of this. 182

LETTER IV. This subject continued — celibacy and monachisni — exhibitiou of clerical profligacy according to the results of papal law — iusliuclivc aaec-

VIU COIfTENTB.

dote of the Spanish priesthood — the pope's Tax Book — prices of sins quoted, (and A])pendix). 187

LETTER V. Earnest appeal to Roman catholics to vindicate the cause of lib- erty, and our country — an appeal on ihe value of religious liberty — in their morals the priests fulfil Bible prediction — danger from Jesuitism — their mon- archism — specimen of their docirines, in our land— papal claims. 193

LETTER VI. We are the best friends of Roman catholics — the treasonable doctrines taught hereby Jesuits — quotations — their immoral doctrines— alto- gether pagan — their dangerous tendency in society — they produce the morals of Paris and the reign of terror — the parent who sends his children to their seminaries is a traitor. 196

LETTER VIL The next mark claimed by the papists — unity — genuine spi- rit of Romanism, malignit^^ caused by this plea of unity — Refutation of this claim — Rome a distracted church — proofs. 200

LETTER VIIL Unity, continued — it is destroyed by her monkish orders — no unity in doctrines — no unity in papal supremacy— quotations — Augustine — Jerome. 204

LETTER IX. Popery condemned by Scripture, and the fathers — the fathers against papal supremacy — Jerome farther quoted on "the Rock" — Chrysos- tom — Origen — Thedoret — TertuUian — Ambrose — Cyprian — Hilary — Grego- ry— Councils — Bellarmine. 208

LETTER X. Popery condemned — instances — images — condemned by scrip- ture— by fathers — TertuUian, Athanasius, 8cc. icorship of Saints — condem- ned by the Bible — by the fathers, Augustine — Athanasius, &cc. — Latin prayers — condemned by the Bible — by Origen — Augustine, &:c. 212

LETTER XI. Popery condemned — on the unanimous consent — worship of the. Virgin — condemned by Scripture — by the fathers — Epiphanius — Augus- tine— absolution of sins — infamous dogmas of Rome on this — refuted from Scripture. 217

LETTER XII. — The jarring elements in popery, destroy hs unity — it is at war with Scripture — and the fathers, on the priests' claimof power to pardon sins, Augustine — Jerome — Chrysostom — Ambrose — pope Gregory — Basil — Hilary — Cyril — Clemens Alex. — P. S. Papists are by a late decree, allowed to eat meat on Saturdays. 220

LETTER XIII. Popery condemned — popery distinct from the religion of our ancient ancestors — appeal to the Roman catholics on this — the popish dog- ma on the Rule of faith is condemned — by the Scriptures — by the fathers — Hilary — Basil — TertuUian — Ambrose — Cyril of Jer. — Cyril of Alex. — Athanasius — Origen — Chrysostom — Jerome — Augustine. 224

LETTER XIV. Popery condemned— the addition of the apocrypha is condem- ned—internal and external proof against it— fathers against it— Origen — Athanasius — Cyril — Jerome — Cyprian — Augustine — Councils. 229^

LETTER XV. Popery condemned — appeal to the Irish catholics — popery was not the religion of your prinjiiive ancestors— St. Ibbar— St. Patrick were not papists — earnest entreaty to abandon the novelty of popery, and re- turn to Christianity ; — Transubstantiation condemned — by Scripture — by reason. 232

LETTER XVI. Popery condemned — Transubstantiation condemned by the fa- thers— Irenapus — Ignatius — Gelasius — Hilary — Cyprian — Ambrose — Tertul- lian — Theodoret — Eusebius — Justin Martvr — Cvril — Clemens Alex. — Atha- nasius— Origen—Chrysostom — St. Bernard — Jerome — Augustine — Also by the Liturgies of Chrysostom and Basil— of St. James — St. Mark— by CyrU of the 16th century — and Metrophanes, speaking the sentiment of the Oriental churches — Earnest appeal to all Roman catholics on this revolting imposture — P. S. Three Romi>h priests convened. 237

LETTER XVII, Popery condemned — The Mass is condemned — by reason — by Scripture — Old Testament — and New Testament — by the fathers— Jerome — Damasus— Augustine — Bernard— the Decretals against it — Pope Gregory —

t^hi^ysostom— Justin Martyr^Cleirtens—Tertulllan—Lactantiiis— Reason why the priests cling to this imposture of the mass^— their schemes by it, caused the enaciing of the Mortmain law of England^-hintsat various kinds of masses. 242

Letter X-VllL-^Poperycondemned-^Purgatory-^a cardinal's opinion of its efficacy — its history — origin — its novelty — its kind of torments— eight chambers in it-^-its immense revenues to the priests-^anecdotes — the young nobleman-^ Priest Thom-^auction of souls— revenues from it, in Spain — wholesale rob- bery. 248

LETTER 'K.l^.'-^Popery condemned — Purgatory — condemned by reason, and Scviplure— its absurdities — it exhibits the priests as cruel, and inhuman — con- demned by the fathers— "Justin Martyr — Lactanti us— Hilary — Cyprian- — Ter- tullian — Gregory Nys. — Gregory Naz. — Basil — Ambrose — Justin Martyr far- iher, quoted — the Cyrils — >Chrysostom — A thanasius— Jerome — Augustine — Bede--Anselm— Epiphanius^-Olympiodorus^fhe council of Aix la Chapelle — the council of JBasil^-Bellarmine convicted of falsehood— remarkable saying of Archbishop Usher. 253

LETTER XX. To the archbishop, and bishops of the Roman cathohc church- appeal on the necessity of a reformation in their sect — proofs — quotations-^ deplorable condition of popish churches — contrast of Protestants and Papists-^ priests — their doctrines — and vices-^the cause. 260

LETTER, XXL The Romish church a perpetuated branch of ancient paganism — > proof — the pagan chapel, and the popish chapel compared~-holy water at the door of each-^incense— altars— Pantheon, now the house of all the Saints — human flesh used in the sacrifices of each^-pagan cannibals — popish cannibals — vestments of pagan, and popish priests— -pagan boy in white, attending the priest — popish boy, in a surplice — Pix, orbox containing the if^a/er g'o(/^pagan origin of this— processions— temple of the pagan foundling, now the temple of the popish foundling, with its appendage of siuiilar miracles — priests of Bel- lona — the R. C. Flagellantes— pagan water idolatry— popish water idolatry — - the sprinkling of cattle by pagans — the same, by papists— the pope is Pontifex Maxim us— ^t his Was the title and office of the chief of paganism — hence the difference of conversion among papists, and Christians. 264

LETTER XXIL A minute deUneation of high mass m j?o«i?*^ccr/i&w5. 268

LETTER XXIIL The idolatry and superstition of popery — sixfold idolatry in the Romish church — description of idolatry^-it is, in the words of holy writ, *'The Lie" — it is impious — irrational — saint worship— refutation of the Rom- ish arguments for it; — anecdote of the chief of the house of Gordon — three factions in the Roman church — and three distinct doctrines in it, on images — exhibition of these — refutation. 274

LETTER XXIV. Idolatry and superstition of popery, continued — specimens^ — worship paid to Thomas a Becket — more honors rendered to him than to Christ, for 400 years, in England — in Scotland ])apists addressed the Lord's prayer to the saints — the offices, and employment of the saints — prayer at the Consecraiion of images, by the pope — the (pieen of heaven — atrocious idolatry of her worship— worship of RELics-^specimens — worship of the wood of the cross— specimen — worship of theWAFKU — St. Sacrament, an idol in popery — prayers said to it — the idolatry of popery exceeds, in immorality, that of paganism. 279

LETT Ell XXV. On the internal Symptoms of decay , and final ruin of popery — no foundation for saving faith in it — its contradictions will hasten its nii'n — specimen of these — as the mother of deism and vice, she must perish — illus- tration of this — atheism prevailing in popish (countries. 284 LETTEll XXVL Symptoms of decay and ruin, conunned — the inimorality of all its doctrines, and riles — this is working its downfall — popery prnclically repeals the whole of the ten precepts— proof — specimens — hs tyranny will work its fall — illustration. 288 LETTER, XXVIL Symptoms of decay andruiti, continued — contrast of a false, with the true religion — the spirit of popery, is the spirit of :uiiii>brisi — popery

X CONTENTS.

condemns the essential, and holiest doctrines of Christianity— proof — speci- men— tlie Bible itself is prohibiled by 7'Ae Index — proof — the jarring doctrines in popery, relative to the fundamental tenert of popery, the papal jjiii)remacy, will work its fall — specimen of the doctrines of the four factions in the Romish church, on this point. 292

LETTER XXVIJI. Internal symptoms of decay and ruin in ptpery, con- tinued— Intention — the application of this peculiar popish dogma to the seren sacraments of Rome — it overturns them all — it leaves popery without a priest, a pope, a rite, and a church — popish hostility to the progress of knowledge, and science — curious specimens of this — singular case of Galileo, and hishop Virgil — the appropriate remark of Galileo's companion about the pope, and his priests. 297

LETTER XXIX. Symptoms of decay and ruin in popery, cont'mued — worship, and use of relics — this will hasten its destruction, as light, and truth dissipate darkness — additional specimens of these relics — ludicrous duplicafes, and mul- tij)lication of identical things— amazing discoveries for the antiquarian — in- stances— unparalleled curiosities — some blasphemous relics. 302

LETTER XXX. Popery essentially despotic, and incompatihh with our free institutions — minute investigation of this^ — ])roof — scheme of the Jesuits, and European despots — popery not reformed, nor reformable — proof — Spanish popery at this day — origin, rise, establishment of papal supremacy. 306

LETTER XXXI. Popery essentially despotic, and incompatible with our free institutions — The pope's supremacy is held by papists, to be the essence of Christianity — examination of this — the real claims of the pope — teiv'Poral POWER claimed by him, as absolutely, and as certainly as spiritual power — proof — quotations. 310

LETTER XXXII. Popery essentially despotic, and incompatible with our free institutions, continued — Rome never yet toleratid any other church, where she had the power — she has always united church and state, so as to make a spiritual tool of the state — historical illustration — her intolerance is, with her, a religious principle — her annual denunciation, and damnation of all Protest- ants, .lews, &c. — proof — the Jesuitism and falsehood of Dr. England exposed — conxicted from his own books — quotations from a rare book in reference to the Bull In Ccena Domini — analysis of this bull — the Romish priests' oath — the bishops' ■ oath — an ap))eal ro our patriots and statesmen— instructive warning in tlie words of the eminent statesman Rucellai. 313

LETTER XXXIII. IVie six grand attributes of popery — the rise and character of the apocaly-plic Beast — its impurity — "the Man of Sin" — its impiety and arrogance — historical illustration of this — exposition of 1 Tim. iv. 1, 4. — "doctrines of devils" — "forbidding to marry" — " abstaining from meats" — 320

LETTER XXXIV. The fourth auribute, treachery — proof— the moral tenets of popery— "no faith to be kept with heretics," is a dogma of the Roman catiiolic church — proof— decrees- — doctrine — facts, in evidence — copy of the secret oath of Jesuits — appalling danger from tliem. 325

LETTER XXXV. The ffth "attribute, 7/jfo?era7?c-e— proof— quotations from popes, and councils — popish lands are the lands of white slaves — proof— speci- mens—the student and his confessor— state of Italy, Spain, Ireland. 329

LETTER XXXVl. The sixth attribute of popery, ^Crutlty ;— this put forth in two forms of malignit}' — \he Inquisition — Persecw^/o??— Discussion on the first — detiniiion of the Inquisitio?! — its history — three degrees in its rise and progress — law of the Inquisition — character of an Inquisitor — picture of this infernal tri- bunal in Spain— its interior— its tortures— by water— fire— rack— St. Mary — an Auto da fe — number of its victims. 332

LETTER XXXVll. Popish cri/eZ/?/— continued— persecution— crusades— mo- ral ones — sanguinary ones — case of Hungary — ditlerence in the instances of Protestant and Popish persecutions — Calvin and Servetut — Pojjoy makes it a duty, by a regular dogma, to persecute — It does this in two ways : 1. By " the mouth speaking great things" — her anathemas — specimen of these : — 2. By

CONTENTS. XI

massacres — Bellarmine's atrocious plea for persecution — he avows persecution to be the doctrine and practice of Holy Mother — popes — councils, do the same — proof— specimens — every Roman catholic bishop is regularly sworn into of- fice to persecute — proof— his oath quoted — hence no R. Catholic has it in his choice to be liberal — if true to his oath, and his religion, he must persecute — proof. 340

LETTER XXXVIII. The ferocious cruelty of the system o/Po29er3/— historical illustrations — the systematic persecutions and massacres of the Waldenses — the Albigenses — case of the city of Beziers — Languedoc — 100,000 persons fall, in one day, victims to the papists' swords — butcheries of Moors — Jews- Christians in Spain— Bohemia — Hungary— France— Holland— Ireland— the the public rejoicings at Rome by the pope's orders, on account of the massacre of the Protestants of France — the medal struck by the pope, and paintings got up, to commemorate the papal triumphs over religion, and humanity — The Ro- ish Church has never disowned, nor ever apologized for her former ferocious persecutions — As a church, she approved of the deeds of her ancestors, and still approves of all her blood shed I Estimate of the victims of this sanguina- ry sect — an appeal to all orders of christians — and to the American nation on this matter — appeal to the consciences of the bishops — conclusion — we part to meet no more, until we meet at the Judgment seat of God — apology for the freedom, and warmth of my address; Card to the public. 345

THE APPENDIX. I. The comparative numbers of Papists— and Chris- tians. II. Extracts from the pope's chancery book. III. Gross impurity en- joined by popes and councils. IV. Index Expurgatorius, V. Form of a pa- pist's confession, VI, Absolution, 351

^

THE

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

THE ORIGIN OF THIS CONTROVERSY IS FULLY EXPLAINED IN THE FOLLOWING

CHALLENGE.

To the Editor of the Truth Teller.

Sir: — In the series of letters addressed to me by a Roman Catholic writer, in your ■columns, I have been honored with a succession of public challenges to come out in the discussion of the Roman Catholic tenets. And you have, in the frankest and most candid manner, offered me your columns for my reply.

I have stated repeatedly to my friends, and also in a letter to a Roman Catholic gentleman of my acquaintance, — I mean Dr. B., that I shall not come out in reply to any anonymous writer. And you know as well as I, that no man of honor would do it.

I have waited for several months to see some responsible name appear ; I have been hitherto disappointed. But, now, feeling as every Protestant minister does, that no one should decline a call given, in Divine Providence, to defend the truth, I beg leave to make the following propositions, in all frankness and candor. Through you I beg respectfully to give a challenge, in my turn, to aliy one, or all of the following gentlemen, Roman Catholic priests, in our city, to come forward and discuss, in a series of letters, alternately with me, the leading doctrines and practices which sepa- rate the Protestant Churches from Rome ; — I mean, the Right. Rev. Bishop Dubois; the very Rev. Dr. Power; the Rev. Dr. Varela; or the Rev. Mr. Levins; or any other, whom they will nominate, as their substitute.

A reply, as early as you can make it convenient, is requested.

I am, sir, your obedient servant, January 28, 1833. W. C. Brownlee.

The following letter appeared in the ''Troth Teller," in reply to Dr. Brownlee.

Mr. Editor: — ^We accept Dr. Brownlee's ''Challenge.'' But, to exclude all chance of introducing equivocal or irrelevant matter, to secure singleness of view and imity of object, to prevent shift, subterfuge, and cavil, "to avoid foolish and unlearned questions, knowing that they beget strife," — 2 Tim. ii. 23 ; — he is requested to s.tate what is his Rule of Faith, and who, or what is his Judge of controversies in matters of faith.

John Power, V. G. and Rector of St. Peter's.

Thomas C. Levins, Pastor of St. Patrick's Callicdral.

Felix Varela, Pastor of Clu-ist's Church.

1

i

LETTERS

REV. DR. W. C. BROWNLEE,

ON THE

KOMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

LETTER I.

To the Editor of the Truth Teller.

Sir: — ^I feel indebted to your politeness in causing to be inserted in your columns, my call for a responsible name : and, through you, I tender my respects to the learned gentlemen who have met my invitation.

I hope we shall not be so long in settling our preliminaries, as the two gentlemen were, who have commenced their discussion in Philadelphia. At any rate, it shall not be my fault, if we are. I hope, Sir, the learned Priests do not mean to throw a barrier in the way to prevent our discussion : although the request, or insinuation put forth in their "acceptance" of my "challenge," does appear to me to be something which rather squints that way.

Mr. Editor, — I shall not allow myself to be stopped at the very threshold of dis- cussion, by any invitation to settle the Rule of faith and the Judge of controversy. If we pause here until we shall agree on this point — we shall stop here forever. The Protestant and the Roman Catholic do not; — and what is more, they can never agree on this point. This creates the abyss which lies between them : If they could agree on this point, they would no longer stand in the relation of Protestant and Papist.

The only Rule of faith and fnal Judge of controversy, as every Protestant believes, IB THE Holy Spirit speaking to us in the written word of God, the Holy Scriptures ; containing all the books of the Old Testament, and all the books of the New Testament. In these, God spoke to the church in Hebrew and in Greek: if tliere be any thing not so plain, at first view, as I wish, I compare parallel passages, and evolve the meaning by all proper means, under the guidance of the fountcun of truth, the Spirit of God, who has promised to "guide us in all truihJ'''

To charge the Holy Scriptures with obscurity, or deficiency, is the same thing as to bring a charge against the Holy Ghost. No christian can do this. The apparent ob- scurity on the pages of the \V\h\v,, proceeds from the darkness of our minds. Hence the S{)irit of God teaches us to pray — "Open thou mine eyes that 1 may behold wondrous things out of thy law!" Psalms cxix. 18. And shall I dare to call that obscure or imperfect, which the S[)iritof God gave forth, and has declared to be clear pr " plam to him that understandcth ;" so that he may run tvho rcadcth it ? Shall I

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

dare to add human traditions, or the laws of erring mortals, to that Rule which God has given to the church, and pronounced "perfect" and "sure" and "right," and "pure?" Ps. xix. Shall we dare add to God's holy word, who has laid this solemn command on protestant, pope, and priest, — "add thou not unto his words,

LEST he reprove THEE AND THOU BE FOUND A LIAR !" PrOV. XXX. 6. Will any

priest or layman, dare add to that Holy Book which the Holy Spirit has made perfect, closed up, and sealed with a tremendous malediction on the mortal who shall '-'■add to it or take away from it.''' Rev. xxii. 18, 19.

I can appeal, in controversy, to no tribunal but to that of the Holt Ghost speak- ing IN THE SACRED ScRiPTURES ; — who has cxprcssly enjoined on us this command, Isaiah viii. 19, 20. " Should not a people seek to their God ? for the living to the dead? to the law, and to the testimony, if we speak not according to

THIS WORD, IT IS BECAUSE THERE IS NO LIGHT IN THEM." The Bible COntailLS

the whole religion of the Protestant. But if a mortal man has a right to add to God's word, then why may he not also alter and new model it? But the man, be he Pope, Priest, or Protestant, who ventures to do this, does actually usurp the throne of God : " he sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God !" He sits in judgment on his Maker ; he calls him up to his bar, and dictates to God ! If this be not the con- summation of blasphemous daring, I profess I know" not what can be !

As for Romish traditions and oral laws, we shall treat them with the same respect as we do the Koran of Mohammed, until the evidence of their divinity be produced, and established by prophecy, tongues, and miracles : and the fact be confirmed that God gave them to the Church of Christ for a Rule.

As for the fathers of the Greek and Latin Churches, I will receive their pages with profound veneration, and sit at their feet, as the expositors of truth, as soon as the Ca- tholic Church of Rome shall produce a genuine copy of them as the fathers wrote, and left, their sentiments : — namely an editio expurgata, free of the scandalous alterations, and corruptions made in them, by the monks of the dark ages !

For the Pope, and " Holy Mother Church," I shall yield myself a dutiful son and throw myself at his holiness' feet, as soon as he shall produce, before the Christian w^orld, a few genuine and authentic credentials, from the court of heaven; confiimed infallibly by the miraculous gifts of tongues, prophecy, and miracles — as the holy Apostles did — that God Almighty has really constituted him the legal deposit of truth : the fountain of immaculate purity, and the accredited expounder of the Holy Bible ; to create mental light, and with his keys to lock up in darkness the heretical mind ; and be the final judge of controversy. The world has become too enlightened to give cre- dit to the fanatic, or knave w^ho sets himself up for the " standard" of truth, or as one who is admitted into the secrets of Heaven, and the cabinet minister of the court of the Almighty. Nay, so unruly has the human mind become, in consequence of its burst- ing the chains of darkness, and emancipating itself from the ghostly power and super- stition of the dark ages, that it not only ventuers to call a man a fanatic, but gravely to propose a place in bedlam, for the man who would enact the scenes of former days ; who would constitute himself the fnal judge of controversy, set up claims over God's own word ; pass gag laws against the freedom of speech and the press ; or forge chains for the human conscience, and prevent tlie progress of glorious liberty !

This is protestantism. On the contrary every body knows that the Roman Catho- lic Church rejects these opinions of Protestants with disgust. They deny, indignantly, that the written word of God, or, the Holy Ghost speaking in the scriptures, either is.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 5

c?r can be the Rule of faith, or Judge of controversy. What we call God speaking in the scriptures, they venture to pronounce a thing obscure, powerless, and utterly unfit to be a Rule or Judge. What we call the voice of God speaking in the Holy Word, has no authority, no power, with them, — no binding obligations on the conscience ; — wntil the Pope, or the Holy Church shall pronounce it to be the word, and give it vita- lity and authority ! By their creed, even Almighty God cannot speak through his own word, with either intelligence, or authority, until the Pope shall bid it have intelligence and authority ! He — not God — is the " living speaking Oracle," of truth ; he, not God, is the *'only final Judge of controversy!"

Hence it is morally impossible that the Protestant and the Roman Catholic can ever agree on this point.

The priests airect to believe that the absence and want of their living, speaking ora- cle in our system, has originated the various divisions and sects among Protestants. And this has afforded a rich harvest of materials for our good humored opponent's elo- quence. Every body has heard of Dr. Power's stereotype sermon on Unity, Catholi- city, infallibility, and the endless divisions of the heretics.

The priests have been rather unfortunate in selecting this topic for their declamations against the Christian world. For, it is known to every one that there is scarcely even one erroneous sect, or heretic, in ancient or modern times, which has not sprung up in the bosom of "Mother Church!" But, then, the Holy Inquisition and the bishops have carefully and assiduously sought them out, and made glorious bonfires of them! Yes, every returning year, at that Komish feast of charity called an auto da fe, did Holy Mother turn all these sectarians into the fire, and burn them as did the votaries of Moloch, in sacrifice to the genius of their idolatry !

Now, did the Protestants imitate the example of the Romish Church in the horrid festivals of her ghostly despotism ; and did the strongest party in the land, annually, doom to the dungeon and the flames, all the weaker sects, — then assuredly there would soon be as much terrific unity among Protestants, as there is in Spain and Italy!

But, In the United States, in our happy Republic, there is no State religion, — and no union of Church and State, as in all Roman Catholic governments. Hence the lovely picture of Protestant mildness, charity, liberalit^'^, and mutual forbearance i

But, after all, it is a pleasant piece of humor, to hear the Roman Catholic priestfli ridiculing tlie divisions and various sects of the Protestants; while they laud "the unity oflloiy Mother Church, created and cemented by their living, speaking Oracle P^ What! This coming from the members of the Roman Catliollc Church; — a church containing, in her bosom, more divisions and sects, than all those of Protestants! A churcli rent and lorn by divisions of the most untractable and irreconcilable kind! — Ask yon for jiroof?

Witness tiic fc.ud , in ihat day, when three rival popes wore mutnally putting the pontidcal ban on eafli oilier! Witness the divisions and horrid scenes of conflict in the bo^'om of Holy Mother in the great Western Schism, which every Roman Catho- lic historian details I Witness tlie divisions, in doctrines, caused by the Angnstinee^ conflicling with other ^c;is! Witness ihe violent feuds between the Jansenists and the Josiijis! Witness tlu; divisions caused by the Dominicans, so famous for their zeal in bnniing better and more virtuous men liian themselves! Witness the ditfi^rent sects ofgray friars, and white, and black; and the mendicants! Witness the exaspe rating fends between the Franciscans and tlw Dominicans, touching the immaculate conctj/tioii of tl\c yirgiM Mary: — the former, stoutly mainiaining that tihe was cour

8 ^-

O ROMAN CATHOLIC COXTROVERSr.

ceived by her mother, as pure and innocent as Jesus Chiist was ; and the latter sect, with no less than Saint Bernard at their head, insisting that this sentiment was a daii>- nable heresy ! Witness the eternal wars in the bosom of Holy Mother, between thes^ unnatural and turbulent sons^ the Scotists, and the Thomists .' Witness the characte- ristic feuds and brawls of the Jesuits, the Benedictines and Dominicans. Witnesi? the sir grand heads of controversy in the sixteenth century, Avhich rent thp Holy Church in pieces; and which are familiar to every Roman Cathohc student of their awn histories ! The fierce and indomitable Jesuits were pitted against the Jansenists, Dominicans, and Augustines. Sometimes the Jesuits and Dominicans were pitted against each other, as, for instance, on the doctrines of grace : At other times, the Je- suits and Dominicans united on the efficacy of the sacraments, in opposing all other sects ! See Dr. Courrayer's translation of Paul Sarpi's Council of Trent.

Wimess the violent conflict between the Franciscans and the Pope, John XXII., in the 14th century ! and the fierce contest between the Jesuits, on the one side, and the Augustine doctors, and the university of Louvain, and of Douay, on the other ! Wit- ness the long and furious controversy between the Mohnists of Spain, with the Augu£- lines and Thomists, and which set at defiance Pope Clement VIII., and all his influ- ence, for a long season !

In fine, I know scarcely a single century of Holy 3Iother's history, when the bosom of her Unity was not a frightful arena of fierce contending priests, whom no power on earth, faUible or infallible, could compose, till they had exhausted their mutual finy- ! See the pages of Nicholas De Clemangis ; Wessel cf Groningen ; Cas- sander, Rajmer, and Ferns, Cap. 8. Judic.

As forU>iTT, — there was Unity, 3Ir. Editor, — most striking Unity, in Holy Mother. There was unity in opposing the Spirit of God speaking in the scriptures. There was unity in adoring images, relics, and the saints. There was unity in declaring for seven Romish sacraments instead of the bible's tico. There was unity in the belief and projit of purgatory. There was unity in believing that the Pope has the keys of Heaven : and that he and the priests will allow no heretic to pass into the kingdom of heaven. There is perfect unity in 3Iother Church, in denying the necessity of re- generation and a new heart, by the Holy Ghost ; there is unity in denying that Christ finished his atonement on the cross — unity in offering him up, afi-esh, for the sins of the quick and the dead, in the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass! There is unity in de- nying justification by the righteousness of Christ alone ! There is wiity in believing that Christ is not the only mediator, that the holy %-irgin is mediatrix ; and ''jure mch- tris juhet flio ;'' by "the rights of a mother, commands her Son" to hear us. See th« Rosary and Missal; and Bonavent, Cor. B. M. Virg. — Tom. 6. Rom. Edit, of 153S; Psalter of the Virgin, p- 84. Argent Edit.

This is a specimen of the only unity which characterizes the Holy Mother, and which your ''Uving and speaking oracle" promotes!

Besides, Sir, — " Ego et Res," — I and the learned priests have, already, tried oar mutual strength on the floor, in oral debate. And we got along, in perfect good humor, and quite as successfully as one could have anticipated, without stopping to settle the point about the Rule and Judge. Each one took his own way ; as I now re- spectfully propose to do: and went straight forward, like honest men, and skilful con- troversalists. I mean, therefore, Mr. Editor, -vsith yom: leave, soon to pass on to one great and vital point, — say, the Church.

I am, Sir, your most ob't and humble ser\-ant,

W. C. Brow>-lee.

t6MAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY* 7

LETTER II.

TO DOCTORS POWER, VARELA, AND LEVINSo

On the Rule of Faith.

Gentlemen : — You begin your letter with an expression of amazement at my ** chivalrous" daring in "challenging prelate and priest," to this discussion. The chivalry of "the lion hearted Richard" himself, excites less amazement than this Tenturous daring of mine, to challenge four men led and shielded by " infallibility" itself! And all of them, moreover, sharing in the blessings of the same " infallibility !" But you forget the feehngs of a protestant. In his estimation, "prelate and priest" are official creatures of mere human fiction, — and quite harmless among "lion heart- ed" republicans. And the ghostly claims of "infallibles," sound in his ears like the bravadoes of the antiquated heroes of Otranto!

The fact is, and you know it, gentlemen, I was driven into this controversy by your own partizans. And, therefore, my claims are too humble, in this matter, to be deco- rated with the honors of "chivalry." I return them, with all humility, to their right- ful owners.

You have utterly mistaken my meaning as to " the settling^'' of the point of the Rule and Judge of truth. I simply alledged that there could be no use in stopping at the threshold of the debate, until we, — that is. Catholic and Protestant, should come together on this point. For the truth is, we never can "settle it" in this sense. This creates the abyss which lies between us. My only object in those remarks, was to make sure the continuance of our discussion.

That the question touching " the Rule''' was of small moment, was no statement of mine. I deem it of infinite importance. I have not declined the discussion of it. Nay, gentlemen, pardon me, I have discussed it, — though briefly, in my first letter: yes, and settled it too, in the only sense, so far as I can see, in which we can settle it. That is, I have distinctly laid down the Protestant Rule, and shown out of the Holy Bible, that it is the Holy Spirit speaking to us in the written word. And I have also stated, fairly, your Rule, namely, — the scriptures, the apocrypha, and oral tradi- tions, explained by a living, infallible oracle. This was, as I did conceive, going as far as we ought to go at the entrance of our discussion. I was willing to take it up in its proper place if you pleased. And, I did really suppose that you would, yourselves, have preferred the discussion of it, after we had discujjscd the subject of the " infallible Church." It was natural, ,/irsi to seek out this said ^^infallihle church^'''' and, then, to aeek out, in her, this said " infallible Rule and Judge.'^ And, gentlemen, arc you not aware that this is the order, which was pursued by your " infalhble council of Trent ?" [Sec Scss. 3 and 4.]

But I am not tenacious: I yield to courtesy : qua via ducit sequar. Since you in- sist on it, that the Rule shall be discussed first, even so be it: only let none of us pro- pose a retreat.

The point fairly at issue between the Protestant and Roman Catholic cliurchos on die Rule of Faith and Judge of Controversy, is this: — liolh of us, in tlie fust place, admit that there is an infallihk rule of faith, established by Christ, to guide us in mat- ters of faith, and decisions of controversy^ in religion. But, in the second place, we difl'er, ioto calo, as to what that Rule xa.

9 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

First : — The Protestant Church declares that the only Rule of faith and Judge of controversy, is the Holy Spirit teaching its in the written word of the Old and Neta Testaments, every thing necessary to be known and believed, in order to glorify God and enjoy him for ever.

Second: — The R. Catholic Church believes that the only Rule is the scriptures in the old Latin, or Vulgate translation, only, together with the Apocrypha, and oral tra- ditons: and all these are to be infallibly explained by a living, speaking, infallible oracle and judge; who is, 1st, according to one sect in Holy Mother, the Pope: 2d, by another sect, a Council: 3d, by another sect, the Pope and Council: 4th, by another sect, the Holy Mother Church, — meaning the Pope and his clergy. Such is the dis- cordance of sentiments, in the very bosom of ^^ unity and infallibility,^^ touching this vitally essential point, namely, "the infallible Judge!" And this, by the way, ex- plains the phenomena, in the mode of pursuing their argument, both by my opponents and by Mr. Hughes'. They make a vaporing demonstration, and a threatening air of assault upon "the poor offending Bible," the Protestant's Rule, in order to hide the weakness of their own system. They labor to raise a cloud of smoke and dust, around the truth, and then to escape in the dark.

Here we have, at one view, the two great dividing sentiments. Protestants, with humble veneration, receive the Holy Ghost speaking in the written word, as their only Rule and Judge ; and they know, and are sure, that he speaks to them as plainly, and intelligibly, as a beloved fatlier does, in a letter to his dear child, — choosing to express his vv-ill in the plainest and simplest terms. On the contrary, the Romish Church's Rule is the Pope, or Council, or both, or Holy Mother. They are not agreed here. But they are agreed in this, that it shall not be the Holy Spirit speaking in the scrij>- tures; and that he shall have a rival, and opponent in his own house! And now, let tlie christian public decide whether we, as rational beings, shall listen to God oui Maker, speaking to us, or to an "infalhble Judge," composed of one or more fallible human beings ! And these, moreover, not very holy, nor very virtuous men ! Nay, they are men of the most presumptuous arrogance, and pontifical pride ! Did men reason and draw their information from the pure fountain of truth, and not believe, eimply, by proxy, this controversy might be settled in a few minutes. Let us examine each of these in their order : —

*1. The Protestant Rule and Judge. Suppose I say to Dr. Power, here is a point to be settled; who shall tell us what this Rule is? To whom shall we go? Shall I go with you to your "infallible Rule?" Or will you go with me to the holy scrip- tures, and hear the Spirit of God speaking infallibly to us? We cannot go to your *^ infallible Rule." This is the very subject of enquiry ; you have not yet found this infallible rule ; this is the point in debate. We can go to the holy scriptures : you admit their authenticity and inspiration. If you do not, you are deists. I repeat it, gentlemen, if you question the divine inspiration of the Bible, tod are Deists ! If you place yourselves by Paine and Hume, then I am prepared to meet 3^ou with argu- ments on the external and internal evidence of the scripture's inspiration. This, how- ever, would be a shifting of the ground.

But if you admit their divine inspiration as the Council of Trent does, — then here we have found the infallible Rule. For the same evidence which establishes their di- vine inspiration, does also establish their infaUibility. God, speaking to us, speaks infallibly the truth. Now, we have 1st, only to open their pages and listen, with pro- found reverence, to God speaking to us. Psalm xix. Here the law of God is declared

ROMAN CAtHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 9

fa be " perfect ;" it is " true ;" it is " right ;" it is " pure." Isaiah viii. 19, 20. " Should not a people seek unto their God ? for the Hving unto the dead ? To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light ia them." Here those are reproved as going away from God, even going "to the dead," on behalf of the living, who go to any human bar or judge, for the rule of truth. Again, Prov. xxx. 6. " Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar /" 2 Tim. iii. 16. " All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable, &c., that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good tvorks." Here " the perfect" word of the Lord makes the man of God perfect, and thoroughly furnished to all good works. No language can more plainly declare this rule and judge infallible. And, finally, read in Rev. xxii. 18, 19, the tremendous maledictions of Almighty God, on all those who " add to" and who " take away from" God's written word !

Here, then, we have the will of God most plainly spoken. Obscurity, v/eakness, and inefficacy, are not in the word of God. Who will challenge the Almighty and say to him, thou speakest obscurely, and weakly, and inefficiently ? Who will ven- ture to utter such blasphemy before the christian public ? If you think it, speak it out. We challenge you to come out against the Bible : call it imperfect : call it a failure. Set up the Pope against God. Bring out your accusations against the Holy Spirit. Tell the public that it is the Pope or his clergy, and not God's blessed word, that "converts," that makes us "perfect," that " furnishes thoroughly to all good works !" I know you say this in your books : this is the very basis of your argument when you go to establish your living infallible judge !

2. The Holy Scriptures are God's law ; and our Lord's last will and testament, Kaivr] Aia9r]Kri. Now, what shall be done to a man who forges a new law, and foists it into the code ? What shall be done to the man who forges, adds to, or alters a man's last will and testament, to promote his own ends ? What '■^ sorer punishmtnt" awaits the man, council, or pope, who with fearful daring, under the very eye of the Almighty, adds to, forges, and alters God's law ; and our Lord's last will and testament I

3. I shall lay before you, the following chain of reasons and maxims. God is the only lord of the conscience. Will any man deny this, and put his conscience in the keeping of pope or priest, who will, any day, pledge himself, in a manner similar to those spirital trafficers who absolved the Duke of Brimswick .' They were, by a solemn bargain, "to be damned in the old Duke's stead, if he happened to be damned for becoming a Roman Catholic!" Again, God alone can dictate to the conscience, and prescribe our creed and true form of worship. If the proudest pope who ever set foot on neck of king or emperor, should rise up and dictate these, he would seal his fate as "that man of sin, sitting in the temple of God," affecting to do God's work, by a shocking usurpation ! Besides, God only can make known his will. Ho employed rational instruments to deliver his messages. God UGver reqinrGd hcWcf ■wlthoul evi- dence. He always vouchsafed sufficient evidence, when he sent a pro])het or apostle : that evidence was exhibited by miracles, prophecies, and tongues. When any pre- sented claims to inspiration, or to give an infallible rule, the church, by her Lord's command, required the necessary evidence. Try the spirits, trhcther they be of God. The church still, must have recourse to the same mode of trying those who pretend to divine claims. If we believe without evidence, we yield ourselvtvs a prey to im- posture. If any society of men now claims to be infallible, then tliey have, from God, the usual evidence of miracles, prophecy, and tongues. If tliey w:mt these, thoy

10 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

are knaves and impostors. " Holy Mother" has actually set up these claims : she diliberalely says that God speaking in the scriptures neither is, nor can be the infedli- ble rule : but she herself is it. Tliis claim she sets up, without producing any of the ne- cessary evidence. HencC; if there be truth in the Bible, she does act the knave and impostor ! And, of course, you know whence she got her commission to do so.

I shall devote the rest of this letter to examine your invective against the infallihlt Rule of the Holy Spirit speaking in the inspired umiings. Every error and heresy has its weak side. Your reasoning betrays this palpably. The radical error, gentle- men, in your argument is this : you mistake the nature of the evidence by which this point is to be established. You say the Bible cannot prove its own autlienticity : and, therefore, it cannot be the Rule of faith. This is an instance of that crafty logic, called shifting the question, when it cannot be met ! The fore 3 of your argument is this — because a thing does- not perform that which it was not designed to do, therefore, it is not ft for the thing for which God madt it! No book proves its own authenticity ; we seek not on the pages of the Bible -r^r the proof of its authenticity. Internal evi- dence, you ought to know, is not external evidence. We prove the Bible's authenti- city by the evidence of antiquity. ( The Jews give their testimony to the Hebrew Bible's authenticity ; the primitive christians of the Waldenses and Albigenses, who have an unbroken succession of pastors from the apostolic times, give their testimony to it, by the tradition of the apostolic evidence : the many tribes of heretics and schismatics do give tlieir historical testimony to the genuine aud authentic books of the Bible : the Romish Chiurch gives its testimony to it historically. Thus friends and foes unite in their historical testimony. We have, moreover, the evidence of miracles testified to, the evidence of prophecy in these books, fulfilled, and now fulfilling. Thus, we prove the authenticity of the scriptures by txternal evidence ; and, finally, by internal evi- dence. See Home's Introduction, vol. 1., and other works on the canon of Scripture.

And this e\'idence being complete,the perfect evidence of the inspiration of the Bible is the perfect evidence of its being the onl}- infallible Rule of faith.

I pray you, gentlemen, try your objections against our Rule, with a deist, and you will see your radical mistake. A deist, says — " Dr. Power, I am glad to see your ar- guments against these heretics' Bible Rule : I hope that, as a man of sense, you will just follow out your own argument. The Bible, you say, cannot prove its own au- thenticity ; therefore, it is not the word of God ; it is not inspired ! Nay, Dr. Power, the Bible does not prove the existence of God ! Therefore, it is defective, it is not inspi^ red."' You would say, — " Sir, I prove the existence of G )d against you and atheists, from the works of natiure ; and. Sir, the Bible assumes this that there in a God ; and it is he who speaks in it to us." Just so, in reasoning against a deist ; you must prove the authenticity of the Bible, not from its own page : for he does not beheve it. You must prove it as I have said above, from other arguments : and thus, in opposing a deist, you annihilate your own argument against our Rule !

You object that the " Bible cannot be the Rule," because bad men and heretics sought shelter under it, and made a bad use of it. Profound logic ! The abuse of a thing condemns it, then. Hence, as medicine and food have been abused, it is 'v^'icked to use them for the end for which God made them ! The gospel itself has been abused by heretics ; therefore, it is unfit to bring sinners to Christ.

Again, you have ventured to object against the Bible being " the Rule," alledging that it has originated all the errors, divisions, and schisms, that exist among Protest- ants. This objection I hold up before the christian pubhc : and, do solemnly charge

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 11

on you, Rev. Gentlemen, the crime of slaisdering, and bearing false witness AGAINST God's holy scriptures I You charge on God's word the impious errors and deeds of sinful men ! The Bible, gentlemen, never originated one error, or heresy ! never countenanced them : never approved them ! On the contrary, it solemnly condemns every error that springs up ! These errors arose from man's proud con- tempt of piety, and their refusal to hear and obey the holy scriptures. Gentlemen : what have you said ? Do you deny the Bible to be God's word ? If not, then I re- peat it, God speaks in it. You must admit this, or confess yourselves deists ! Now, what have you affirmed ? The Bible has originated eiTors ! God himself, by his Spirit speaking to men, has originated errors and heresies ! Verily you utter in plain words your origin and descent !

Let us apply your argument, gentlemen, to the papal Rule. In the bosom of unity itself and under the working of "the infallible rule" of the Pope, ten errors, heresies, and divisions, have sprung up for every one of the Protestants ! Then where are your pretensions to an " infallible Rule !" I appeal to the public, then, whether your argument does not involve slander and blasphemy !

You object against " the Bible Rule," and say that if it were infallible, as we alledge, " why does it not flash on the minds of all ? why are there any deists ?" — Verily, gentlemen, you take incredible pains to show off your infallible logic ! If this logic will prop up his holiness' throne, the literature of your school will work miracles. I shall thus test your objection. A deist says to Dr. Power, — " Sir, — the gospel of the Bible, or the system which Christ taught does not flash on the minds of all, — nay. Sir, the dictates of your infallible Rule, councils, and popes, do not Jlash on the minds of all; there are Turks Jews, and deists within your pale, and all around you, therefore the gospel, and even popery itself is a fiction P' How will you meet this logic with which you arm the deist ?

I conclude by calling on you to come out in the defence of your " infallible Rule,'''* composed o^ fallible materials. You have been concealing yourselves hitherto, in the smoke and dust of deistical objections, against the Bible. The public solicit answer to the following questions : —

What is, in reality your Rule and Judge ? Why do you decorate the apocrypha with the honors of inspiration, since even the authors of these books never took it into their heads to claim it ; or to be prophets. See Mac. iv. 46. ch. ix. 27; but on the con- trary craved pardon for errors committed by them ? See 2 Mac. xv. 38, &c. What evidence have you that oral traditions were given by Christ for part of the Rule ? Where can these traditions possibly be found ? Wlio is your Judge of controversy ? Is it the Pope ? Is it a council ? Is it the Pope and council ? Is it Holy Mother Church ? What is it you mean, in soberness, by " Holy Mother Church ?" Have any of your popes been pagan idolators ? Was Marcellinus ? Which of them here- tics ? Was Libcrius the Arian ? Which of them a Nero in vico ? Was Alexan- der ? Have you had more than three popes at one time ? Wcrfenhey all muiiially doomed ? Were all these the infallible judges and dictalor^'f IVtTing succos ^ors'iof the Apostles, you must sustain your claims by aposrtoltcai!llfcv!dfc'iti6'c,'orible iniiM)stm«l Have you had no errors, no divisions, no schisms, iii'yoilV'tindifir'tti'ftl v<iryii*yoi'^f infallibility? Whence lias it hay)iyt^bka,/-4lWdUlH^,-l^idiMf*illri^k\W^k'i'<W,«^tMtMiiV^ libility did not settle th(> imih\idMle^,^hlh iion^in\mni*km^y ^^^^^^ Mary ; and the brawls;' '^ild'''t^ff(A•^^■'tliUtW^lly'(ihil^^e<t'<h^^^c*^•^UM11W^^ and Jesuits: Franci^tf^'%i^'^b^toii^««^1^ V^Okn^'^^^'^ttett^risMlVrV ^^ibt^J^i^^^ir

12 ROMAJf CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

your Rule, viz. the universal consent of the fathers, can possibly be found ; as it i^ not on the pages of their endless contradictions ? Do not your Rule and judge, being human beings, take away liberty of conscience, and put it in the pope and priest's keeping ? And, finally, does not your " infallible Rule'' require all devout Catholics, absolutely to believe things contrary to, and contradicted by, the positive evidence of all their senses 1 Namely, that by a certain sacerdotal process, a wafer is converted into the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ !

Meet these questions fairly, and honestly, as logicians, and theologians ! And I shcdl pay my respects to your Rule, and your defence of it, in my next. One word to my friends : this, I call only skirmishing ; for I am pressed for want of time. I pro- pose to 6egtn the controversy with my learned opponents, soon, in good earnest.

I am, Gentlemen, Yours, &c.

New York, Feb. 18, 1833. W. C. Brownlee.

TO THE REV. DR. VARELA.

Rev. Sir : — The unique letter which you have done me the honor of addressing Xo sne, would have been highly amusing, had it not been for its uncompromising spirit of deism !

What amused me, was the manner of 3'our retreat from the present discussion, after you had signed your pledge to stand by your Rev. Brethren. I knew that my kind hearted neighbor, Dr. Varela, was a curious antiquarian as well as a classic scholar. And he has been studying the antiquated Parthian character. These ancient wor- thies, when in \dew of the enemy, would retreat at full gallop ; but in their retreat they always discharged a shot or two, ^xixh their bows and arrows. So friend Varelar Parthian like, retreats ; but fires off an epistle, from his retreat, before he gives me Ms " farewell," and " leaves me in good hands !"

But, Sir, you should not have retreated ; you should have remained firm to your pledge. It is true, you could not brook such letters as those which the other two priests are inflicting on the public taste. But you were pledged, and you should not have retreated.

It is painful to see a gentleman of your age and experience, advocating the leading principle of Deism ! Paine and Hume would have cordially acceeded to, and ap- plauded your sentiments against the Holy Bible. You and they pronounce it unfit, and too imperfect, to be the Rule of Faith/ I appeal to the Christian community, whether it is not obviously the spirit of infidelity that you advocate.

1st. You ask, — "Where in the scriptures do you find that the scriptures are the only Rule of faith ?" This I have already sho\\Ti in my two letters. See Psalms xix ; Prov. XXX. 5, 6 ; Isaiah viii. 19, 20 ; 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17; Rev. xxii. 18, 19, &c.

2d. You demand, " From what scriptures were the scriptures beheved, w^hen they were first written ?" The Scriptures were beheved by the people of God, on the satia- factory evidence which the inspired prophet or apostle produced, to estabhsh hiB commission from heaven. His miracles and predictions showed that God sent him; and then, his words and his writings were believed to be from God. The scriptures are beheved on account of their external, as well as their internal evidence. I am aware of the radical error tmder which you and the other Priests labor. It is this, — you be- live that the Bible has no evidence^ and no authority ^ but just that which the Pope and

iflOMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVE&SY. 13

tilt Romish Church choose to give to it! You will not allow even God himself to speak to us, but jast as the Pope pleases. This is the fundamental error of the Ro- mish church ! But the world is now too enlightened to submit to such Gothic ideas!

3. You say, — " Not the scripture, but its interpretation forms the different creeds of different Protestant sects. Hence these interpretations are real articles of faith. Now what scripture have Protestants for these interpretations ?"

I reply, — God does, indeed, speak plainly and clearly in the scriptures ; the Chris- tian apprehends his will and mind without difficulty. But it is equally certain that men of perverse minds do not apprehend them aright. Hence the origin of error.

Now, the design of our creed is not, as you conceive, to substitute a human rule, in the place of the divine rule ; but simply to detect, and keep out errorists from the fold of Christ. We say " here is the holy Bible." The false teacher says " I take it as it is, as my rule." We reply, " No, you do not receive it in truth, unless you receive it in this precise sense and meaning, in which the church of Christ receives it, and has expressed it in her canons." If man were never false, we should probably not need these tests.

These articles of faith are not wholly expressed in the language of scripture : they could not be a test if they were. But then every doctrine of faith contained in them is carefully taken from the Bible : not one new idea is added : nothing is taken away. And, in all cases, the scriptures are our only and perfect rule by which all these canons and articles are themselves tried. You ask, "what scripture we have for all this?" I answer,— 1 John iv. 1: " Beloved, believe not every spirit : but try tlie spirits whether they be of God,"

" 4. You ask, if the scriptures be so plain, why do Protestants explain it ? Why do you preach ?"

Here you bring forward the leading tenet of Popery, namely, the scriptures are so obscure that no man can explain or understand them, but the pope and his priests.

I beg to ask you. Sir, this question, — "Do you, or do you not, believe that the scriptures were given by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost ? If you do not, you are a deist ! If you do, then you admit that the Hol}^ One speaks to us in them. If he does, then you will admit that He means to be understood. And yet you have the boldness to charge tlie Holy Spirit with intentional obscurity and darkness, so that his own subjects cannot understand him ! " Why do we preach them ?" Why, to train up God's people by instruction, by prayer, and praise ; and to make the authoritative offer of the gospel to sinners ; and administer the sacraments to the faithful. May I not tetort on iou ? Why do Romish priests preach, since they have a living, speak- ing, infalliblo'-rule, the pope ?

" 5. The rule of your faith is, that the scriptures must be understood and obsen-ed according to private judgmcnit, and not precisely according to the judgmcat of tht; church." I am sorry that you give such palpable proofs of being utterly unacquaint- ed with the opinions and dogmas of Protestants. I exhort you to remember the ^•alu- able proverb, that before we speak or write on a subject, toe should know something' about it ! You ought to know, 1st, that what you state here, is not true. The Pro- testant churches do not so understand the scriptures. 2d. By the Reformation, wo regained from gliostly tyranny, the rights of conscience and private jiidgnunit. We think and judge for ourselves : we do not manage religion by proxy, as the pope's subjects do : wc do not trust our unalienable rights of conscience and private judgment to the supervision of a ghostly impostor, nor accecpt his vaptuing guarantee ol'

3

14 ROMA> CAXriOLiC CO.NTKO Vf:R3T.

heaven. We cannot believe with the duke of Brunswick, that " a priest can be accepted in our stead, should we be condemned for becoming papists." The priestly guarantee of heaven is copied from the model of that personage, who, with equal boldness, offered our Lord the whole world if he would worship him ; while, in fact, he did not possess one foot square of its whole surface ! Indeed, we deem the insult offered to us, by those priests, who profess to hold tha judgment and consciences of men under their entire control ; and who denounce " the fire of purgatory," and " the wrath of God, and St. Peter, and St. Paul," on all v/ho shall dare read the Bible, or even think for themselves on matters of religion, — to be the greatest insult offered to our species ! 3d. A gentleman of your reading ought to know what is a subject of historical record, namely, — that no private individuals, but the pastor, or bishops, and elders of the Reformed churches, met in councils, far purer and holier than the council of Trent : and emitted our canons and confessions of faith, which they esta- blished by copious and infallible extracts from the scriptures. And yet this judg- ment of the church of God is gravely pronounced by you a private judgment ?

I beg leave to charge publicly on your church, Sir, the crime of having long per- verted a text of St. Peter. I allude to his words in the second epistle, Chap. i. 20, 21. " No PROPKECT of the scriptures is of any private interpretation, &:c." St. Peter here speaks of prophecy, and of that alone. But your sect. Sir, has all along com- mitted the inexcusable error of making the apostle say,—" No scripture is of any private interpretation." I call on Dr. Varela, as an honest man, to put a speedy end to this scandalous imposition upon Roman Catholic laymen. If you do not, — then let your laymen judge of their priests' honor and honesty !

" 6. Why did not Luther and Melancthon on one side, and Cahin and Zuinglius on the other, agree upon the meaning of these plain words — this is my body ? Who have the spirit ?"

I reply, — they have tlie Spirit who adhere the closest to the plain doctrine of the Bible, and to common sense. Had Luther shaken off", at once, all the monkish absurdi- ties, he would have believed not only that no wafer could be made into a God, but that no ivafer cotild contain God, or his presence !

But, Sir, I have already replied to this, and shown your radical error in this mode of conducting an argument. Can it be possible, Sir, that you do not know that an " infallible ride and judge''' really do not secmre the infallibihty of all those who may happen to use that rule ?

Are you infallible, because the pope is your head and keeps yoiur conscience ? Are all the Catholics in New York infallible 1 Do your own " infallible rule" and *' living, speaking judge," actually make every son of Holy Mother infallibly armed against all vice, and all error, and heresy ?

7. You assail us about " the various and different translations of the Bible in Protestant countries." Each nation has its own tongue and idiom ; and hence there may be shades of difference in the expression. But not one doctrine, — not one idea is altered, or perverted by any of all the translations of the Reformed churches. Be- sides, Dr. Varela, you ought to know, that the Hebreio and the Greek are the infallible standards, and the last resort in all disputed translations. But, Sir, it is amazing to hear tou, or any of 3'our church attack our translations, — when the "infallible coun- cil of Trent" has sanctioned the Latin Vulgate as the only one to be used. And every Hebrew and Greek scholar in Christendom knows that the Vulgate, as it note is, — i«

THE VERY worst OF THE WORST TRANSLATIONS !

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 15

S. You expatiate, as usual, " on the differences and divisions of the Protestants." 1 have replied twice to this already. This is the stereotype declamation of the priests, in *' Holy Mother." Now, this comes with the worst grace from a Roman Catholic. For every otie error and division among Protestants, there are at least, ten errors, divi- iions, and heresies, in the very bosom of unity herself. I ask you, Sir, are you a Jansenist ? Or a Jesuit ? A Dominican ? Or a Franciscan ? Is your infallible rule in the pope ? Or is it in a council I Or in the pope and council ? Or in *' Holy Church ?" Here is a fatal division of four of your sects within your church, touching this first essential doctrine ! To which of all these sects do you belong ? And finally, if you have infallibility, somewhere, why does it not come out, and settle these brawls and heresies in what you call your "holy, one, undivided church?"

" 9. Can the law be the judge ? Who applies it ? Are the scriptures the law ? Can they be the judge ?" I reply, again, the scriptures are the law and rule ; and the Holy Ghost, speaking to us in them, is the Judge. Sit down at Christ's feet, Dr. Varela, and listen, and receive his law, and his rule. But, if you did so, — alas ! what a havoc would you make of your oral traditions and councils : your pope and cardi- nals, all must go ; and even " the idols must be thrown to the moles and the bats !"

" 10. Private spirit is fallible, can it be the judge of an infallible faith ?'" I reply, that you misrepresent us. The Holy Spirit speaks to us infallibly true. And we can take up his holy mind and will, more readily and easily, than your priests can take up the mind and luill of " the infallible'''' and divided popes and councils ! ! Permit me to ask you : How many fallihhs in a pope and council, will go to make up one INFALLIBLE ? Solvc this problem, before the christian public. If you can, you will work a miracle on your own behalf!

*' 11. Private spirit is unknown but to him who possesses it; can it be the known rule of faith that will gather men in one infallible faith and religion." — The private or interior spirit never was advocated, or even allowed to exist in the bosom of the Protestant churches. False prophets and fanatics have ever been ejected from the fold of Christ. Your charge against us here, is either unintelligible, or, pardon me, it is wilful slander ! The Romish church, as every well read man knows, has been the steady patron o{ fanatics, and the interior spirit ! Witness your Tanquelmus, and the Amauri, and the Whip per s, in whose processions such royal fanatics as the king of France, and the Cardinal Lorraine have more than once joined to patronize the interior spirit. See Boileau's Hist, of the Flagel. chap. 23. And, finally, your own preacher Taulerus exhibited his fanatical effusions at Cologne in A. D. 1346. Thes^ sermons were published in various places ; and originated almost every fanatica). acct in Holland, France, and Britain, after the Reformation !

" 12. The spirit is your key to open the mysteries of tlie scriptures, but what sign have you to distinguish the true from the evil spirit ?" I have just answered this charge of fanaticism. Those who have claimed immediate inspiration, and gave their signs, and wrought their miracles, were the fanatics who sprung up in " Holy Mother's" bosom, and poured their deluges of outrageous folly over the land. They were uniformly ejected by all the Protestant churches. Your charge, brought against Luther and Calvin, that they professed to work miracles, and raise the drad, is copi- ed from the pages of the wretched liolsec ; not one of whose statements even a Roman priest ever believed. For you know that that man was such an atrocious apostate, that he was excluded from even your communion ; and he died under " Holy Mo- Uier's" ban !

16 ROMAjr CATHOLIC C05TR0VEKST.

" 13. How can you prove a man to be a heretic, if he has the same rule of faith with you, and the same right to apply it ?" To this I reply that it is no difficult mat- ter to convict a man who is a heretic. For instance, the word of God teaches us that he is a heretic who makes a man, St. Peter, for instance, the foundation of the church, instead of Christ! He is a heretic who makes a man the head of the church, instead of Christ ! He is a heretic who bows down to stocks and stones, and prays to dead men, and dead women ! He is a heretic who believes that purgatory, and not Christ's blood, purges away our sins! He is a heretic who makes a god, prays to him, — and then eats him up ! All this the Bible tells us very plainly. He may indeed say that he adheres to the Bible also, as his rule. But it is an easy matter to make it manifest that his monstrous heresy is not countenanced by the Bible. And then by witnesses, we can prove that the man does hold, and teach these revolting errors. He may swagger and assume high airs, and call himself '■''a holy priest,"' and " is no less than infallible,'''' and " can open heaven, and shut'xtJ''' Poor man ! this only proves that he labors under a spiritual madness. The fact is, we can, in a church court, convict him of heresy, notwithstanding all his delusions and wildness, just as easily as we can a murderer in a court of justice. I hope I have fairly answered you.

" 14. Can any man learn by himself, from the scriptures, every essential point of faith, without any fear of error?" I answer, yes; he can learn, without error, all that Christ has revealed, for our salvation. But he can find there none of all the essential doctrines of the Roman Catholic church. For the Bible never contained them, and Christ never taught them ! Finally, I reply in the words of St. Paul, — . " All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, &c., and that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to all good works.''''

I shall not follow you, at present, through your quotations from the writings of the Reformers. You know, and all the world knows, that these Protestants solemnly condemned the errors of popery to which you cling ; and wrote unanimously against them. With what degree of honor, or honesty, you profess to quote in favor of your errors, men publicly known as their avowedly greatest enemies, I shall leave the pub- lic to judge. " Give me permission," said an eminent partizan of the Romish church, " to select scraps from the pages of the best writer in France, and 1 shall soon have him hanged for high treason !"

Farewell, Dr. Varela : I reciprocate your kindness, and " leave you in good hands." May God bless you, and save you by his grace.

Yours very truly, and respectfully. W. C. B.

LETTER m.

TO DOCTORS POWER, VARELA, AND MR. LEVINS,

" Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram ! Quale per iiicertam lunam, sub luce maligna, Est iter in sylvis." — Virg.

Rev. Gentlemen : — The elegant Roscoe relates that a certain laconic senate in Italy, condemned a man for employing* three words where two only should have been used. And their sentence doomed him to one of two punishments : namely, — to go to the galleys for life, or to read through the verbose work of Guiciardini. The cul-

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 17

prit chose the latter. But having fairly choked on the first page ;— he begged his punishment to be commuted to the galleys for life.

It is not difficult to conceive your certain fate, if brought to this bar. And your punishment would lie between the choice of the galleys, and the reading and digest- ing of your extraordinary letters !

Verbosity is not your only besetting sin. There is something else in it, which a man of delicate and refined taste, would, with McGavin, call "billingsgate ;" or in the words of Dr. Chalmers, " blackguardism." Yet, in charity it may be only a wild burst of emotions from consciences stricken by the force of truth. I shall extract one sentence as a specimen of your first two columns ; and leave it without remark. " In it," that is, my letter, — " there is the strut of the bully ! the gasconade of the coward ! the subterfuge of the dissembler ! the trick of the partizan ! the pretensions of the sciolist! the petulence of the sour Calvinist! the malignant zealotry of the Puritan!"

You have volunteered a confession of "the inspiration, authenticity, and genmne-> ness of the holy scriptures." You say, — " 7Ve deny not the inspiration of the scnp-> tures ;" — " }Ve hold the scriptures to be an infallible rule^

I am sorry that there is room for saying that a palpable deception is practised in these terms. The word " scriptures'''' has a very different meaning in the Roman Catholic's vocabulary, from that of the Protestant's. All the world knows that in the belief of the Protestant, the books of the Old Testament, and those of the New, in the Hebrew and Greek, rendered accurately into our vernacular,- — and nothing else than these, constitute the holt scriptures.

But in your creed, gentlemen, you add to the inspired books, the human writings and fictions, called the Apocrypha : and then all these must be used in the Latin false version, called the Vulgate. This is not all; you add oraZ traditions, of unknown and doubtful origin; and, moreover the unanimo\is consent of the fathers ! All these con- stitute your "scriptures:" and this is what you always intend when you speak of the scriptures ! And to consummate the difference between us. You denounce the private christian's unalienable right to read the Bible, and to learn the meaning of God's Spirit speaking plainly and clearly unto him. You deny, and even ridicule the claims of the private rights of judgment. You treat with bitter sarcasm the christian's liberties of conscience. You have usurped power over the conscience, and deny that any man has a right from God, even to think for himself on religion, with- out license from a priest ! Hence, you not only set up a new rule, and invent new scriptures ; but you erect a novel tribunal to dictate to men's consciences the mean- ing of the "scriptures!" This new tyrant is — you say, — "a visible society of men, appointed by Christ, called the church of God, — meaning the Romish church ; or the pope and his clergy ! And I beg every christian and patriot in the republic to examine the claims which our priests set up in behalf of this foreign despot, — " to this society of men," say you, " for the final ending of all controversies iu religion, all chrislians are hound to adhere and submit their judgment, and their opinions, on points of religion ; and this on pain of eternal damnation P'' — Priests' Leltor ii.

Is not this the climax of pontifical arrogance ; the consummation of fanaticism : the full overflowings of the deadly chalice of Popery, — whose master si)inis wore seen in visions by John, " trafficing in human souls!"

I have, iu my last two letters, iu the briefest mainior possible, established the truth of the authenticity, aud mspiratioii of the holy scriptures: and, thence, showed shnX.

3*

18 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSt»

this evidence is the perfect evidence of the infallibiUty of the Bible ; in which the Holy Ghost, as the infalUble judge, speaks to us- This also, decides the canonicity of each of the books, of the holy canon of scripture. Every book established by the evidence referred to, is a part of that canon ; and every book which is not sustained by this evidence, is not to be received into the canon. We pointed out the radical error of Romish writers, on this point. They make the authority and proof of the inspiration of the scriptures, to depend on "the church," meaning the Romish church ! This is one of their chief and most mischievous errors. It aims a deadly blow at divine revelation. But the Bible does, in truth, no more depend on the Roman church for the evidence of its divinity, and authority ; than does the sustain- ing of the heavens and the earth depend on the pope's nod ! Their divinity and inspiration are fully sustained by other, and complete portions of evidence besides tradition ; namely internal and external, from the display of miracles, from predictions, &c. And we distinctly noticed, and again repeat it, — that, for the tradition, or histo- rical evidence of the church, which hands the canon of scripture down, simply as a depository, we are as much indebted to the Hebrews, and the Jews ; to the Greek church ; to the pure and apostolical church of the Waldenses ; and to the libraries of the curious, whether christians or heretics ; as well, and as much as to the church of Rome. That this last sect should set up such arrogant pretensions, and claim the whole honor of transmitting the Bible, and of giving it all its authority], must be set down to sheer knavery, or a derangement in the moral faculty.

Now, from this evidence, I proved the word of God to be the only infallible rule of faith: for it, and it alone, comes from God : and the Holy Ghost speaking to us, is the only judge of controversy, in religious matters. And I quoted select passages which clearly and distinctly declare the mind of that only judge deciding the contro- versy. And these who set themselves in opposition to these texts, and their authority are guilty of the crime of setting up the pope as a rival to the Holy Ghost ! I rest my appeal with the public. And remember, gentlemen, that the petulent denial that you gave to these texts, for argument you have none, was not in proper keeping. You have no right to pronounce sentence on one of my arguments : you are neither judge nor jury. It belongs to the christian public, to pronounce, finally, on mine, and your arguments.

And by this protestant lesson and logic, to which all priests are, by their habits, of course, utter strangers, I trust you will duly profit, and fructify in future.

You have, with much zeal, endeavored from the outset, to retard vciy approach to examine your rule : but now we have it fairly before us ; and though you renew the stereotype challenge to stop at certain points, until you be satisfied, I assure you, gentle- men, that I have three reasons for rejecting this demand : —

1. As a Protestant, I will not be dictated to, as to the mode of my argument. For, —

2. You have not got us into the Inquisition yet : and we Protestants do not view with much love, this mode a la Spanish, of joining the sword to the pen. And,

3. The ivhole question of the rule, is before us, and why do you affect to say that I shall discuss only one point, — and not touch your rule, or take in the whole field ?

Before entering on the dissection of the popish rule and judge, it will be interesting to trace the origin of this extravagant dogma, and the real motive which first led the partizans of Rome to adopt it.

Dr. Middleton, in his curious " Letter from Royne,^' has fully and satisfactorily traced into the ancient Roman paganism, almost every characteristic rite and ceremony,

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSIV 19

which the Roman Catholics have introduced into their corrupted system of Christianity » The parallel is truly striking, and shall be noticed in due time. But the originating cause of her adopting this dogma about the rule of faith, is found solely within the bosom of her own ambition. The famous Chillingworfh has traced it with a master's hand in the following extract, which will be perused by my readers, with deep interest :—

" He that would usurp an absolute lordship and tyranny over any people^ need not put himself to the trouble and difficulty of abrogating, and disannulling the laws made to maintain the common liberty : for he may frustrate their intention and com- pass his own design as well, if he can get the power and authorithy to interpret them as he pleases, and add to them what he pleases, and to have his interpretations and additions stand for laws ; if he can rule his people by his laws, and his laws by his lawyers. So the church of Rome, to establish her tyranny over men's consciences, needed not either to abolish or corrupt the holy scriptures, the pillars and supporters of christian liberty, (which in regard of the numerous multitude of copies dispersed through all places, translated into almost all language, guarded with all solicitous care and industry, had been an impossible attempt :) but the more expedite way, and therefore the more likely to be successful, was to gain the opinion and esteem of the public authorised interpreter of them, and the authority of adding to them what doc- trine she pleased, under the title of traditions, or definitions. For by this means, she might both serve herself of all those clauses of scripture which might be drawn to cast a, favorable countenance upon her ambitious pretences, which in case the scriptures had been abolished, she could not have done, and yet be secure enough of having either her power limited, or her corruptions and abuses reformed by them. This being once settled in the minds of men, that unwritten doctrines if proposed by her, were to be received with equal reverence to those that were written ; and that the sense of scrip- ture was not that which seemed to men's reason and understanding to be so, but that which the church of Rome should declare to be so, seemed it never so unreasonable and incongruous. The matter being once thus ordered, and the holy scriptures being made in effect, not your directors and judges, (no farther than you please :) but your servants and instruments, always pressed, and in readiness to advance your de- signs it is safe for you to put a crown on their head, and a reed in their hands, and

to bow before them and cry: Hail Khig of the Jews! To pretend a great deal of esteem, and respect, and reverence to them."

I. The Roman Catholic Church cannot pretend, with any show of reason, to j;os- sess this " infallible rule," when her greatest men cannot agree among themselves, in deciding where this rule exists. Every one knows the endless diversity of senti- ment among the Romish writers, touching the point where this infallible power lies. I have formerly noticed four distinct sects among them. I have now to add, that one class led on by Pighius, Albert, Gretscr, and Bellarmine, and f(jllowed by all the Jesuits, place the exercise of infjillible power in the pope, and make him the deposi- tory of interpretation. Bellarmine De Pontif. Lib. iv. caj). 3, and cap. 5, says " the pope cannot possibly err." The canon law in the gloss, calls the pope, "the Lord God." The Bishoj) of Bitonlo, Mussus, has styled him : " Him who is to us as our god upon earth." The bishop of Grenada calh^l him, " a god on earth not subject to a council." And so late as July, 1809, Pope Pius VH., in excoinnunru'ating "his own dear son" Nai)oleon, whonj lie had crowned and blessed, says: "■ We, unwyrthy m we are, represent the God of peace !"

30 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

Another class make the pope an unlimited monarch in spiritual and civil matters. This was the sentiment of the councils of Florence, of the Lateran, and of Trent. Another class violently oppose this tyranny, and stand up in behalf of the rights of councils ; and they assign the pope only the right of presidency. Du Pin, Paola and others advocate this ; and they are sustained by the decisions of the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basil. And Pope Eugenius IV. did solemnly for awhile, ac- knowledge this. These opinions respect the pope's supremacy, and his infallibility.

The decretals of Pope Pius I., declare for the rights of bishops against the lordly claims of their superiors. " Bishops are accountable only to God." Bellarmine opposes this with tierce zeal, and places the pope above all councils, and all tribunals on earth, and all law ! To crown the climax, he writes thus: DcPontif. Lib. iv.cap.5. ''^ If the -pope could so far err, as to command vice and prohibit virtue, the Church would be hound to believe vice to be good, and virtue to be bad!'' I can give many more quo- tations, were it necessary, out of the canon law, and decretals of Pope Gregory VIII. This was the usual style of the ghostly powers in the dark ages. But, now they have gradually receded from this folly and impiety, down through the other shades of dif- ference, to a " mere presidency of the pope." And Dr. Pise, I heard assert on the floor of the Protestant Association, that they owned the pope merely as their " spiritual head,'' and rejected him, or rather, never owned him as a temporal prince ! It is true, no man who has read the canon law and decretals, can for a moment, believe this statement of Dr. Pise. For the pope "infallibly" claims this power and still wear* the triple crown. Eellarm. Lib. v. cap. 6.

Other Romish wiiters have placed councils above the pope : and there have been councils that have actually exercised this power. The council of Sinuessane if we may believe ancient records, and your Remish annotators, Luke xxii. 21, arraigned, tried, and condemned Pope Marcelline for pagan idolatry! T!ie council of Con- stance condemned Pope John XXIII. , and that of Basil condemned Pope Eugenius IV.

The assembly of Cardinals and Prelates of France in 1G25, declared that "his Holiness the pope is above all calumn}'-, and his faith out of the reach of error I" This was the dogma of the Jesuits. " The church " say many writers, and my opponents among the rest, "the church is the infallible rule and judge." No; says another class ; "the pope alone is judge ;" "The pope is above the Catholic church." "No council can touch him," says Pighius. "He is above councils," says Bellannine, yet he adds like a holy son of infallibility, "he may be deposed, only for heresy." Lib. ii. De pont. Cap. 30. Yes! say several "infallible councils," '■'we are above the pope, and can try him, and can depose him, and we have done it!" And thus, they suit the action to the word, like honest men !

Thus, it is manifest that the leading men of the Roman church are all agreed that they have within '■'■the church,''' an infallible rule and judge. But they are at endless war among themselves respecting the place w^here it is deposited. We have it; tliat is certain; but we cannot tell where it is! Hence Dean Swift observed that "really Holy Mother might as well be without an infallible head; as not to know where to find him, in time of necessity !"

But, nevertheless, they agree in a marvellous manner on this point ; namely, — to reject unanimously the infallible rule of God our Saviour; and himself as the infal- lible Judge. "They are not content with Christ the judge in heaven; and the holy scriptures the rule and judge on earth," — says an emment writer, — "but they must

ROMAN Cx\THOLIC CONTROVERSY. 21

have another judge ; a visible judge. Like the Israelites, they must have a msible god to go before them, — though it were but a calf!''^

Let the Roman Cathohcs go then, and try their infalhble rule in the composing of their own internal wars and controversies. Let them do thisr before they stalk forth as my learned opponents say, in reference to their present warfare, — " armingv themselves with a panoply tempered by no terrestrial artist ;" to attack the genius of Protestantism in his strong holds. It will be well for them, if, like the hero Don Quixotte, they meet only a windmill, in a siinilar illusion of the brain !

II. What the Roman Catholic church claims as the only infallible rule, is a thing absolutely beyond the reach of the pope, or any council. It is positively impractica- ble of application by mere mortals !

Were it not for the impiety of the thing, it were a piece of pleasant humor to hear a Roman priest descanting about the obscurity of the Bible ; and melting into pathos about the impossibility of God's own rational creatures understanding a plain and luminous message of the gospel from their Creator ! Now, in opposition to all his declamation, it is evident that the priest never feared, nor even believed the obscurity of the Bible. It is because it is " so small a book,'"' and of such easy access ; and because it is so plain and clear, that he does fear it ; and labour to keep it out of the hands of the laity. If it were obscure, it would do " Holy Mother" no harm!

But, let anyone look at the "infallible rule" of the Catholic Church! 1st. if includes the scriptures, with the apocrypha, with all its fictions and indecencies. Now, I tell you, gentlemen, the pope, and your church can no more wield the sword of the spirit, and fix infallible interpretations ; and subdue the human soul ; and produce faith ; and create a new heart in man ; and convey divine grace, — all which our infal- lible word, and judge do, — than they can create a new Ireland; or even cleanse the Augean stable of his Holiness's court at Rome !

This is not all. — In your rule, and as an essential part of it, you reckon all the acts, and decisions of "Holy Mother Church." — These are deposited, in, at least, 8 folio volumes of the Popish Bulls: in 10 folio volumes of Decretals: in 31 folio volumes of Acts of Councils; in 51 folio volumes of the Doings and Sayings of the Saint's, — "i'Acta Sanctorum." And add to all this, at least 35 volumes of the Greek and Latin fathers ; in which are to be found that part of your rule called the unanimous consent of the fathers. And to all this chaos of unread, unexamined, unimagined materials, you add the almost houndlesa list o[ unwritten traditions, which, like the learned Ger- man's book, contain "observations and dogmas on all things, — and something* besides :" — -traditions which have floated down on the wind, and the miasmatic air of Rome for nearly ] 260 years!

All these cumbrous and enormous additions made to the holy scriptures, constitutt^ the Roman Catholic rule : the pope is judge. This judge must know the holy Bible infallibly and wliolly: he must be minutely, perfectly, and infaUibly ac(piainted with all the above named 135 foho volumes : he must know infallibly all (heir unknowable contents: reconcile all their irreconcilable contradictions: know minutely, and infal- libly, all the cases, and wants of all his dear flock, namely, the cardinals, })rclates, priests, and lay subjects; ho must know the hearts of all; and be able to send light into the human mind, and uprightness into the liuman conscience: ho must know the merits, perfectly, of each contending parti/.an, and order of friars; and set forth, in a plain, clear, and luminous page, every truth U) settle disputes; so that if the combat- Rflits 4o pot see it, his infaUibU rule njay yet cgavince and couvert all the predestiuateU

52 ROMAN CATHOLIC COytROVERSt.

children of heaven! And, finally, as the first step towards his evidence of doing alt the rest, he must write down as clearly, as by a sun beam, the place where the long sought for, the terra incognita ; the undiscovered, and undiscoverable land of infalli- bility and supremacy, can be found ! That is, your infallible judge must begin by conquering an absolute impossibility ; and this being achieved, he must show proof further, bytriumphantly proceeding- to conquer ten thousand impossibihties ; annually, and hourly, and each passing moment, day and night!

This being manifestly the true state of the case, one is almost tempted to think the claims of the Romish church to one infallible head or judge only, to be quite moderate and modest! I am persuaded that, in order to know infallibly the Hebrew text, and the Greek text ; and all the different sentiments and doctrines contained in these 135 folio volumes ; and to digest and arrange all the oral traditions : and bring the unani- vious consent out of the fathers, where no consent ever existed, — not even ten millions of popes, such as the luxurious and etfeminate things, which have reigned in Roma under the name of popes, could do the ten millionth part required of this rule ! 1 1

Nay, I must put the case stronger still ; none but Almighty God has the attribute of infallihility : none but God can reveal to the church his own word: none can be the lord of the conscience, but our Creator : and he is supreme Lord thereof. And there can be no more any inferior, or subordinate lord of the conscience, as my opponent* affirm, than there can be a rival to the Almighty on the throne of our hearts, ajid on his throne in heaven ! None can be judge and rule of faith, but he alone who can create a new heeirt in us; and make us true christians, even the Great God, who, indeed, uses men as pastors, and to be our spiritual teachers and ad\isers ; but who alone knows all the secrets of the souls of all men : and who alone con\TLnces and converts. Ht alone can be the judge ; and his word alone can be our rule. And those who set up these counter claims, we repeat it, must either be Jesuitical knaves, using false and wicked pretences to gain an ascendency over the souls, bodies, and goods of men; or else, they are deranired in the moral faculty ! This claim set up by the pope, and the priests, reminds me of a saying of a maniac in the Philadelphia Asylum, " People think me idle here, in my cloister, or dungeon cell, in this easy old bachelor life, which I am leading ! But, alas ! for the ignorance of mankind I Be it known, that I keep in motion the balance wheel of heaven : but for me, aU nature would stand still I"

The pope's claims are fully as extensive and extravagant. He absolutely affects to do, in the spiritual world, in the church, in purgatory, and in heaven, what the ma- niac believed he did in the natural world ! The pope keeps the balance wheel of heaven in motion ; but for him, all illuminations, and all efficacies of grace, and all conversions, and all dehverances from sin, and all emancipation from purgatory ; and entrances into heaven, will cease and stand still ! ! And thus " as God, he sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God!"

This is the commencement of our argument against your rule. I shall here pause, in order that I may pay my respects to you, in a re\aew of the leading errors and mis- statements in your last letter.

1. You charge me wiih a want of unity in my last letter. I assure you there is strict logical unity in it. I laid down my rule of faith ; defended it ; and closed by showing that every objection you brought against our rule, operated ten times more severely against your rule. This was the reason why I noticed the errors, heresies, and division in your church.

But 2, There is an error in your statement, which I shall bring before the public ;

I

R031AN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY- 23

for I frankly tell you that I have no hope that you will correct it. It is a mis-statement copied, as usual from Milner's End of Religious Controversy. It is the standing error, the stereotype misrepresentation of the Roman Cotholic writers ; and is repeated by every little scribe which undertakes the defence of " Holy Mother." It is this : You never give our own definitions, nor a fair description of the Protestant rule.

We have repeatedly stated that our only infallible rule is the scriptures : and the only infallible judge is the Holy Spirit, speaking to us in them. — And these words of God are interpreted by his own words in other passages ; that is, — the Spirit speaking in the word, interprets it to his church. And hence, it is a proverb in the lips of all Protestants, that the Bible, or the Spirit speaking in the Bible, is its own best inter- preter. All Protestants have solemnly denied that their rule is the Bible as explained by private interpretation ; or as understood by every private individual! And yet with these denials before his eyes, Milner asserts this falsehood over and over ag-ain, in his End of Religious Controversy. You gentlemen, have repeated and propagated this same slander. You invariably tell your followers what every one knows to be false, tliat the Protestant's Rule is their Bible as interpreted by private judgment, or "the interior Spirit." Indeed, your whole argument throughout is based on this unmanly misrepresentation !

Your error has arisen from mistaking our declarations, touching private judgment. We affirm that in the "ever blessed Reformation," we achieved "the right of pri- vate judgment," to think for ourselves and choose our religion. Not even an infant scholar is so ignorant as to think of hiring a priest to keep his conscience, and settle his spiritual accounts with his Maker, for money !

But we carefully teach our people, that while they have this rig*ht of private judg- ment, in regard to man ; they are bound by God's word to believe all that He says, and do all that He commands: that they have no right before God to take the Bible in any sense different from the mind of the Spirit of God speaking in it. That is, not by by private interpretation ; but by the Bible's own explanation of itself are they to be guided.

I beg the particular attention of my readers to this point. It is this solution which neutralizes all the Roman Catholic priests' objections. And this explanation, we cannot prevail on their candor, to observe. It is a pitiful cause, which requires ite defendants to lay down a false statement, as the opinion of his opponent, that he may, in the estimation of the ignorant, reap laurels by fighting against a man of straw, or, to use my opponent's elegant allusion, "couching a lance against a windmill !" As for John Wesley, it is not in my way, nor yours either, to drag in the name of that venerable rnan into our controversy. Your arguments, however, take in a wide range. You start an idea, and there is no saying where you end ; ae Cow- per says, you —

" Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark;

Through Gaul, through Greece, and into Noah's ark."

Gentlemen : you ought, in honor, to quote the avowed creeds and confessions of the

church. No society is accountable for the private opinions of its members, while they

are innocent speculations. Your ({notation from Wesley is ])ervertod by you to a wrong

sense. You can extract no Romanism out of it. He simply declares the way he took

by prayer and study, to discover the meaning of the Biblo, Go you and do likewise :

and be entreated to tread lightly on the ashea of John Wesley, and similar worthies, for, —

"If christian worth in heaven rise, Ye'll mend ere ye come near him !"

24 Rt)MAN CATHOLIC CONTllOVERSY.

4. You also quote from the judicious Hooker, and Dr. Field^s *'Book of the chiii'ch." Now you know well, gentlemen, that no two men wrote with more vigor and effect against popery than these. And it is disgraceful in a literary man, to torture an idea out of an author, contrary to tlie whole spirit and tenor of his work. The quotation you give from Hooker, Eccles. Polity, p. 119, is nothing to your purpose; he simply rebukes ignorant and obstinate errorists "whose capacity will scarce serve them to ut- ter j^ve words in a sensible manner," — and who, without any authority, set themselves up as teachers, and propagate " gross and palpable errors." And the sentence you give from Field, simply declares that " the holy Bible is, in each passage, to be explained according to the analogy of faith," and " the general practice of the church," in her purest times.

You quote Dr. Field as favoring your heresy ; of course you will be pleased with the following, out of the same book you quote : " The pope is above general councils ; and he is 7iot above them; the pope may err judicially; the pope cannot err judicially; the pope is temporal lord of all the world ; the pope is not temporal lord of all the, &c. The virgin Mary was conceived in sin ; she was not conceived in sin. If there be no con- tradiction here, then all Roman priests declare the same doctrine !"

You also quoted jBwZ/iwger, folio 71,_72, cap. 15, and the author of '^Scripture and the church,'''' with Hooker, sec. xiv. p. 86. These teach us, you justly say, that "the church of God is endued with the spirit;" and that "we could not believe the gospel were it not that the church taught us, and witnessed that this doctrine was delivered by the apostles." Luther, on John xvii. also says that " if he had not received the word of God from the Catholic church, he should have known nothing about it."

These exhibit the sentiments of all the Reformed churches respecting one branch of tlie evidence of divine truth ; that is tradition and testimony of the church ; the holy Catholic church. But you have, as usual, fallen into a very natural and selfish error. These writers say the church of God — the Catholic church did this : they did not once say the Roman Catholic church. And it was sheer bigotry that dragged you into the error. It is tune, in all conscience, that you learned to know the immeasurable difference betv een these two societies, — The Holy Catholic Church of God, and the Roman Catholic church of the pope !

5. I noticed not your former remark on the character of Luther ; and I was un- willing to be drawn aside from the main argument : besides, this is personal abuse, not argument. But were even Luther and Calvin, and other reformers, the mon- sters you wish to represent them, this affects not the question in discussion. We never made these men our living, speaking rule ! I quoted your profane popes and heretical councils, quite in point; and also the errors and divisions of " Holy Mother church," for the best reasons in the world. These you make your living, speak- ing, and infallible rule ! Surely, if I demonstrate the errors and heresies of your infallible judges, I annihilate your rule. But as our rule is the scriptures, and our judge of controversy, the Holy Ghost speaking in them, not as understood by "pri- vate interpretation," but as interpreted by God, speaking in them to us, surely all your invectives against the Refoimers are utterly irrelevant matter. But since you stoop so low as to reiterate these personalities, I shall vindicate these Reformers here. Gentlemen, you furnish us another proof, that a Roman priest cannot breathe, nor eat, nor drink, nor exist, without slandering good old Luther, and the other worthies of the Reformation! It has been their very aliment to slander them. This glorious and splendid achievement of the Reformers, owned and blessed of Almighty God, in

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 25

giving civil and religious liberty, as well as pure Christianity, to every nation of Eu- rope, who would embrace it, has ever been painful and mortifying to your sect. Their name seems to inflict pain on a priest's and on a monk's heart, as acutely as when the steel touches the bare nerve ! Do you remember the saying of your own Eras- mus? What made the Romish priests so malignant against Luther, was this : — "he touched the pope's crown and the priest's belly !"

You asserted that Luther rejected the epistle of James, and that to the Hebrews. This I solemnly deny ; and every theologian knows that your assertion is false ! If you really knew no better, it was inexcusable in you to write on the subject : if you did know what I have now asserted, it displays a criminal, but powerless attempt to injure the hero of the reformation, whose fame is increasing every year ! The truth is this : when Luther was yet half a monk, and had his eyes only half opened to the light of protectant truth, " he spoke lightly" of James's Epistle. But afterwards, when he became a thorough divine, he advocated that epistle, as well as all the rest. See Home's Introd. vol. iv. p. 412, note. And they were accordingly inserted by him in the canon.

Some time ago, a slander was thrown out by a Romish priest, in the Protestant Association. But it met with a detection, and caused no enviable feelings to the slanderer. He asserted that he had a quotation from Luther's own works, in which that Reformer is made to confess, that "he had been an impure, wicked, and licen- tious man." But, as usual, in Roman Catholic quotations by priests, the quoter stopped short in the middle of Luther's sentiment. And how was the slanderer con- founded when he was helped, by a skilful accoucheur, a friend of mine, to deliver him- self of the rest of the sentence! — namely: "All this I was," says Luther, "while I was a Roman Catholic and a monk ; but now I am, by the grace of God, what I am!"

I would call the attention of the Lutheran church to a valuable work which some of their learned men should give to the public in English, — I mean Dr. Melchior Nicho- las's Vindication of Martin Luther, published by professor Wolfflin, of the colleo-e of Tubingen, A. D. 1663. He records the seven chapters of slander against Luther, by the Jesuit Forerus; and gives a triumphant refutation of each one of them. Every thing which my opponents copy out of Mumford, relative to Luther, I find extracted from Forerus — stripped of his decency, and modernized by vulgarity.

In a particular manner is the slander refuted, that Luther admitted himself to have been a pupil of the devil, in his sentiments touching the mass ! The amount of the affair is this : Luther was, on a time, tempted to despair of divine mercy ; the thoughts that rushed in upon his distracted mind, he conceived to be the immediate suggestions of the devil. And the devil tempted him to this despair by this thought : " Hoiv can there he hope for you, a wretch, ivho celebrated the abominable mass for no less than fifteen years T"" This is all that Satan is sui)posed, by the priests, to have taught Luther. But it was, in fact, his own illumined conscience, lashed into horror, at the retrospect of the horrid initpiity of celebrating the infamous mass, and sustaining popery so long !

The immortal Calvin is another of the Reformers honored by the outi>()uring of your vials of slander on him. And you have revived the malignant fictions of the notorious Bolsec relative to the character and actions of John Calvin. It is true, no one of you believes tiiese books of monkish fables. Tlw^n; has not lived the priest, yet, who has believed his own writings on this matter! Every one of you lias the means of knowing them to be sheer fictions. 1 should be guilty of insulting tJic

4

(

SSk JIOMAN CATHOLIC CO^TROVER^T.

understandings, and the consciences of my three opponents, did I even insinuate that they did, themselves, believe them I But it is unmanly, and highlv criminal in men of letters and taste, to feed the vile appetite of slander, among a degraded and igno- rant community, "the simple faithful," who cannot rtad, and -who thinky and believe^ by sacerdotal proxy.

"I'd sooner be a dog, and bay the moon

Than such a Roman !"

And, gentlemen, the notorious Bolstc was the ver\- last man that the sons of'' Holy Mother" should quote. He was, as you well know, an apostate Carmelite monk, who died under the ban of your church : and so proriligate that he gave his wife to be a prostitute to the holy canons of Autun, to regain the Catholics' favor. He was a mis- creant hired to slander Calvin and Beza. And, you are fully aware that this was his infamous character. See Lemprier. article Bolsec. None but such men as Bohec can breathe slander over the memory of such an accomplished scholar, and trans- cendant divine !

No one of the Reformers has escaped the poisoned breath of your revenge. Your church has her '■'Records of judgments on htreiics.'' This is the register of our canonized worthies. Priest Hamilton stands first in the fetes of slander : Laing wTites what he calls ''the miseraole, horrible, dttestahle, and execrable deaths'' of Luther, Cal- vin, and other heretics ! The Sconish catholics graA ely assure us that John Knox's head, before he expired, was converted miraculously into a dog's head, with its face turned backwards! Hamilton does net make the miracle quite so striking. "The opening of John Knox's mouth, while dying," says he, verj' gravel}*, "was drawn out to such a length of deformir\-, that his face resembled that of a dog. as his voice did the barking of that animal I*' Laing says : *■ He had conmaunings -u-ith the devil, who at last carried him oflf bodily !" " Not exactly so," said priest Hamilton, — "when his friends came into his chamber, they found his dead body lying prostrate on the floor!"

\Mien priests have the andacir\- to fabricate such a fate for John Knox, who died in the presence of his family and friends, and closed a brilUant career, by a most triumphant death — ^what will you not fabricate of those who die in your hands, and beneath 3"our power !

Lastly : — You resuscitate the brutal invectives against the V.'aldenses, the faithful descendants of the primitive and apostolical church, lq the vallies of Piedmont, and Bohemia. "These," say you, "were the enemies of order, and of the human race. These "primitive christians," believed that there ivtre two gods, one good, the other bad. They despised the Old Ttstament as the book of the devil. They held marriage to be unlawful without considering chastity a virtue ! Such were the execrable tenets of the Albigenses which they propagated, like 31ahomet, by plunder, rapine, fire and sword."

Ah! gentlemen, "Old 3Iother Church " has lost none of her ancient \4mlence ; although by age, she is becoming feeble and toothless : and as Liw has finely said — " Vana sine viribus ira est.'' The world is not to be for ever covered with darkness; and a perpetual prey to impostors. Late extensive and learned researches, have thrown a clear light over the aspersed characters of those holy mart^-rs of Jesus Christ. The ignorant and obscure writers you quote, together with Mosheim, and a few other Protestants who permitted tliemselves to be imposed on by Roman inquisitors, are no more to be relied on for the character of the Waldenses, than would the records of the

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 27

Jews, who murdered our Lord, be relied on for His character. What candid man would believe the murderous infjuisitors' character of our dear brethren, the martyrs! Who would believe the Roman slanders of our dear brethren, the primitive christians I

But it so happens that we have ihs most ample testimony to refute the slander perpetrated at Rome against the Waldenses, and unblushingly perpetuated by every Romish priest, even in this enhghtened age !

These primitive christians believe J in the one living and true God, and the Trinity ; they were not Manicheans : they held not the doctrine of an evil god, equal to a good one : they received all the books of the Old and New Testament ; and rejected the Apocrypha ; they held marriage to be lawful in minister and layman ; they were firm believers in all the doctrines of the gospel, as exhibited in our creeds and canons; they were a chaste and devout christian people.

I refer you to Jones' Church History, re-published in New York, in 1824. In vol. ii. p. 41, &-C., you will find a copy of two of the ancient Waldensian Confessions of Faith, and a full exhibition of their character and history. I beg to refer jou also to Gilly's " Waldensian Researches, with an introductory inquiry into the antiquity and purity of the Waldensian church,'''' published in London, 1831.

Dr. Allix who has investigated this subject deeply and accurately, says, — " I defy the impudence of the devil himself to find in the writings of the Waldenses the least shad(\w of Manicheism !" And every scholar now admits that the erroneous state- ments of Mosheim and Limborch have originated in their implicitly following the Romish inquisitors on this subject. As for Robinson, he wreaks his vengeance on them because he found them too orthodox to be Socinians ! See Allix's Remarks on the Churches of Piedmont, p. 188, 191, and Jones' Ch. Hist. vol. ii. ch. .5.

And if you prefer the testimony of Roman Catholics, I refer you to Florimond de Remund^s Hist, de la Heresie, liv. vii. chap. 7. He calls them the "first Luthe- rans" as in all important points, they agree with the Reformers. " They have nothing in their mouths but Christ, the Saviour," says he, "and they know nothing else than Jesus Christ. It is the ignorance, gross, and almost essential to the Vandois heretics revived in this age &c." "Having the Bible translated, these poor people read it contiiiually, in such a manner that they know all the books of it by heart."

Heax also Thuanus, Historia; lib. xxvii. cap. 9. temp. Carrol. IX. "Nee quenquam &c. Nor can one usually find even a boy among ihem who being interrogated rela- tive to the faith he professes, cannot promptly and from memory, give a reason, &c." And he quotes VViclifF, Huss, and Jerome, as being precisely of their opinions. See the London Prot. Journal, for 1831, p. 718.

But what is more, we have the testimony of two inquisitors. The one was Reinerius., who published a catalogue of the Waldensian errors. Dr. Allix has given us the Latin copy of this, p. 188, &c. The other inquisitor's ■ testimony you will find in Hist. Scrip. Bohem. p. 222; and in Allix, p. 211. Sesselius, your archibishop of Turin, lived in the very heart of Piedmont, and was a violent persecutor of these christians. He wrote a narrative of their opinions sometime before the Reformation.

All these show the existence, in an ancient flourishing church, of the very sentiments and doctrines of Luther, and of Calvin. In reading Sesselius' extract from the Wal- densian confessions, you would imagine him quoting from the pages of Calvin! But Calvin's name was not then even heard of. And yet the Roman Catholics ask us, " where was your religion before Luther ?'' See Jones ii. p. 35 — 4 1 . But what crowns the whole, we have the testimony of one of your ' iiifallibies;' i mean yEucas Silvius

28 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

afterwards pope Pius ii. It is found in his Historia Bohemia, p. 141. And if this is not in your reach, you will findcoj)ious extracts in Jones' Church Hist. ii. p. 19 — 41. From the statements of their bitterest foes, therefore, as well as their friends, it is a matter of historical record, that the agreement between these primitive apostolical christians, and the Reformers, on the various doctrines of the gospel, was strictly uniform and exact !

I shall for the present, leave this, and when we come to the sanguinary marks of the Roman Catholic church, under the article Persecution, we shall rehearse a tale of woe, not equalled in history, perhaps ; nor surpassed in fiction ! I allude to the horrid massacre, and extermination of the Waldenses, by Pope Innocent VIII. and his fero- cious priesthood !

The Jews of old bewailed the deeds of their ancestors, and said, "Had we lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have slain the prophets." And they garnished the sepulchres of the martyred holy ones ! But, alas ! in this enlightened age, the less humane priests of Rome do not only refuse to garnish the tombs of the martyred Waldenses and Albigenses ; but the}^ breathe the poisoned breath of cruel slander over their sacred ashes ! In the vindictive attributes they have been always immu- table.

I am, gentlemen, yours, &c.

W. C. B.

EXTRACTS FROM THE PRIESTS' LETTER III.

* There is another class of distinctionists, the class of operative religionists. Many of its members, leagued to a more than common share of the cuise entailed on the children of Adam, toiling in the ' sweat of their brow,' and pack horses to the interior spirit, have drudged through the 'Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost.' "

"Our ambition is limited to one — to Doctor Brownlee, a Preacher in the Middle Dutch Church. His name in itself a host, is more than ample matter to impait the lustre of embel- lishment to our remarks. His letters, and, oh, ye members of the Middle Dutch Church, his powers of ratiocination ! Theological in his matter, logical in his proof, invincible in his arguments, rigid in his references, definite in his terms, classical in his phrases, solid in his scripture texts, happy in his quotations, — did the old Stagirite return to earth he would shim an encounter! — Gentle in his words, courteous in his allusions, fastidious in his compliments."

"Your first letters are merely illustrative of your powers of ^ squinting ;'' — the last is direct, unerring vision; — the completion of cool, logical, and theological argument. To aid our readers, and specially the members of the Middle Dutch Church, in the application of this direct and unerring vision, the demands expressed in our former letters, are a third time r' p ^ated. You, Rev. Sir, have not yet answered them. Excuse the iteration. Pardon our ad. er^nce to singleness of object, "Tell us how you know the Bible to be the word of God ? How do you know which books were written by Divine inspiration ? Does the Bible contain the whole word of God, or does it not?"

" Were it not reducing you to the innocent simplicity of infancy, Ave should consign you to the nursery to be rocked to the old lullab3% "see saw, Magery Daw." Is it thus a man acquainted with the 'Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost* establishes his rule of faith! Is this the outpouring of the Holy Spirit's favorite !"

" Your reasons. Rev. Sir, for this inquisitorial decree? Is it because the interior spirit does not speak through your letters? Are the * Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost,' less gifted with infallibility than your writings?"

" Here there is a promise urbanely expressed to the ear, but, oh how broken to the hope ? The Bible is not yet proved to be the word of God, and yet, in the same letter from which

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 29

the preceding passage is taken, you invoke the interior spirit to the interpretation of five scripture texts to prove the infallibility of the Bible. This is a ludicrous specimen of the nursery see saw logic," &c.

" The interior spirit, is tasked to prove the infallibility of the Bible, and the Bible is used to prove the right of the interior spirit. You insist on the Bible being the only rule of faith ; that each individual, no matter how gross or uncultivated in mind, possesses the right to adopt that sense of scripture which appears to him the best according with truth ; that God has promised the illumination necessary to discover this accordance with truth, and, yet, all this you pretend to prove from scripture texts, ere the scripture is proved to be the word of God!"

" As the import of this modest and inspired extract, though not in the ' Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost,' may be interesting to the members of the Middle Dutch Church, we present it to them in English. 'This is my will, this is my command. Let my will be reason.' So Luther commands, and he proclaims himself a doctor pre-eminent above all the doctors of the entire papacy. Therefore the word alone shall remain in my New Testament ***** though all the popish asses should run rabid, they shall not remove it."

'' Bishop Hare says, ' The orthodox faith does not depend upon the scriptures, considered absolutely in themselves, but as explained by Catholic tradition.'"

Note. — This episcopal prelate does not say Roman Catholic tradition.

''The famous Dudith in his epistle to Beza, says, 'If that be the truth, which the ancient Fathers have, with one accord professed, it must be owned, that this truth, will be wholly on the papists side.' — See Brerely's Protestant Apology. Now, Rev. Sir, the most learned Protestants acknowledge, that we have the holy scriptures on the authority of the Catholic church, nay, on the authority of the Roman Catholic church, for Dudith says, that all the ancient Fathers, are on 'the side of the papists;' and your favorite Middleton says, ' that he pities the Protestants when he sees them struggling to reconcile the Fathers to the reformation.' "

Note. — Every one who knows the corruptions introduced into the Fathers, by the monks of the dark ages; whev eh j modern popery is awkwax-dly tagged to the primitive writers, will cordially unite with Dudith and Middleton.

The above quoted Brcrcly, together with Kiiot and others, were notorious for their mis- representations ; and hence they were prime auxiliaries of Milner in his " End of Contro- versy." We go on with extracts : —

" Where then is your infallibility ? " It is seated, says Holy Mother, in all my Bishops and Pastors throughout the whole world, professing the same doctrine, and united in faith and communion with their supreme pastor, the bishop of Rome. It also resides in a general council, at which the pope is present , either in person or by his legates, after it is confirmed by the pope himself This is an article of faith wherein all Catholics agree. See Suarcs de fide p. 5. sec. 7. No. 9. You now know where to find my infallibility, and on this subject you will discover no difference of opinion among my children."

" The 3rd council of Carthage, held in the year 397, examined the tradition of the church, with regard to those books about which there was any doubt, or difference of opinion, and found all the books recommended in our canon. In the 47th canon, the council defines our books to be canonical, saying, ' we received from our fathers, that these books arc to be read in the Church.' "

To the above (piotation, I shall subjoin the idea of our priests, as Milner, their champioO) expresses it.

"It was not until the end of the fourth century that the genuine canon of scripture was fixed: and then it was fixed by tiie tradition and anthority ofthcchimh, decIariHl in ihe third council of Carthage, and decretal of P»)|»e Innocent I." He then quotes "the most learned protcstunts," — as Luther, Hooker, Chillingworth

4 *

EOKA9 CATHOLIC COVTHOrtMST.

LETTER TV

TO DOCTOftS POWta, TAmELA, AK1> MB. tETiys.

Every word o£ God is pure/' — ^ Add Aam not «Mo his wovds, kst he reprove tnee. and tkou be louod a Lmmm f"

Ret. GE^STiXM^y : — ^I sbaH not ftdknr lb. Lerins orer the field of bis poUmiiif effusions. The above extracts are a specimeo of yoor last letter : they cany (Akit answer aikmg with them. It is tmer I do write Ibr <^ the members of the IGddie Dutch Chmcfa." And *^ the members of the Middle Dutch Chnrch,'* are rery dif- ferent people fiom the flocks of St. Patrick's paaor! One natnrally adapts himself to die dimate and society in whidi he lives!

I have already stated the ride of £uth held by die church of Christ, resting, as it does, on the aocs: • t ztze-xitt: and that held bj your church, ptofeasing to be hoilt on SU Ptter.

It must be obvic b^ stnffi^ Romi^ aidhoTSy that no Ronoan

Iciest will have can _ . . . r orrr definitifflns, as we give them. The Pro-

testant torches never have : "lie of faidi is f&e scri/>finn». asreethtdby

tway one, hy frhaS'. - ' - T_ - s a ^leer interpolatiaQ by the piiesta, who

defend dieircaiBe : -. Thx H01.T Spimt sfeaki^^c r^TO trs is thk

miTLE a:sj> jn>GE : 7^ i interprets it to ns, in his plain, sim-

ple, and pers-!-*:: r'rtt of "prmiie jwdgwttmt,^ and

^ liberty oTo: z ' does not constkote the Rule.

Hereby, as n 1 >q c^ tbe means and Acuities

of studying an

It is (Mie 01 La this diacns-

sifCMi, diat our >^ rain word?,

cortem with I

.^adgment," in ciate the " rigl conceived the

It was : I had c" ootintiiT aon, to ' New Yc .

rule alon^ . c^ ^ _. tionof the eeriptnrt-

There are fir» r^ aware, as we >h?_ their "infalK:

tcm, *' tkt ims the OMtkoriiif v . ^\. Letter H-jthos: ^Wer^ cridence of inspirs ' flees no sDch eridc^

zmg tneir . .-.. C7i the divine inapira^

" -rst is, that they are

-? TFrfallibilil^, and

nod, die main

aer whole ^"s-

iiies onijf on am ezttrmai amtkeritg^ amd that it

'■''-.'^ My opptMieins express ibis in dieir

Jz. Power. Sir, I cannot see any intrmal

rr woold say, that he binEelf

jld not beheTe die suipluieb

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTftOVERSr. 31

unless led to their belief by the Catholic church; that if the deist would follow him into the Catholic church, he would show him the evidence of the inspiration of the scriptures." Hence it is a very prominent tenet in their inrtdel system that the divine inspiration of the Bible cannot be proved but by the word and authority of "Holy Mother!" You may advance all that has ever been written on it, yet if you do not yield up the question in debate, and fall down and acknowledge the Roman goddess, as above "all that is called God, or is worshipped," they raise the oxitcry, that you have not touched the point. "Yield me all I want," cries the Priest, — "or, you shun the whole question, and know nothing about logic, or theology." And, moreover, when we have such anthropoi alogoi, " unreasonable men," as Mr. Levins to deal with, whose Inishowen inspirations render him unfit to take up a solid argu- ment, one gets heartily " blackguarded," to the bargain !

Now, we have discussed the proofs of the inspiration of the Bible, and shown that it is established perfectly by its own internal evidence, and by external proofs, such as miracles, tongues, prophecies ; and by historical evidence, and tradition also ; as that of the Hebrews and Jews "to whom were committed the oracles of God ;" and by the church at Jerusalem; and by the church at Antioch ; by the whole Greek churches; by the apostolical church of the Waldenses, and by the church of Rome. All these were checks, mutually, on each other ; and all handed down the holy scriptures to pre- sent times.

There never was exhibited such another master-piece of ghostly assurance and impudence, as that of the Romish church, in pouring contempt on the churches of the East, — say of Antioch, and all the Greek church, far more ancient than herself, and far purer; and also on all other branches of the church: and of claiming the exclusive honor of handing down the Bible by tradition.

The Romish rule of faith we also stated ; it is this, — " the infallible scriptures, with the apocryphal books, and oral traditions, with the unanimous consent of the Greek and Latin fathers ; and all as explained by the infallible head, the Pope or a council, or the church, a pope and council. "The Bible," or "infallible rule" of the Romish church, in a word, is large enough to load four carts heavily ; besides all their traditions. And then the "pope," or "council," or " church," is mounted on them as the "infallible judge and interpreter."

We are now prepared to go on with our dissection of this rule. The whole Roman system, as it is evident from history, scripture, and dear bought experience, is a cunningly devised scheme to gain, not the salvation of souls : she who is " drunk with the blood of the saints," has no anxiety about the salvation of souls; but to gain unbounded civil power, and wealth for Peter's purse. And as a preparatory step to this, she seeks to gain a complete ghostly power over the souls and consciences of her crushed and trodden down victims. Hence we are taught where to seek for the originating cause of her adopting not God's holy word, but this rule as the '^infallible rule.^'' The question, whh its devisers and inventors, was not, what has God spoken ? What is nis word? But it was this : — what is best adapted to achieve promjuly the consummation of our scheme of spiritual subjugation: — and, thence, the temporal power over the souls, and bodies, and jiossessions of all men !

Chillins WORTH furnished us, in our last letter, with tlie true origin of this Romish rule. This writer is, on our side of the Romish controversy, what Homer was among )lio anci(!nt poets; and Demosthenes was among the orators. And yet my Inis- howen fricmd, Mr. Levins gravely quotes this Protestant Hercules as actually favor- ing your heresy !

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

An asylum for the cure and prevention of polemical phrenzy, and literary knavery, has, I believe, not yet been contemplated. But no man will hesitate to say that such an institution would be infinitely more merciful, and useful, than all your mo- nasteries and nunneries !

According to Chillingworth, this is the precise attitude of the pope, and the Roman Catholic church, before the world. That thing, be it pope, or council, or pope and council, or "Mother Church," in which infallibility is lodged, does in a condescending manner, take the Holt One and his blessed word, under its special protection : bestows on the Bible its inspiration, and all its authority : claims the uncontrolled right of explaining it to all men's consciences: and of adding new doctrines, and even new sacraments; it appoints its own devoted priesthood, as "the other god upon earth," asMassus, bishop of Bitonto said : it doles out a portion of the infallible interior spirit to each priest, for the defence of the scarlet woman of St. John : and brings every thing into market, for money, even souls, and bodies of men ; and each sin, at the staple price of the Pope's exchequer book. It avails itself of the aid of the Bible, when it can be gracefully bent to its way : and when it condemns its course, oris silent, it puts it on the papal rack, and tortures it into an utterance of what it wants before an ignorant and degraded generation of men !

We have finished our first two arguments against the Roman Catholic rule. We showed first, that, with all their pretentions, their best and most intelhgent writers cannot tell us where it is to be foimd. They all admit that " they do have it;" but they cannot tell us how to c oms at it 1

I cannot resist an appropriate illustration of this in a late anecdote. Patrick O'B. was attached to one of our packets. It happened that while Patrick was, in his vocation, washing a copper kettle, it rolled over board into the sea. It was gone in a moment. There was no use in lamenting; he could not recall it. He made his way directly to the cabin: — " Captain, can a thing be said to be lost when we know where it is ?" "Certainly not, my good lad!" replied the Captain, "Well, then, by St. Patrick!" cried our cook, — "my fine copper kettle cannot be said to be lost, at all: for I know that it is in the bottom of the sea." " Holy Mother's" infallible judge is precisely in the same predicament ! But who shall bring it up and make it ^'isible and tangible ! Our seco7id argument was this : — No mortal man, pope or council can wield this same rule, or make any practicable use of it. W^e shall now go on : —

III. Your infallible rule can *ever be found out, on your principles, nor employed for the benefit of num. This rule must have been established by Christ for the benefit of all God's moral subjects ; or only for the benefit of the pope and his clergy. You will scarcely deny that God designed his message to be addressed to all men." Christ saj's, — " What I say to you, I say to all, watch.''' " He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." " Search ye the Scriptures, &c. "Blessed is he thatreadeth, and they that hear, &c. — You will hardly venture publicly to aflftrm in this enlightened country, that God has committed his Holy word only to priests : and that the most immoral and polluted priesthood on earth can be the sole depository of God's pure scriptures ! I beg yom pardon. I am too charitable : you have openly avowed this. But I must remind you that the assertion of a criminal who has abstracted, and wasted his master's goods, is not a witness in his own case : his proofless word passes for nothing. Give us proof, instead of your assertions.

Now, how must those who are to receive benefit from your rule, arrive at the evidence of the fact that your rule is the only infallible one? On the principles you hold, no one can find it out. You condemn, and in genuine Romish spirit, you even ridicule

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTllOVERSt^. 33

the rights oi" private judgment, and private interpretation, in this matter. Now apply your own argument here, and you will see whither it leads you.

You affirm that the Holy Bible is the infallible rule, so far as it goes : then you add the Apocrypha; and a chaotic mass of traditions : and all these are to be taken according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; of whom any two are scarcely of one mind- How go you to work here ? You set out to seek this rule and judge, either as a church, en masse : which is utterly impossible. Or you go as individuals : but how can you as individuals, be assured of the inspiration of the Bible; of the genuine traditions; and of the consent o'the Fathers? You must either form a judgment and belief, or not. If not, then there is no faith. If you do form a belief and a judgment, then mark your dilemma, you do by private judgment, and by private interpretation, determine, yourself, that this is the rule and judge. And thus you do, as fallible men, by private judgment, determine the infallible rule. That is to say, private judgment, and fallible individu- als do that which you have declared they never can do. And, hence, in determining your rule, you overthrow all your own objections against ours.

But even admiting that you have, by private and fallible judgment, determined the infallible rule, you will find yourselves no nearer the end of your difficulties than before.

Your " infallible head," the pope, happens to be a mortal and erring man. Besides he is not accessible, except to only a few in Italy. He cannot exhibit truth, and decide controversies in every chapel ; in every house, in every heart, in all lands. A council can do no better. There has been no council since that of Trent. And the ghost of that council cannot walk the earth, and enter into all houses, and chapels, and hearts, in all lands ! — It could not do this, were it even now in session at Trent.

" Holy Mother Church," can act no better part. You send your people to her for the true infallible rule. Now the act of faith is thus expressed in your Douay cate- chism ; and the definition is a curious one ; it embraces the sum total of a Papist's faith : " Great God, I firmly believe all those sacred truths which the holy Catholic church believes and teaches, because thou, who art truth itself, hast revealed them. Amen!" I will not stop to remind you that the Mohammedan belief is as simple, namely : " There is one God, and Mohammed is his prophets And, throughout all Turkey, there is much more unity in Mohamnjcdan belief, tlian in your church. But what I urge on your attention, is this — the difficuhy is not removed by this chicanery. " Holy church" cannot do any thing better, in this affair, than the pope. For what is " holy church?" Roman priests do not even agree in the answer to this question- Some say "the church," is the pope and his clergy: some say it is the })rirsthood. You and Mr. Hughes seem to include the laity with the priests, and so make it "the people and their pastors."

But here is the difficulty ; how can you congregate all these into one speaking rule ? IIow, and where, can the simple faithful find the response of this oracle ? No where under the sun. She cannot speak and judge ; the faithful cannot hear her voice from all places where the peoi)le and priests are scattered abroad.

Either then, the faithful flock have no faith, because they have no response from this oracle, and no rule ; or else they must believe hy proxy ; and not only so, but truly believe that of which they have no knowledge whatever ! And this last is the alternative, as every one knows ! And any man can make tlu^ exporitnont to satisfy himself, with a true and d(!voted son of the cburcli. Let any one ask a Roman Catho- lic who follows implicitly his priest,—" Pray, what is? your belief f" he will reply,

34 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

"I believe as the church beheves." "Well, what does the church believe?" He will say, " hoJy church believes as I believe." " But what do you and the church believe/" " Why, arroh, now we both believe exactly the same thing!" This is the uniform answer; and you can never get any other out of thtm, for ihe best reason in the world ; there is nothing else in them ! And what is much worse, by the RULE, and the priest's influence, nothing else is allowed to enter into his dark and wofully abused mind. " Ignorance is the mother of devotion T' This is their old and tried maxim.

Finally, shall the flock be sent to what your champion. Dr. Milner, calls " the whole word of God, ivrittcn and %inwritttn?'^ This, as I have said, is large enough to load some four carts! Having found these 135 folio volumes, and the unwritten traditions, if he can, the simple enquirer is no nearer the end of his difficulties. For, alas ! should a layman, in his simplicity, dare to take it on him to use his private judgment, and reason, and make a mental eflbrt to find out his Maker's will, and the holy word speaking to him, he should forthwith have the ban of the priest pronounced on him. He must yield up his conscience and his soul, simply to be guided by the pope or council ; that is to say, a rule and a judge which he can never see, and never discover !

IV. That Christ established your infallible rule, in his church, we utterly deny.

The Roman Catholic writers have here exhibited a curious specimen of logic, in their abortive eflforts to prove that Christ established their Rule. Milner, in his End of Controversy, has led the way ; all of you follow after him. You assert, in strong terms, that Christ did establish your rule, and gave it to the apostles : that you are the only apostolical successors ; and, therefore, you only have that rule of Christ, that is infallible.

Now, let us see a specimen of the logic and proof. Christ, you say, established 3'our rule. This was the first thing to be proved ; and, let us not loose sight of the materials of this rule. If Christ ordained your rule, then he gave forth by inspi- ration, the Apocrypha, as well as the Bible ; then, also, he ordained by inspiration, all the oral traditions of your church ; and he also told the church, by the Holy Spirit, that he gave you the unanimous consent of the endlessly coLtradicting Fathers, as a part of that rule, and that he appointed, by name and title, the pope, or coun- cil, or the church, you know not which, as the only infalhble judge.

This was the point to be proved : but no one of you touches it except by asser- tion. Milner, and Hughes, and yourselves, shift completely the subject to be proved. And, instead of showing that Christ ordained the materials out of which your rule is made, you labor to show tliat Christ ordained teaching by word of mouth. " Christ," says Hughes, " has made the promise of infallibility to the succession of TEACHING and not to writing, reading, or private interpretation." And Milner, in his End of Controversy, declares that Christ sent the apostles and their successors to preach the gospel by word of mouth. "If," says he, " Christ had intended that all men should learn his religion from a book, viz : — the New Testament, he would have written that book himself, and enjoined the obligation of learning to read it, &c." " But," adds this Vicar General of England, with unblushing impiety and infidelity, " Christ wrote no part of the New Testament himself and gave no orders to his apostles to lorite it.''^ See Letter VI., &c., p. 6-3, &c.

Thus, having, on the principles of deism, got rid of the written word of God, although in contradiction to the council of Trent, which admitted the inspriration of the holy scriptures, you do, by a dexterous shifting of the question, make this teach-^

EOMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 35

Ing by word of mouth, to be the rule established by Christ in his church ; and, being established by him, it must be infallible.

And thus, the real infallible rule of Rome is abandoned, without proof, to its fate. Instead of proving the inspiration of the Apocrypha, traditions, and the consent of the Fathers, and the divine authority of the pope, they very gravely set to work, and try to prove that the " infallibility was promised to teaching by word of mouth !"

But were it possible that you, gentlemen, could prove the infallibility of the succes- sors of the apostles, this would not avail you. For, —

V. The line of your succession is entirely broken off^ both as it regards the popes and the church.

1. The succession is cut off from Rome, by the loss of the essential bond of holiness. Christ says, " Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." "Except a man be born of the water and of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God." "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." This is the essential doctrine of Christianity. Hence no wicked man, no infidel, can be considered a member of Christ's church.

But, without denying that there are individuals who are true christians within the pale of the Romish church, we do assert that, as a church, she has not only lost this badge of holy disciple hip, but even maintains that holiness of heart, or internal grace, is not necessary to membership. Hence the usual expression with the Roman priests : "Such a one is reconciled to the church;" not to God, but "to the church.''^ And Bellarmine maintains an argument that " wicked men, infidels and reprobates, remaining in the public profession of their Romish church, are true members of the body of Christ !" See Bell. Lib. 3. De Eccles. c. 7. The Rhemist Annotators declare the same, on 1 Tim. iii. 15, and on John xv. 1.

2. And, in addition to this, the Romish church has apostatized from the funda- mental doctrines of the gospel. You reject the one only and perfect atonement of Christ, and substitute, in its place, the mass, in which you profess to offer up weekly, an unbloody sacrifice for the living and the dead ; you reject justification by faith alone, through Christ's righteousnes ; you deny the efficacious work of grace by the Holy Ghost : with you, a sinner is saved purely by human merit, and the efficacy of your sacraments, and the priest's intention.

And to the pure doctrines and institutions of the gospel of Christ, the Roman Catho- lics have added an endless train of doctrines, will-worship, rites, and ceremonies. The whole face of Christianity has been changed in that church ; the whole system new modelled, in the most heaven daring manner.

In Christ's throne they have reared " their lord god, the pope." They have intro- duced the adoration of saints, and the idolatrous veneration of images. They have invented a purgatory, though opposed by St. Augustine, and the best Fathers, before the sixth century. Tliey deny marriage to the priests, and very facetiously call a bachelor priest's life, " chastity !" Transubstantiation and the mass, though iuvoTifcd in the ninth century, were imposed on the Roman church, only so late as 1215, in the fourth council of the Lateran, by Pope Innocent III. They deny the cup to Uie laity in the Lord's supper ; although Pope Gelasius, in 492, pronounced it sacrilege to do so !

Thus, your church is apostate in doctrine ; and so ihe succession is cut oil. Hear the words of Gregory Niizianzin, speaking of Athanasius succcHMling in the chair ot St. Mark : " He was not less the successor of his piety, than of his scat; in point of

35 ROMAN CATSOLIC CONTROVERSTt

time, distant from him. But, in piety, which indeed is properly called successidn'y directly after hiin. For he that holdeth of the same doctrine is of the same chair; but he who is an enemy to the doctrine, is an enemy to the chair!" Orat. 21, on Athan. Paris edit, of 1777.

But, 3. Your succcsnon is broken off in the broken Hne of the popes, and true ordina- tion. The very nature of the apostolical character, and call to office, will show that the apostles had no successors in office. An apostle was one who had seen Christ alive, after his death ; was sent by immediate inspiration and a call to office, by Christ, visible to him ; and who, moreover, established his divine call before the world, by miraculous powers. Gal. chap. i. and 1 Cor. ix. 1, &c.

Besides these, Christ appointed pastors and teachers. When the line of extraordi- nary offices, hke that of the apostles and prophets, ceased, the ordinary line of pastors and teachers continued. These alone, strictly speaking, had successors, as these were successors to the apostles in that part of their characters which made them teachers. " Go ye, and teach all nations." This was spoken as much to the pastors and preachers, as to the apostles; and to the successors of that class which actually had [successors.

But even admitting, what was impossible, that your popes were the successors of the apostles, the line has been broken off long ago.

I have before me copious extracts from Platina, Baronius, Genebrard, Dupin, &c., all Romish writers, which show that the Roman Catholic church was corrupt from the fourth century ; that she increased in corruption until the ninth : and that, from the ninth to the council of Trent, say for 660 years, she was in a state of the most frightful corruption.

The tumults and bloodshed, at the election of popes, clearly prove that Rome was converted into the synagogue of Satan. Could such gladiators be the apostohcal successors ? Pope Liberius [A. D. 35.3] became a heretic by the emperor's influ- ence, and that of the apostate Bishop Hosius. Hear your writer, Andre du Chesne : *'Notto dwell on all the persons of distinction, who imitated him, he notoriously car- ried along with him, in his fall, the supreme bishop of the entire orthodox church !"

Platina, in his life of Damasus, I., A. D., 366, says, "that when he was elected pope, he had a rival in the church called Sicinus ; where many were killed on both sides, in the church itself: since, the matter was discussed not only by votes, hut by force of arms .'"

Baronius, vol. vi- p. 562, A. D. 498, tells us that the emperor's faction sustained the election of Laurentius to the papacy. In this struggle, " murders, robberies, and numberless evils, were perpetrated at Rome." Nay, such were the horrible scenes that, says Baronius, "there was a risk of their destroying the whole city!"

In the schism between the Popes Sylverius and Vigilius, in the sixth century, the latter, though an atrociously wicked man, " implicated," says Baronius, " in so many crimes," that all virtuous men opposed him, was raised to the papal chair. Yet this man was pronounced a good pope. Baronius says he is not to be despised though a bad man. " Let every man recollect," says he, " that even to the shadow of Peter, imanense virtue was given of God !" Bar. vol. vii. p. 420,

In the midst of contentions which rent the Roman Catholic church. Pope Pela- gius I. was chosen. This pope approved the council which Pope Vigilius had con- demned. This increased the flames of ecclesiastical war to such a degree that the pope «ould not find s. bishop of Rome, who could consecrate him ; and he was

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. ^

constrained to beg a priest of Ostium to do this service: "a thing" says Baroninft, ** v/hich never had occurred before." Vol. vii. p. 475.

The Popes Formosus and Stephen Uved in the ninth century. The latter, say« Bardnius, was so wicked, that he would not have dared to enrol him in the list of popes, were it not that antiquity gives his name. In the exercise of papal infallibility, he not only rescinded the acts and decrees of his infallible predecessor Formosus ; but, collecting a council of cardinals and bishops as bad as himself, he actually had the old pope taken out of his grave ; and he brought him into court, tried, and condemned him ; cut off three of his fingers ; and plunged his remains into the Tiber. See Platina's life of Stephen VI. and Baronius, do.

Pope Romanus I., in his turn, abrogated the decrees and acts of Stephen VI. "For," says Platina, "these popes seem to have thought of nothing else, than to extinguish the name and dignity of their predecessors." Life of Romanus I.

Genebrard in his Chronicles, under the year 904, says, "for nearly 150 years, about fifty popes deserted wholly the virtue of their predecessors, being apostate rather than apostolical I"

Baronius, under the year 1004, names three rival popes, who perpetrated the most shameful crimes, and bartered the papacy, and sold it for gold. He, though a Roman catholic writer, calls them Cerberus, " the three headed beast which had issued from the gates of hell!"

Bzovius, in his Eccles. Annals, A. D., 1411, dclares that after the council of Pisa, the head of the church was three schisms, three anti-popes.

The council of Pisa deposed two of your holy popes, whom, in their sentence, they pronounced notorious heretics, and guilty of perjury.

The council of Constance, in A. D., 1414, deposed three popes, namely, Benedict XIII., the Spanish pope ; and Gregory XII., the French pope ; and John XXIII., the Italian pope.

In short, so early as A. D. 1073, there had been no less than twenty-five schisms, by the anti-popes, and the general profligacy of the priests. And the most violent ones happened after that date.

Now the present pope, and his prelates, and all his priests, are as incapable of tra- cing their succession through these endlessly broken lines of papal succession, as are the present Jews of tracing their descent from their respective tribes and families. It is all idle and absurd in them to set up the claims of apostolical succession. Jerome and Gregory Nazianzen tell you that the succession is that of piety and doctrine^ not that of merely sitting in the same chair, or throne ! On j^our principle, the Turks, or Egyptians' power and dominion in Jerusalem, worshipping in the mosque of Omar, are the true and lineal successors of Moses and Aaron, and the Hebrew church of old !

Here I shall add an appropriate remark of your Baronius ; who though a Roman catholic writer, seems to labour honestly to make out the case that your church is dege- nerated from the once holy church of Rome, as far as the Turks' mosque at Jerusalem, is from the pure ancient Hebrew church. Hear his words in his life of Pope Stephen VII. A. D. 900. "The case is such, that scarcely any one can believe, or even will believe it, unless he sees it with his eyes, and handles it with his hands, vi/. What unworthy, vile, unsightly, yea, execrable and hateful things the sacred apostolic See, on whose hinges the universal apostolical church turns, has been compelled to see, &c." — " To our shame and grief be it spoken, how many monsters, horrible to behold,

3S ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

were intruded by them" (the secular princes,) "into that seat which is reverenced by' angels I" " The holy See," he adds, " is bespattered \\dth filth," " infected by stench," •• defiled by impurities," and "blackened by perpetual infamy !"

And to crown this climax, Baronius, under the year 912 adds : "What is then the face of the holy Roman church ! How exceedingly foul it is .' WTien most potent, sordid and abandoned women (Meretrices,) ruled at Rome ; at whose will the Sees were changed ; bishops were presented ; and what is horrid to hear, and unutterable, False Pontiffs, the paramours of these women, were intruded into the chair of St. Peter, iScc." He adds — " For who can affirm that men illegally intruded by bad women, (Scortis,) were Roman pontitfs I" Again: "The canons were closed in silence ; the decrees of Pontiffs were suppressed ; the ancient traditions were proscribed ; and the sacred ceremonies and usages of former days were wholly extinct I" See his Annals A. D. 912.

Thus we have evidence the most complete and oven^'helming, not from Protestant authors, but from your o-^^-n favourite Baronius, that the Roman catholic succession is, in every sense, completely and for ever cut off. You are a ^\'ithered branch lying in the dust. You are £i5 completely severed from the primitive apostohcal church of Rome, as is the mosque of St. Omar, from the primitive christian church of Jerusalem. Hence, you have neither pope, nor prelate, nor priest, nor sacrament, nor a holy infallible rule of faith I

I shall close this letter with a brief notice of some of the miscellaneous objections in your last. You commit an error relative to the canon and the council of Carthage. The editions of that council's decrees var\' much ; and they are of " very doubtful faith." Vvliat confidence can you have in their decrees, when tliere is mention made in it of your pope Boniface, who was actually not made pope until 23 years after its meeting ! And if you admit their canon, what will you do with their decree about the ecclesiastical canon of Legends. And, finalh% are you aware that this council con- demns the papal ambition ; denying that any ecclesiastic should be called " bishop of the first seat,'' or '''prince of priests,'' or even '' chief of bishops!" See Bern De jMoore, Per. Comment, vol. i. p. 316.

The apocryphal books are not in the canon \\Titten out by 3Ielito, bishop of Sardis, of the second century- ; nor in that of Origen of the third; nor in that of Athanasius, Hilar}", Gregory Naz., or of Jerome, of the fourth. See Euseb. L. 4. 26. and L. 6. 2.5: LardnerlV. 2S2. Home, Introd. i. p. 628.

Hear now St. Jerome in his Epist. ad Laetam, — " Caveat Sec. Let her take heed of all the apocr^'pha ; if she will read it, not for the truth of doctrine, but reverence of the story, let her know that they are not their v.-ritings whose titles they bear, and that many cor- rupt things are mixed in them." See Willet, p. 2. folio.

Our priests must perceive that the words they quote from the council of Canhage do not canonize the apocr^'pha. They only state that these books ''were read in the church.'^ Augustine also admits that they were read, "but by an humble officer, in a lower place than that in ichich the canonical scriptures were read by the bishop." See Aug. De Predest., Lib. 1. cap. 14. And in his De Civ. Dei, Lib. 18. c. 26. and Lib. 17. c. 29, he declares that Judith, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus are not canonical. There- fore, gentlemen, you and Milner, — if we must credit historj' and the Fathers, have uttered what is notoriously in error, relative to the canon, and tradition !

You quoted Hooker, and Chillingw-orth, as favoring your infidehty on the rule of faith I I shall give you a quotation from the first, with the comment of the last on it.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 39

Hooker thus writes,—" Scripture teaches us that saving truth, which God discovered to the world by revelation : and it presumeth us taught otherwise, that itself is divine. The question then being, by what means we are taught this ; some answer, that to learn it, we have no other way than tradition. Chillingworth says — " some answer so, but he doth not. " These great men, next proceed to show that mere tradition ' is not enough :' and that 'the authority or testimony of the church (they mean not the Romish church) is the first outward motive leading men to esteem of the scrip- tures.' C. adds, — the first outward motive, not the last assurance whereon we rest." Hooker Ecc. Pol. B. 3. s. 8. Chill, note 7. Prot. Jour, of London, vol. i. 686.

Yours very truly, and respectfully. W. C. B.

EXTRACT FROM THE PRIESTS' LETTER IV.

" Spurciloquium decet hereticos et ethnicos!" — Tertul. De Resur.

" Is your last letter worthy of a scholar, worthy of him who is intimate with the interior spirit, and familiar with the " Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost?" Is it, in any sense, a logical and theological production? Does it, even remotely, bear on the matter in ques- tion— your rule of faith ?"

" Does it honor him who erects his rule of faith on the whisperings of the interior Spirit, and through its illumination selects from the " Hebrew and Greek of the holy Ghost," those necessary articles of creed on which his salvation depends ?"

" Unable to meet your antagonist in manly and logical argument — skulking under tlie shelter of subterfuge and rank slanders, into which you breathe a still ranker life, — a prey to the gnawings which eat into your very heart's core under defeat, disgrace and dishonor, you sputter out the morbid secretions of an envenomed will."

Again our queries are repeated.

How do you knovv^ the Bible to be the word of God ?

How do you know which books were written by divine inspiration ?

Does the Bible contain the whole of the word of God, or does it not?

"Nothing in your last — but an idle drivel about the 'liberty of conscience,' — American Republicans, a startling phrase, anthropoi alogoi, to prove intimacy with Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost &,c. &c."

" Thus you go up, up, up;

And thus you go down, down, downy ; Thus you go backward and forward, —

And, heigh for your logic, dear Brownlee !"

" Your register of, and tirade about, the Popes is out of place., of no consequence to the real matter under consideration — your rule of faith."

" We call on you, in the face of the Biblical world, to produce one single text of scrip- ture, which tells you ' that the only rule of faith and judge of controversy, cstablislicd by Christ, is the Holy Spirit speaking to us in the wriUcn word of the Old Testament and of the New."

" First, when Christ sent hi^ apostles to convert the world, he did not say go and di.-;tributc the scriptures to the nations of the earth but ' Go into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature.' "

" Secondly. The Bible is a book more or less obscure in most parts of it, and full of things 'hard to be understood, whicli the unlearned and unstable wrest to their otni dcstrjictian.' •2 Pet. iii. 16. Some texts seem to contradict others : Several rt/;/)Crtr to inculcate the very vices which God condenuis."

'' Thirdly. The learned among christians, who make the Bible alone their rule of fi^iih,

40

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

eannot agree, as to its meaning, in the most important points ; as the endless variationB of Protestants on all religious subjects prove."

" Fourthly. The rule of faith previously to the existence of the scriptures of the Ne^ Testament, must have been the testimony of the church or preaching of the gospel by men sent by God."

'' Can you, Rev. Doctor, adduce scripture evidence, that the gospels in the New Tegtak ment were acttudly written by the blessed Apostles and Evangelists, Vi^hose names are attached to tliem ? Is it possible for you to prove by any other means, than tradition, that the Sabbath of the Jews was changed by the Apostles to the first day of the week ? What other proof can you give, except that of tradition, for the custom of infant baptism."

You shall aswer this, — " First, if we look back to the commencement of Christianity, we shall find that the New Testament was written, by the Apostles and Evangelists chiefly in Greek."

" We think it strange, that our most gracious Redeemer v/ould require of the poor ignO' rant people to pick out their religion through the exercise of tJieir own scanty intellect from the holy scripture, or to depend on their own weak capacities, for detecting the true sense aiid interpretation of it."

" Your great mistakes in supposing the rule of faith was made and intended by God tp be put into the hands of every man. It would be absurd to suppose it; and, hence, the old distinction of Ecclesia docens, and Ecclesia discens, &c."

" Christ gave no orders to his Apostles to write the New Testament;" If the Bible be your anly rule of faith, you cannot believe that Christ did give any such command to his Apos- tles. Produce the text if you can, and if you cannot, why believe he did command his Apos- tles to write the New Testament?"

"But we cannot conclude, without expressing our great surprise at the divisions of Pro- testants with regard to the very essence of religion, seeing that they are taught, as they assert by Christ himself, under 'guidance of the Spirit of God.' "

LETTER V.

TO DOCTORS POWER, VARELA, AND MR. LEVINS.

" Therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way, by which thou earnest." — Isaiah's message to Sennacherib, ch. 37. 29.

ON THE RULE OF FAITH.

Gentlemen : — I dare say my readers will have learned already, from this stago of our argument, that it is not by fair and manly argument that Popery seeks to- advance itself: but, on the contrary, by throwing a veil over its most repulsive and haggard features. Every Protestant, and every patriot ought to make himself tho- roughly acquainted with this peculiar attribute of popery, namely its singular power of elasticity, in adapting itself to each country ; to all times, and places ; and to the peculiar habits of thinking among a people. With the Jesuit among the Chinese, it permits the natives to worship deceased fathers and mothers ; on the trifling condition that they only change the nomenclature, and call them St. Peter ; St. Paul ; St. Dominick ; and the Holy Virgin! Or, with the Canadian Jesuit among the Indians, it gains the ear of the savage warrior by "representing Jesus Christ as an ancient, 2ind brave warrior, who excelled all his compeers in killing and scalping the foes of the tribe !"

Its grossest doctrines it carefu.iy conceals, among civilized and refined people. It

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 41

is in its government, not only monarchic, but feudal : and of the very essence of absolutism, in its claims of authority over the souls, consciences, and bodies of its votaries. Witness the absolute supremacy of his hohness, over his prelates ; and that of the prelates, over the priests ; and that of the priests over the souls, bodies? and properties of the simple faithful !

Yet, while, in the very essence of its priestly power, it is all hostility to republican freedom ; and cannot be otherwise, from its public, and sworn allegiance to the foreign potentate of Rome ; it gravely affects to raise its hosannahs in favor of our glorious and free institutions ! I speak not of all : there are in the Romish com- munion, as enlightened and loyal hearts as ever beat in a gallant bosom : and many of these excellent men we have in our city. I speak of the Romish priesthood : and of those who basely yield to their absolutism ; and who sustain their usurpation di" what neither God, nor man ever gave them.

It is a truth which I am anxious to impress on my readers, that there has beep no change, no improvement, no reformation, in the spirit, power, and designs of popery. Its spirit is precisely the same, this day, in its secret haunts, in our city, and over the land, as it is now in Italy and Spain : and it is the same here, and in Italy, as it ever has been in the darkest ages of Europe. There is a strange delusion abroad in the land, namely ; that there has been a singular improvement in it ; and that it is entirely different. To make this impression on the American mind, has been the incessant labor of the Jesuits who swarm in disguise, among us, in these United States, since they lost their foothold in Europe. And the extent of this lethargy and indifference is appalling. It indicates one of two things : the great influence of Jesuitism, or the insensibility of our fellow-citizens to the national dan- ger to which we are exposed from the Jesuits, whom no despot in Europe can endure, and who have been solemnly banished by every government of the old world !

Now, Holy Mother and her sons are precisely the same now as wlien they con- vulsed the nations of Europe. The old lion has had his claws pared, and his teeth broken ; he is only reclining in his den — en Qoucliant — until his teeth and his claws shall have grov/n. His spirit is the same, unbroken, unsubdued, untameable ! And our fellow citizens, whose characteristic charity has been ungenerously imposed on, do verily pay them no compliment, in a Jesuit's estimation, when they call their system an improvement on the doctrines, regimen, and tyranny of the papal court, in the dark ages. In paying them this compliment, at which every son of Loyola smiles, but with bitterness of feeling, we actually, though unwittingly, rob them of their pre- eminent attribute of immutability.

It is a compliment fis ungracious to our Jesuits, as that of the popish princes of the old world to their poi)e. They caressed and worshipped the apostolical vicar of Christ, while tlicy sent potent armies to beleaguer his city, and plunder him, as a temporal prince!

All the difference which can be supposed to exist between ancient and inodcrK popery, arises from this elastic attribute of adapting itself to the times, the habiis, and religious freedom of a thinking people. And, hence, our main task is to exhibit iheir real and accredited principles, in their standard works, and contrast with them these pretended modern views, put on, en masque, until the time (may it never hapi)en,) when their anticipated ascendency shall take place in our land, on the contemplated ruin of the Protestant religion, and ilie extinction of our re])nblic institutions!

We have proved, I trust, to the satisfaction of every candid christian, that what the

6*

42 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

Roman Catholic church calls its infallible rule of faith never can be found out, or reduced to any practical purpose : that Christ never established that rule in his church: and that even if he did, the Une of succession is broken off, and lost irretrievably. The blow w^hich severed the last bond of apostolical union and succession, was struck by that assembly of ungodly men who formed the council of Trent; and whom your own father Paul, in his history of it, called "a camp of incarnate demons !" The succession is gone from the Romish church, like the departed glory, which, in the holy vision of Ezekiel, was seen hovering long over the threshhold, and then over the city, and, finally, took its flight!

No accurate theologian ever said that the holy universal church of Christ has been, or can be, cut off. She has existed in her glory and beauty, as the spouse of Chriat, since the days of Adam, down through all the revolution of time, and of empires, even U) this liour. Unlike the church of Rome, which by her own confession, rests on a mortal man, the rock Peter, — the holy church of God is founded on the eternal ROCK of ages, even Jesus Christ; and the gates of hell cannot prevail against her. She advances in splendor, and an ever encreasing lustre of accumulating glory, as she advances in days, and in years. And this fair one moves forward, leaning on the arm of her espoused Lord, to take possession of all nations, and kingdoms on earth! And the long line of her successive pastors and teachers, has ever continued, unbroken, till now, and will through all days, unto the consummation of all things.

This holy universal church may not, at all times, be visible. In the days of Ahab, the spiritual church was not visible : it did not stand visibly out with its pastors and teachers. Yet it existed in the ministrations of Elijah ; and in the persons of the 7000 who, though unknown even to that holy prophet, had not bowed the knee to Baal- So also in the general apostacy of the christian era, this spiritual society did not stand visibly out before the world with her pure ministers, and her congregated assembUes. Yet there ever was a church of God in Asia, in Greece, and amid the dens and caves in the west and south of Europe : there ever was an unbroken succession of holy wit- nesses : with their unbroken line of holy pastors, and teachers, and they were raised rip, as their martyred fathers closed their lives, and sealed the testimony with their blood, — by the call of divine providence, and the call of the faithful church; a two- fold call, essential to the true ministry ; — which no Roman Catholic priest ever had; or ever thought of claiming.

If protestants would be at the trouble of keeping these facts in view, relative to the succession of the pure church of Christ, in Asia ; and through the line of the Walden- ses, and the very ancient Anglian church, and the Culdees, and Lollards in Scotland and Ireland, every one would be prepared to answer the illiterate and vulgar quibble of the Roman catholics, — "Where was your religion before Luther?" Yes! The holy church of Jesus Christ, has from the days of Adam, been rolling on like the streams of our own mighty Mississippi, and becoming deeper and wider, and more and more majestic, as she flows along the bosom of time. But the Roman catholic church, and the numerous sects and heresies in her, like so many byous, bursting through the banks of that noble river, and threading their heavy and muddy courses through the adjacent lands, have been diverging, in the course of years, farther and farther from the pure rivers of the water of life, which issue from the sanctuary and throne of God. — But we now go on to our —

VI. Argument, against the Roman catholic rule of faith ; namely : — The proof

I

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 43

vAick the Romish writers bring in behalf of your rule, is not only involved in contradi^i- Hons, but is founded in arrogant and blasphemous assumptions.

"Popery," says bishop Hall, (in his works p. 351.) "Popery destroyeth the foun- dation, and instead of the true foundation, it lays a double new one ; the one a new rule of faith : and the other, a new author, or guide of faith." Instead of Christ, as the Judge, " popery rears on the throne a man, the man of sin. He must know all things, can err in nothing ; he directs, informs, commands, animates, both in earth, and pur- gatory ; expounds scripture, canonizes saints, forgives sins, and creates new articles of faith; and in all these, is absolute and infallible as his Maker !"

Planting themselves on the ground of this rule, the Roman priesthood intrude them- eelves between the human intellect, and our Creator ; and declare that they are lords over the reason, and judgment, and conscience of man ; that man shall not think for him- self, nor exercise, in religion, the rights oi^ private judgment. They stand up between God and his own accountable subjects, and affirm in the very presence of the Almighty, that they shall not hear God's word, as he speaks it to them : that they shall not be permitted " to hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches ; that they shall hear it only as their priesthood choose to explain it: that all the authority of the Bible is derived from them, and their church ; that no man shall take on him to worship God, as Christ prescribes, but as the Romish priesthood ipr escribes: that the Spirit of God speaking in the Scriptures shall not interpret the word to them ; but that the priesthood alone shall do it. And thus, in the very face of the Almighty, the supreme and only Judge of all, do they usurp the guidance of the human conscience : and thrust themselves in the throne of God, and receive the confessions of sins ! sitting in the temple of God, and calling the pope, God, they grant absolution of sins ! They provide a new sacrifice of a thing they call the Mass ; and they tell divine justice, that this, even this, and not the blood of Christ, shall atone and reconcile ! They consummate their damning high treason against the Son of God, by providing a supply of new and unheard o^ intercessors ; and they place this new host of their heaven, under the super- vision oithe mediatrix, the Virgin Mary !

And they close the creation of their new heavens, and their new earth, by denounc- ing the holy Bible, as " a falacious rule ;" and erecting in its stead, as their law, and their judge, the rule and judge of their own invention ! And they utter their hosannaha to them as " infallible'' and as utterly removed above all liability to mistake, or misappre- hension !

After this, it would not surprise us, if they claim for their pope, or the church, the power of appointing new articles of faith. I am aware that a strong party among them deny this, but the Roman party does maintain it. Pope Leo X. condemned Luther for denying this power : See his Bull added to the last Council in Latcran : and bishop Jer. Taylor's works p. 392. And Thomas Aquinas and Almain expressly assert, — " That the Popes of Rome by defining many things, whicli before lay hid, «ymbolum fidci augere consuesse, are accustomed to enlarge the symbol of faith." And every body knows that twelve articles were added to the creed, by the council of Trent.

Bellarmine De concil. Auctor, lib. ii. cap. 17, teaches the genuine popery, namely; that "the supreme pontiil" is simply and absolutely above the church ; aiul above a general council, &c." He adds the following, which no one can clear from (he charge of blasphemy : " All the names which in the scriptures arc applied to Christ, proving him to be above the church, are, in like maimer, ap])lied to the pontiff; as.

44 ROMAN CATHOLIC CO>-TROVKRSY.

first, Christ is pater familias, head of the family, in his o^^ti house, which is the church. The pontiff is high steward in the same, that is, he is pater famihas, in the place of Christ, loco Christi."

And hence the titles of the pope, on the pages of these writers, who advocate this doctrine. He is " Deus alter in terra," " another god on earth ;" " the lord our god the pope." ''Idem est dominium Dei ac Papae ;" " The dominion of God and the pope are the same!" "The infallible one." And pope Clement VII. and his car- dinals, in their letter to king Charles VI., say, " as there is only one God m heaven, 60 there cannot, and there ought not, to be but one God on earth !" — meaning himself. See Troisard, torn. 3. p. 147. Mussus, bishop of Bitonto, called the pope, " him who is to us as our God;" and the bishop of Grenada styled him, " a god on earth, not subiect to a coimcil." And in Bellarmine's noted saying, we have this doctrine, (lib. iv. de Rom. pont. c. 5:) "But if the pope should err by enjoining vice, and for- bidding virtues, the church, teneretur credere, &c., would be bound to believe ^-ices to be good, and virtues to be wicked, unless she would be willing to sin against con- science !" Pope Leo X., in his Brief of Nov. 9th, 1512, declared that " as \'icar of Christ on earth, he had power to forgive, by virtue of the keys, the guilt and punish- ment of actual sins, &c. See Dupin. vol. iv. p. 17.

These sentiments seem so monstrous, that many of my good natured readers, I dare say, actually think that we exaggerate. Hence I shall give a few more quota- tions from their approved v-Titers in order to exonerate myself. " Estiment papam," &c. They esteem the pope to be God alone ; unicum Deum esse, who has all power in heaven and in earth." Gerson and Carron, p. 34; Giannon, Hist. Nap. X. 12. St. Bernard, Oper. 1725, says, — "Prater Deum, &c. — None is like unto the pope in heaven or earth, except God !,, Pope Innocent III. avowed "that the pope holds the place of the true God." — Papa locum Dei tenet in terris. Papa vicem non puri homi- nis, sed veri Dei gerens in terra." See Pithou 29; Gibert vol. ii. p. 9. "Papa et Christus, &c. — The pope and Christ make one consistory: so that, sin excepted, the pope can almost do all things which God can do." See Jacobatius, De Concilio, Venet, Edit. 1728, Edgar Var. p. IGl.

And finally, the pope being invested vcith all pov.^er in heaven, and on earth, all ci%'il governments are of right under his dominion. The pope, says a council which had Gregory VII. at its head, "ought to wear the token of imperial dignity; all princes ought to kiss his feet." Pope Innocent III. said, "the church, my spouse, is not married to me \\athout bringing me something." And he goes on to state that dowery, namely ; the spiritual and the temporal crown in plenitude ; " that others may say of me, next to God, ' out of his fulness have we received !' " Hence, in the times of European degradation, he trampled under foot all the laws, and all the magistrac}' of the European kingdoms.

" Qui S^tanam non odit. amet tua dogmata Papa !"

And as if they attempted, without compunction, the utmost limit of impious daring, they claim power to do what Christ himself never did ; namely, " to redeem souls out of purgator^^" And those accredited Romanists, who Hcensed that marvellous book, the Revelations of St. Bridget, such as Terrecremata, and others, gave sanc- tion to that declaration that "the good Gregory-, sua oratione, &c., by his supplica- tions raised aloft ' ad altiorem gradum,' to a loftier grade, even the pagan Caesar." Morn. Exer. 83.

Such ai-e the arrogant and blasphemous claims advanced by means of your " infal-

ftOMAU CATHOLIC CONTROVERST. 45

lible rule." It is impossible not to conclude that this is the invention ofhim " whosd timing is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders!" VII. The history of your church establishes this position, that it is false, in fact, that there is any such thing as an infallible rule in her. If there were infallibility in the "Holy Mother," or in the pope, by the "infallible exercise" of their "infal- lible rule," then, most assuredly, it would not be too much to expect something like sanctity and pure morals, in his holiness, and in his court. We have shown that in regard to our rule, all disorders, and divisions in the Protestant churches, arise from their not fully listening to, nor entirely obeying, God's holy law and word. But no evils, no errors, no divisions, have ever been caused by the Bible. To charge this on the holy law, is to charge it on God Almighty speaking in it. But, in your case, it is entirely different. We offer to prove that your rule is corrupt; that your head, the pope, is corrupt; and that your church is corrupt. And it is the very exercise of your infallible rule that does actually cause all these errors and divisions in the Romish church!

Now, let any candid man look at the court and priesthood of Rome, where this infallible rule is, in its purest influence and operation. And, gentleman, you know as well as I do, what that eminent divine of your church has written, — namely, Claude D'Espence ; — " Shameful to relate ! They gave permission to priests to keep concubines, upon paying an annual tax !" This is only a tithe of sacerdotal impiety. And yet you affect to marvel at my charging them with " immorality and pollution." Can it be possible that you do not know what " chastity" means in the lips of priests ? But hear the same doctor: " There is a printed book which has been sold for a considerable time, entitled the Taxes of the Apostolic Chancery, from which we may learn more enormities and crimes, than from all the books of the Sum- mists. And of these crimes, there are some which persons may have liberty to commit for money ; while absolution from all of them, after they have been committed, may be bought." D'Esp. ad, cap. i. Epist. ad. Titum. deg. ii. Hence the pollution of your indulgences ; hence the pollution of your auricular confessions, hence your abso- lutions for money ! Every one of your victims knows the truth of all this!

Then, in reference to the character of the pontiff, who wields this "infallible rule ;" I quoted out of Baronius, in my last, the character of many of them. To this, you replied, — "Your tirade about the popes is out of place, and of no consequence, &c.'* Most logical reply. Nevertheless it is strictly in point ; and you feel it ; and you cannot question one of my quotations ! I directed the public eye to the pontiff', and his throne, beaming with holiness ! Your own writer, Guiciardini, speaking of the popes, even so late as those of the sixteenth century, says, — " He was esteemed a good pope in those days, who did not exceed in wickedness, the worst of men I"

Alexander VI. was a reproach to human nature, and died by a mistake ; taking that poisoned chalice which he had prepared for another! Julius II. was so notori- ously wicked that "he was a scandal to the whole church. He filled Ilaly with rapine, war, and blood." Pope Leo X. was not a believer in the immortaliiy of the •oul; nor even in any doctrine of Christianity ; he was a spirhual juggler : he called the gospel of Christ "a lucrative fiction!" And to a cardinal who offered him conso- lation in his dying moments, by a text of holy writ, he exclaimed " Away with your baubles of texts P' — Paul iii. and Julius iii. "were such licentious characters that no modest man can write, or read their lives without blushing." The popes of ih(> darker ages, the tenth century, for instance, and up towards the dawn of the Rcfonnatiou,

46 ROMA.V CATHOLIC CO.VTROVERST.

were in all respects, rivals of the Roman pagan Emperors. To their utmost licentious- ness, and lewdness, they added cruelty more revolting than even that of theirs! Witness John X., John XXII., and XXIII. and Innocent MIL, who made the Tallies of Piedmont flow like streams, ^^-ith the blood of thousands of innocents !

If there was the operation of an "infallible rule" in the Romish church, there would at least be some traces of an exact and conspicuous harmony. But the " living rule and judge" itself has caused the reverse of all this. The example of iEneas Sylvius was honest and instructive. Before he became Pope Pius II. he had zealously defended the council of Basil against the Roman court. AVhen challenged for advo- cating opposite sentiments when created a pope, he replied that " as Sylvius, he tras a dwnnabh heretic, but as Pope Pius II. he was an orthodox pontiff.'' And it is a notorious fact, that in the struggles of Rome to gain unlimited power, your "infallible jadge" originated almost all the political wars of Europe: and all the di%-isions in the church lefore the bishops \-ielded up their rights; and before the temporal princes were brought to place their necks under the haughty priests' heel ! In proof of this I refer the curious reader toHallam's Hist, of the Middle Ages, vol. 1. chap. 7. And Stillingfleet on the Divisions of the Rom. Church, ch. 5.

In reference to the disputes about doctrines, let the priests name one contested point settled, finallv, by this infallible judge. Has the question about the Virgin Mar\''s •'immaculate conception," been settled ? No. Have the disputes been settled rela- tive to the kind of worship due to the natural blood of Christ, which raged between the Franciscans and Dominicans, in the fourteenth centur\' : and again, a century after this, under Pius II. ? No, the pope's interference rather made it worse. Has your infallibility' been able to compose the theological wars between the Cahinistic Jansenists, and the Arminian Jesuits? Everj" infallible interposition made the flame? blaze still more fiercely. "N^Tio taught sen^ants to rebel against their lawful prince, and seize the throne? Your infallible judge, in the person of Pope Zachan.-, and of Gregory VIII. who put his heel on the emperor's neck. — 'Your infallible." who kin- dled the terrible w-ars in Germany, and over all Europe: the ghostly arrogance of your infalUble judge, climbing to civil power, and setting nation against nation in order to weaken their power. — ^AMio set whole nations against their lawful rulers ? "The infalUble pope," who suspended ci%il laws, and stopped commerce; and spread civil rebellion over the land. "Who massacred the Huguonots, the Waldenses, and Lollards? The hired assassins of the " infalUble judge" of Rome, which celebrated the Parisian massacre by a solemn Te Deum I AMio changed the doctrines and the decrees, and the institutions of heaven? Your infalUble judge, — who has corrupted the doctrines of the Bible ; added five sacraments, unknown to the early church, and contrary to Christ's solemn commands : who has, also, instituted the various orders of lazy and vicious monks, friars, and nuns, to devour the surplus product of the people's industry. WTio, professes to convert virtue into ^-ice ; and \-ice into virtue ? Let your r5 ell armine answer, — -'the pope, who can transubstantiate sin into duty, and duty inio sin ! De Rom. Pontif. Lib. iv. cap. 5. — ^\^lo can dispense with law, and right? Let your own Pope Gregory iii. in 8. and iv., answer it: — "■ Possumus fyc. We can dispense against law and right! See also Extravag. Comm. 208. And Labbeus, vol. 19. p. 924. MVho seats himself on God's throne, and usurps his prero- gatives ? Your pope who arrogates the right and power to grant indulgences : who demands confession of sin to be made to him and his priests ; who absolves all sine at a regular tariff; who delivers from purgatorj^; and sends the most vicious and ungodly

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTR,OVERST» 47

men to heaven, for money, according to the chancery book mentioned by Espence* Who founded the helHsh Inquisition, and turned loose on the human race, such a mon- ster as the inquisitor Torquemada ? " The infallible judge," your pope, whose servants have repeatedly gratified the royal courts of Spain with the Moloch sacrifices of human beings, at an Auto de Fe !

Such are the legitimate fruits of the exercise of your Rule. Let the world judge of the tree, by these poisonous and deadly fruits.

Vril. We have the consent of the greatest andbestof the Fathers against your rule, and most decisively in favor of our rule.

These quotations I shall reserve for the present. They will come in appropriately at the close of our discussion on the rule of faith.

IX. Your rule is the instrument by which you have established claims that go to annihilate all liberty, civil and religious, from the face of the earth. You deny God's word to the people unless they have a written permission from a priest, condescending" to allow him to hear his Maker speaking unto him ! But with even this permission, you deny him the rights of private judgment, or even to think with that soul which the Almighty has given him. He must think, and reason, and believe, just as the lordly priest dictates. The prelate exerts the same tyranny over the priest, and the pope over the prelate. And in those kingdoms where popery is the established religion, priestcraft eats out the very existence of civil liberty. I point to Spahi, to Rome, to Naples, to Austria ; and say, behold, fellow citizens, the melancholy proof. All the doctrines of supremacy, and toleration, and union of church and state, are genuine popery, begotten and nursed, and matured by your pope. And what is the state of our Republic ? I see the holy and lovely genius of Liberty walking forth over our happy plains, in her fair robes and glory, and calling her happy votaries to every national blessing and happiness. And near her pathway we perceive a fierce lion in his den ; his face peering from his dark and disguised cavern ; but his claws are pared, and his teeth broken : he is flapping his lusty sides with his tail ; waiting with impatience for his claws to grow, and his teeth to be whetted, his eyes, the while, gleaming dark and unsubduable wrath. His blood shot eyes are ever on the fair Genius of Liberty, and he is meditating a ferocious assault upon her, the moment he prowls forth, when the sun shall be setting over the land !

X. And last: neither prelate nor priest can give their flocks any decisive evidence that they are lawful, and ordained pastors.

Were it even possible that you could establish apostolical succession, you cannot prove a legal ordination. For, first, no priest has the true and essentially necessary CALL of the christian people. A man takes it into his head to go to a catholic semi- nary ; after his term is out, without the least evidence of spiritual conversion by the grace of the Holy Ghost, he presents himself to the bishop, and is ordained, and then he is stationed in a chapel; say St. Patrick's, or St. Peter's. The gospel call of a christian people is never asked. And I do question gravely, if you, gentlemen priests, do really understand what a gospel call is !

Second. — The office of priest as you take it, (not as ray Episcopalian brctfiron take it,) is unknown to the Christianity of the New Testament. It is an outrageous imposi- tion on scripture and reason. I challenge any man to produce me one ]>assage, justly and correctly translated, in all the New Testament, wherein the office or oven name of priest is ever applied to a successor of the apostolical teachers. The Greek was used by the Holy Ghost in the New Testament. Now there is not in .all the Greek

48 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

thereof, or in any truly and correctly translated passage, one instance of the tm* ministry of Christ being called piiests in the visible church. By assuming the name and office of priest, the catholics overthrow the priesthood of Christ, and his one. final, and only offering of a sacrifice. " By this one offering, he has, for ever, per- fected them that are sanctified." But the catholics call their officiating men priests^ simply, and only, for this reason, that they offer up the sacrifice of the mass, — even a sacrifice, in the room of Christ's one, only, and never to be repeated sacrifice! By this very name of priest, assumed by them, do they deliberately and designedly over- throw our Lord's blessed and perfect atonement !

As surely ihen, as this sacrifice was perfect, and needed never to be repeated, so surely are there no such things as priests to offer sacrifice by the will of God !

Thirdly and last : There is not a Romish priest in existence, who can prove his ordination : because not one of them can prove the existence of the bishop's intention^ in that rite. In this " Sacramental rite," your own council of Trent, Sess. 7. declared that he ivho denies that the intention of the officiating minister is nut necessary to the efficacy of the sacrament, is to be anathema. Now, unless the " holy bishop," who ordained you, gentlemen, had the intention in his soul, conscience, and heart, really and truly to ordain you ; or if his mind happened to waver ; or to wander after some object, — in fact, if the talisman and magic charm of intention was, in any measure, wanting, then you are not ordained. And what is more, if you venture to set up pre- tensions to ordination without the perfect evidence that the bishop had the said intention, you are not only not ordained, but you are absolutely under the holy ban of the council of Trent ; and exposed to damnation ! !

Now, I defy any of you, gentlemen, with all the aid of your " infallibility," to prove this intention. The witnesses of the scene cannot prove it. You cannot yourselves prove it ; because you could not penetrate the mind of the bishop. The bishop himself cannot prove it : he can produce no e\idence to satisfy any one : he has not the least recollection on the subject. None but God can tell whether he had the INTENTION. But, most assuredly, without this unattainable evidence, you are ruined ! Without it, not a soul of you can prove your ordination. Without it, you are living in a mortal sin, — for any thing you know to the contrary.

Hence we arrive at the most certain conclusion that you have neither an " infal- lible rule," nor legitimate pope, prelate, priest, or church, before God or man !

I am. Gentlemen, Yours, &c. W. C. B.

EXTRACTS FROM THE PRIESTS' LETTER V.

It opens with a discussion on ingratitude, — Dr. B's claims to sympathy, — his defeat, — hii

presumptuous challenge of the priests of New York!

" Your next claim rests on your claims to be a ' Gentleman, and Writer for the Middle Dutch Church ;' and this claim is supported by language not usual with those who whisper with the interior spirit and interpret the ' Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost.' "

"You say the Catholic Clergy are 'a polluted and immoral Priesthood,' that the celibacy of the priests is a ' pleasant joke.' The same foul and gross slaver is sputtered through your last letter."

" This third claim rests on your letter in the ' Christian Intelligencer' of Saturday, in

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 49

which you and your ' virtuous ladies' recommend the printing of the obscene tale and slander, ' Lorette."'

Note. — The priests allude here to a well written little book called " Lorette, or the history of the daughter of a Canadian Nun." It is a true narrative of the atrocious morals of priests and nuns; and contains an interesting account of the conversion of the Nun, her mother, and others. The truth is, the picture of morals drawn from the life in this book, has galled our priests beyond measure.

I had no other concern in this book, the second edition of which is already nearly sold, than simply the reading of the M. S. and recommending it. It never was shown to "the virtu- ous and highly intelligent ladies of the Middle Dutch Church." It was submitted by its author, formerly a Presbyterian minister in Q,uebec, to a few eminently intelligent and virtuous ladies ; members of the Presbyterian church ; and they cheerfully accorded to its author, their hearty recommendation of it.

I addressed a card in confidence, to Mr. Levins, the rude author of the repeated assaults on " the virtuous ladies of the Middle Dutch church," stating to him the above facts. After that, instead of feeling the appeal made to him, as to a gentleman, he became ten fold more rude and insulting ! We proceed with extracts: —

" Do you seriously. Rev. Sir, intend this answer as a proofthat the Bible is the word of God? Here there is nothing but a series of assertions. A sseHions ave not j^roqfs. Where is the form of argument, — where the ' form of sound words ?' Where is the logical concate nation ? JVlierc the convincing and logical conclusion ?"

That you may know the work you have to execute, v/e register the propositions contain- ed in your answer.

Question. How do you kno%v the Bible to be the word of God ?

Answer 1st. " I know it from its external evidence of prophecy." Prove it.

2nd. " I know it from its external evidence of miracles." Prove it.

"3d. "I know it from its external evidence of the gift of tongues." Prove it.

4th. " I know it from its internal evidence, namely, its majesty." Prove it.

5th. " I know it from its internal evidence, its purity." Prove it.

6th. "I know it from its internal evidence, its sublimity." Prove it.

7th. ''I know it from its internal evidence, its efficacy in convincing." Prove it.

'8th. "I know it from its internal evidence, its efficacy in converting." Prove it.

Dth. " I know it from its internal evidence, its efficacy in comforting." Prove it.

10th. " I know it from its internal evidence, its perfect harmony in all its parts." Prove it.

11th. "I know it from its internal evidence, its uncorrupted preservation." Prove it.

12th. "I know it from the historical evidence of its own tradition." Prove it.

13th, "I know it from the Hebrews and Jews." Prove it.

14th. "I know it from the African Church." Prove it.

15th. " I know it from the Church of the Albigenscs and Waldenscs." Prove it.

ICth. " And I know it from the Boman Chirch^ Prove it.

"Your only rule of faith and judge of controversy, the written word of God, speaking '.o us in the scriptures of the Old Testament and the New, is utterly abando.ved by you. When asked to prove the Bible to be the word of God, you say you prove it " from t/u; external evidence of prophecy, and of miracles: and tlie gift of tongues, and that thi: CHURCH tells YOU SHE HAS THIS EVIDENCE, from the authors of the books of the holy scrip- tures." Here then, Rev. Sir, is your unecpuvocal admission of what we contend for. We contend that without the testimony of the Church, the Bible could never l)e proved to bo flu* word of God. This you admit."

My reader is fully aware that 1 have, all along, admitted the hii^loricdl tradiiion of ilu^ ciuls- tian church, as a prominent portion of the external evidence.

But the conclusion drawn in tlie next sentence by our priests, is no lean (\xtruordina;v. than the above discovery.

"Therefore" — that is " because the Biblcis thuy i>roved to be the inppirccl wtird ofGo(' " —

50 EOMAV CATHOLIC CO>tKOVERsr-

• therrfore. Sir. the written word of God. in the scriptures of the Old Testamcni anA of the yeic. IS not the ruU of faith established by Christ '. It is an article cf christian behef. thai the Bible is the word of God. But this article of belief could not be known trona the Bible alone, how then can it be said Christ established, as a rule of faith, that w4iich never could brin^ man to the faith of the divinity of the scriptures. Strange. Rev. Su-. that so able a divine as yon, never detected the absurdity cf your Protestant rule of faith and jud^e of controversy. until it has been fully demonstrated to you. by your Catholic antagonists."

•• If you will but consult the learned work of Adamus Contzin, on the four gospels, and also tlie great work of Serrerius, you will find that no fewer than twenty several bocks of scripture have wholly perished. ' These books.' says Dr. Brownlee. ■ referred to by deists and Romish priests, such as Jasher and urtain epistles and gospels, were not given by inspiration.' The trick of your design is obvious.

Here our priests specify the books lost. •• Tht hook of the tears of the Lord :" — • the book of Nathan, '■ of Iddo.'' " of Gad" — -the epistle /rom Laodicea." They add. in the profound science of Bfblical lore, and settle a mooted point which has divided the first scholars, — al- though they have yet to learn the Hebrew alphabet I St. 3Iatthew. whose Hebrew gospel did not exist, in his c. iXAii. 9. quotes words spoken by the prophet Jeremy, which are not now fotind in the ■writings of the prophet. St. Matthew, also c. ii. v. 23. says, **it wa* spoken by the prophets" — "He shall be called a Nazarene." Where, in any of the pro- phetic cooks no-.v existing, is Christ called a Nazarene ? The becks, then of the prophet* here alluded to by St. 3Ianhev.-. must have perished.

'•This was the belief. Rev. Sir, of the great St. John Chrysosiom. whom we are better pleased to follcw. than the preacher in tiie iliddle Dutch Church. In his 9th Horn, on St. Matt, he says, -many of the prophetical monuments have perished. For the Jews being careless, and not only careless, but also impious, they have carelessly lost some of tbes^ monuments, others they have partly burnt, partly torn in pieces. Saint Justin, writing against Trvphon. shews that the Jews maliciously destroyed many of the books of the Old Tesiaiaent. Yet against the testimony of the scriptures, and in opposition to the most re- spectable historical evidence, preacher Brownlee assens. • there is no inspired hook lost '' Truly, Rev. preacher.

Queni Deas \-ult perdere. prius dementat ;' And your insane flippancy cf assertich. if not sross iexorance of the subject on wh:cii you write, places ycu before the "christian public. ' in the ludicrous attitude of a. frantic fanatic, declaiming to a conclave of virtuous ladies, on the all sufficiency of a mutilated rule of faith- while you leave to your opponents the rich and noble eloquence of the Chrysostoms. the the Gregorys, the Basils, the Justins. the Cyprians. &c."

" You iinblushinglv proclaim us idolaters, because we venerate the saints of God. and pay a Jcccrit respect to images."

Here follow pretended quotatioiis from Luther and MelarKthon. in which these worthies, the las: in the world who would do it. axe made to praise and laud, and almost worship, the pu- rity of •• Holy Mother :"'

Next, tliere follows a unique illustration of a notorious Jesiiit maxim, namely : " when you are charged \\ith a sentiment, or a crime, retort, and deliberately charge it back on your fje ; and make him as ridiculous as you can.''

'• No priest, says Dr. Brownlee, can prove his orduiation, for he caimot prove thai the biafaop who ordained him, had the ' magic charm of intention.' Really, most worthy preacher. * writer,* and 'gentleman,' we must greet you. &.c. — "'

* Your intellect has strange biasses; its propensity to • sfMin/in^,' is, we fear, incurable. How fitlv it illustrates * the Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost.'— 'Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a morter with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart fi-om him." YooK doctrine of irJerJion is amons the most ludicrous that could emanate from a rheumatic brain It would uproot all confidence bet^veen man and man. dissolve the laws of ever}- system of compact, and taint with suspicion every pledge of trust. But to apply your puerile argument

EOMA>' CATHOLIC CO'TRO VERS Y. 51

to yourself. In the course of ministerial duties, you are asked to baptize a child. You bap- tize it. According to your law of intention the parents of the child cannot prove your inten- tion to baptize, therefore the child is not baptized ! This is your wondrous logic. Will the preacher who did concoct it. ever prove his rule of faith? No. But, gentle Doctor, are you a christian ? Were you baptized ? Certainly not ; for, according to your own doctrine, you cannot prove the intention of the parson who baptised you. Ergo, you are no christian. Q,. E. D. You interpret the ' Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost' to your ' virtuous' cro- nies. Can they have faith in the interpretation ? They cannot prove your intention. WhrU think you of your logic, dear Doctor? You are now, Rev. Sir, openly and effectually de- feated, on your rule of faith. "

" You are informed that the Jews, during their captivity at Babylon, lost the knowledge of the old Hebrew tongue, in which the law and the prophets were written, and in the after period of their existence, spoke Syriac, a mixture of Hebrew and Chaldaic. Those who understood the Hebrew were few. It is also admitted by all, that, before the coming of Christ, there was no Syriac version of the holy scripture. Hence, for fourteen generations, the Jews had not the Bible in their own original vernacular language. But the law and the prophets were read in their synagogues, and the psalms Avere sung in a language they did not understand."

The letter is closed with a quotation from Roscoe, in which an eulogium is gravely uttered on the atheistic and ■profligate popes !

But we give them credit for the wittiest and truest sentence, which closes their letter V, It is a bit of choice sarcasm, but purely accidental ; for our priests are ' smart' only by chance. Comparing the church of Rome to the bark of St. Peter, they very honestly call the whols Romish priesthood, "the practised crew that man ^Ae o^ooJ/i/resse/ .'"

DISSERTATION

ON THE DIVINE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

We were unwilling to be turned out of our direct course in order to meet infidel objections. The following argument, therefore, was placed more than once before our Letters, while the Priests reiterated their deistical questions.

Priests : 1st. " How do you know the Bible to be the word of God ?" Ans. ] St. From the external evidence of prophecy, which has been, and is now fulfilling before our eyes: (See the proof in Bishop Newton on the prophecies) and of miracles by the inspired writers, and the gift of tongues : by which all the nations heard the gospel in their own native language. Also from internal evidence ; namely, their majesty which every christian, and every reasonable man may see on every page, contrasted with every ^iwian writer : from their purity ^vhich no man could have conceived, or framed in his writings ; from their sublimity, in the concep- tions and descriptions of God, of heaven, of hell, which no uninspired man could execute : from their efficacy in convincing and converting sinners ; and comforting the saints : no human composure ever has done this. The sacred writings, which have been the instrument containing the gospel, have done what no human writer can do, or ever has done : and, from their uncorrupt preservation. While the whole persecuting power of pagan Rome was bent on their destruction ; and innimierable errorists and heretics sought to corrupt them, — neither they, nor Rome have succeeded. All the Roman priests, and all the Voltaire and Paine school, being of one mind here, cannot prove one sentence, far less one inspired book, lost. And we challenge these bold slanderers of God's "pure and perfect word," to prove one — even one oi their (Slanders,

oz Roman catholic controverst.

Moreover, the Bible is proved to be the word of God from the historical evidence OK TRADITION. To the christian church, as well as the Jewish church, were com- mitted the oracles of God. The hundreds of thousands of christians who lived in the days of the apostles, received these inspired books from the apostles, and evangelists : and being fully satisfied of their inspiration, by their internal evidence, and by the miracles and prophesies, and tongues, given in proof, by God's inspired servants, the christian members of the Church transmitted tliem to their cliildren, with their certi- fication of this evidence ; and they to their children, until they have reached u«. And all the sections of the churches have done this. The Bible is handed down to us by the Jews and Hebrews : by the Syriac churches, still existing in India ; as Dr. Buchanan who lately visited them, testifies : and by the Greek church, more ancient and more pure than that of Rome : and by the famous African churches, who in the days of Augustine absolutely denied their dependence on the Roman Church : by the Waldensian churches, descended from the ancient Italick churches : and who possessed the very ancient Latin version, called the Old Italick version of the Bible, before the vulgate was written : by the ancient and apostolic churches of the Culdees in England, in Scotland, in Ireland, and also in Spain^ — in all of which the gospel ilourished for centuries before they w^ere overrun by the idolatrous emisaries of .Popery ! And finally, they have been transmitted also by the humble aid of the Roman Catholi-c church. Moreover, all the ancient versions of the Bible, made in the first, second, and third centuries, in Asia, in Africa, and Europe, have the valid authority of so many most undoubted traditions confirming the evidence of the existence of the original word of God': and lastly, the enemies of the church, such as Celsus, Por- plivry, Zosimus, and Julian the apostate, do all bear their testimony to the authenti- city and genuineness of the apostolical writings.

Thus, on the strength of this full and iiTcsistible moral evidence, do we believe the Bible to be the word of God. We are not so weak and bigotted, and foolish as to believe it, merely on the church's tradition. The internal evidence is as strong, this day, on our minds, as it ever was ; and we have the constant fulfilling of predictions before our eyes, over the churches, and the world. And, finally, we see it manifestly PROVED in the conviction and conversion of ever}^ one that is brought into the fold of God, by the Holy Spirit. Every christian conversion by the gospel read and preached, is a fresh and irresistible demonstration that the Bible is most certainly, and evidently the word of God.

Priests : 2d. " How do you know which books v/ere written b}' divine inspiration T The Bible cannot prove its own inspiration."

Ans. 2d. No Roman Catholic, or Protestant, so far as I know, ever said to a deist, that the Bible proves its own authenticity and genuineness. Your Bull Unigenitus, for instance, does not, and cannot prove its own authenticity ; the Magna Cliarta, and our own Declaration of Independence do not prove their own authenticity. None but papists can mistake here. Their defective education, and their wretched theologA^ induce them to think that there is only on^ form of evidence to establish the authenti- city and divinity of the Bible, — and that is, — ^^ Hohj Mother's testimony and autho- rity r

We know " v/liich books were written by divine inspiration, in the following per- fe>ctly satisfactory manner.

The authors of each of the books of the holy scriptures, first gave evidence before the church, by working miracles, by prophesying, and speaking tongues, that they

ROMAN CATHOLIC C0^TROVERSr.. 5$

were the accredited messengers of God. This being settled, they wrote those bodks which bear their names, at the command of God. " Thus saith the Lord," was the evidence that they were enjoined to speak and write. This estabhshed their divine inspiration. (See Hos. viii. 12— John xx. 31— Rom. xv. 4: 2 Tim. iii. 16 — Rev. i. 11 &c. &c., also the beginning of each of Paul's ejistles.) Having written them by inspiration, they delivered them publicly to the church, certified in their hand writing. This established their authenticity and genuineness : the church saw and knew that the?e holy authors did most certainly write the books which bear their name. Ancj the churches in Asia, and in Greece, and in Africa, and in Italy, and in all Europe, handed them down from generation to generation, just as the Magna Charta of Eng- land, or the Declaration of Independence is by tradition, handec down from age to age. And, finally, just these books w'nch compose the Bible, and :io other books v/hatever, have had these evidences. And, thus, we know, by the most certain demonstration, what books were given to us by divine inspiration -t^T-nd what books are not inspired ; and therefore, apocryphal.

Priests : 3d. '• Does the Bible contain the whole word of God ?"

Ans. 3d. It does. And the same evidence which establishes the fact of their di- vine inspiration, fully establishes this. There is no inspired book lost. Those books referred to by deists and the Romish priests, as lost, such as Jasher, and certain epis- tles and gospels, were not given by inspiration. And we defy all the priesthood of Rome to prove their inspiration.

Let them not shift the question. We make a public call on you, priests, to prove the inspiration of these lost books. If they do not finally enter on the proof of theu inspiration, then we shall set it down as a public recantation of their error ; and a confession of their utter-oi-nfitness to prove their position. We know they cannot : and we are assured they dare not offer any defence of their inspiration. Remember your own words, the mere fact of their being written by a prophet, or an Apostle, as- Barnabas, is no evidence, alone, of their inspiration. Produce the evidence of their divinity which we have for "all scripture." You cannot: and you knciu that you cannot.

Gentleman, it is just as impossible that any of the inspired books could be lost, by : the carelessness of the church, or the cunning of the enemy, as it is impossible that a book of the common law of the United States, or of old England, or any part of the Magna Charta, or our Declaration of Independence, can be abstracted and lost!

Such a loss could not take place in the days of the A])ostlcs ; for they could bear their testimony to all that was inspired ; and against all that was forged. It could not take place after their death, for before the death of the last of the Apostles, namely, John — copies of the holy scriptures, even of the entire and perfect canon, were mul- tiplied over Asia, Africa and Europe.

Priests : 4. How can you prove that the scriptures alone are the sufficient rule !"

Ans. 4. By the strongest testimony that can exist: namely, the testimon}' of Almighty God. And bold and unblushing must tliat christian deist be who shall dare to give the lie to the Almighty. Psalm xix.— " The law of the Lord is perfect : con- verting the soul; tlie testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple: ''the judgments of the Lord are true and altogether righteous." "By them is thy servant warned ; and in keeping of them there is great reward." The whole of Psalm cxix ; and particularly these :—" Through tliy ])rece})ts I get understanding:— " Thy worJ i« a lamp to my feet ; u light to my path." " Thy word is very pure :" &c. Isaioli,

a*

54 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

viii. 19, 20. " If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no h'ght in them." John v. 39. " Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eter- nal hfe: and they are they which testify of me." John xvii. 17. " Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth." 2 Pet. i. 19. "We have a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed," &c. 2 Tim. iii. 15. "Tlie holy scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation," &e. And, finally, they make the " the man of God perfect, and thoroughly furnished unto all good works."

I shall conclude this, by noticing briefly several vulgar errors of Roman catholic priests, which we deem incurable. 1st. The invariable reply of a priest when asked what he conceives to be the Protestant rule of faith, is this : " The scriptures as under- stood by every person of sound judgment are their only rWe offaith.''^ This is as wan- ton a misrepresentation as would be that of a criminal \\ho affirms that, " it is not the law of the land, hut my own construction of that law, b}^ which I am to be tried i" — Besides, we object to this, becauCe it actually palms on the Protestant church, the very error which we condemn in popery! The Roman catholic rule of faith, is this: *'The whole word of God, written and unwritten, as explained by the catholic or imiversal church," That is, — as it is explained by the fallible judgments of each of the fallible individuals who constitute that church. It is ludicrous that the best of their polemics should thus charge on us the essential principle of their own system ; and then maintain a lusty warfare against us for holding it !

2d. The Romish priests always assume it as a fact that they are the succes- sors of the apostles ; and are, by heaven, invested with power equal to them ! 3d. They deny that Christ commanded his apostles to write any of the New Testament . scriptures ! He commanded his apostles " to go and teach all nations." " And this,'^ say they, by a most arbitrarj^ construction, "always means oral instruction. They were sent to preach, not to icrite books I"

Christ certainly commanded them to write the New Testament scriptures. See Rev.i. 10, 11, 17, 19; Luke xxiv. 44, 47; 2d Tim, iii. 16.

And if he did not, then the New Testament is not given by his inspiration. For God's act of inspiring them to write, was his act of commanding them to write the New Testament. If they wrote without his command, they went beyond their com- mission. Such is the inveterate spirit of deism pervading popery ! 4th. That "the J3ible is the most obscure book in the world." This simplj- means that the sj-stem of popery cannot be found in it by common readers. And as the priests alone can find that in the scriptures, and other vmtings, which God never put there, nor au- thorized ; hence it is necessary to the very existence of popery, that the priests shoukl be constituted the only perso7is ivho can explain scripture, and keep their victim's con- science! .5th. That " Christians, pre%'ious to the writing of the New Testament, had not the scriptures as a rule." This is spoken in the face of clear evidence to the con- trary. " Search the scriptures," said our Lord. They had the Old Testament, and the benefit of inspired teachers. Lastly: "Khe Roman Catholic priests betray at <'very step, the painful deficiency of their education. Biblical literature forms no portion whatever of their education. On no other principle can we account for their ludicrous blimderiugs. For instance, our priests confound internal evidence with external, as in the following quotation from their letter V. : — "But if you can produce no text which can precisely determine the number of canonical books, then it evidently follows that there is something to be believed, which cannot be found in the scriptures themselves, and, by consequence, the vrritten word of God alone, is neither a /w/^ nor

ROMAN CAtHOLlC CONTROVERSY. 55

sufficient rule of faith, If you could have produced the text, you would not hav« referred us to the passages in holy writ, which can never prove, nor were they ever intended to prove, that the scriptures alone, are a sufficient rule of fgdth." See reply in No. 2, above.

LETTER VI.

TO DOCTORS POWER, VARELA, AND MR. LEVINS.

Rev. Gentlemen. — I finished in my last, my ten arguments against your Roman catholic rule of faith. I have reason to know that the enlightened public are satisfied with the perfect conclusiveness of these argumenls. Your pretensions to an infallible rule being entirely annihilated, — the claims set forth in behalf of our rule and Judge of controversy, are of course, without a rival, from your annihilated system. I call the attention of the Protestant, and Roman catholic public to the fact that the priests have not examined nor refuted one of these ten arguments : they have not even ap- proached one of them. The strongest thing they have said is this ; — " What has all this to do with the defence of your Protestant rule?" This is really amusing. So utterly destitute do you seem to be of the true logic, and the scientific rules of defence and offence, — that even while your whole magazine of ammunition was in the act of being blown up, about your ears, you gravely ask us, "pray what has all this to do with your defence of the Protestant rule?" I had thought, gentlemen, that there were only two claims set up ; that of the Protestant rule in the holy scriptures ; in which the infallible Judge, namely. Almighty God, the Spirit speaks unto us, by that which is already revealed : and closed for ever, and pronounced by the Almighty, perfect : and all-sufRcient "to make the man of God perfect :" and on the other hand, the Roman catholic rule ; which your church, in fatal, but characteristic union with deists, sets up in opposition to the holy bible : even as, with unparalleled daring and impiety, you place the pope and council on the throne of judgment, in rivalship w^ith Almighty God ! And of these two rival claimants, one of them, namely, your rule, and the whole of your presumptuous assertions, being, I trust, demolished and annihi- lated : of course, our rule, stands forward alone, and without any rival.

I shall now redeem my pledge, and take up your various objections, errors, and misstatements. I have postponed the examination of them, to this place ; because every one saw that you threw them out, — not at all because you, yourselves, believed them : but simply because you availed yourselves of every dithcult}-, and obstacle, to impede us in our demolition of your rule. You had not the merit, nor even the m^ans ofthi-owlag down a golden apple, to turn us out of our course.

I. One of the main objections, and that on which my ojiponents establish the last hopes of their sinking cause, is taken from their view of traditions. — Their church like that of the Hebrew church, had the oracles of God, committed to tliem; they con- veyed them down to these times. This seems to be an innocent })Osition : but it was assumed as a position on which to plant the Antichristian lever, by which they have moved and convulsed the civil and political world. "They have been," as Augus- tine says, "the librarian of the cliurch;" or as anotlier shrewdly observes, "tliemore carrier of the mail bag;" to transmit to a whale vicinity, the contents of that mail bag, for their own benefit, and that of others.

56 ROMAN CATHOLIC CCNTROVERST.

But could the gravest spectator refrain from laughter, did the post boy, summoning tlie communit}' together, gravely harangue them thus ? " It is well known to you all, that the general government has committed to my trust one of the lines, by which the contents of this mail bag is carried : therefore by virtue of this trust-worthiness. I de- mand the right and honor of being all the carriers o[ all the lines in the world ! I claim also the right of keeping, in my power, all the contents of the mail lines ; and of enacting my own personal explanations of every letter in them, and those to whom they are directed, have, as every one knows, no right, nor power, whatever, to do this I And, hark ye, I am not to be trifled with : I have a right, as mail-carrier, to make as much gain of you all as I can. And let the obstinate know, in a word, that the fires of purgatory await every opposer of my will ! I have not done yet, — 1 claim, moreover, in right of being letter carrier, to have the spiritual and temporal power over each soul in the whole district through which I pass. It is my right to fix your destiny here, to open heaven to you, or shut its gate irrevocably, for the DUES paid to me according to my will and pleasure !

This modest claim set up by the post hoy, is literally what the pope and his priests have set up. Because they happened to be the mail carriers of o??e line : because as one section of the church, they carried the Bible down to their vicinity : they are the entire carriers of all lines ; and they arrogate extravagant ghostly claims to spiritual dominion over men's souls, bodies, and property! Had it not been for the incon- ceivable blindness and ignorance of the dark ages, these claims would have been received only with indignation, — or to say the least, with peals of laughter! The post boy's ra^■ings were soberness compared to this.

II. The whole of their doctrine touching traditio>'s, is involved in fanaticism and extravagance. For instance : —

1st. Availing themselves of the ambiguity of the word, they use it to mean, at one time, the transmission of the Bible to our" times : at another, to mean those oral doc- trines, undefined, invisible, artificial, and intangible. — that are convenient for a mis- chievous aud designing power, — as an instrument to originate, and establish new doctrines and rites.

2d. Tlie Romish church holds that, by traditio>- alone, the entire evidence of the divine inspiration of the Bible is established. She merges the w^hole internal evidence and the other branches of the external, in this, for one grand selfish object, namely, — gain.

3. She pronounces judgment in her own behalf, that she is tee only church of God. And all the churches that have flourished in Syria. Greece, Africa, and Europe, are in her all absorbing and ambitious views, utterly nothing I Hence, no attention is to be paid to their historical monuments, or their transmission of the scriptures !

4. Having arrogated to herself this exclusive title, she assumes the right of determin- ing that HER EXCLUSIVE TRADITION bcstows on the Bible all the evidence necessary to settle its inspiration, and its authority !

5. This simple handing down of the Bible, she says, gives her the entire right of not only determining the authority, but of fixing the meaning of God's word : and of dictating a religion to the conscience of all God's subjects. Nay, like the tyrant, intox- icated with the fury of ambition, she claims from the humble act of convej'ing down the scriptures, an unbounded ghostly power over all the souls, and the bodies, and the property of men ! She is thence a God on earth : she pardons sin, and creates new

fiOMAr? CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

St

objects of worship, by the power of canonizing. And to crown the whole tale of her unparalleled claims, wherever she meets, even in the pages of Protestants, with the word Churchy or Catholic ; she assumes it as granted that she only is meant, and that all our Protestant champions, even when opposing her, meant only homage to her, because they defended *• the church/' the " catholic," or, general Churcli, which of course, could mean only the Roman sect ! Such unheard of reasoning, gen- tlemen, pervades all your letters.

II. There is a peculiar sentiment interwoven in all the o-bjectionsof my opponent?: and it is deserving of notice, as it is characteristic of catholicity at liome, and in Europe ; it is this. The priesthood is a spiritual nobility, and exclusive aristocracy, of an awful order. They are in fact, every thing ; and the poor laity are nothing, utterly nothing! Hence the terms in our priests' letter, "The poor ignorant people," of " scanty intellects," and "weak capacities ; " Strange, to think that the Redeemer should require such to pick out their religion from the scriptures !" And this system deems it not enough to brutalize the laity ; it also insults them. And hence the coi>- clusion which the priests draw from the fact of their degradation, is as curious in point of logic, as it is destitute of all benevolent feeling ; — namely, because they are ignorant, therefore, we will not allow them the great means appointed by God to instruct them ; the laity shall not have the right to hear what God says to them, without a priest's written license !

" But God has given his word as a light to our feet, and a lamp to our path." " The man of God is made perfect by the scriptures, and is thoroughly furnished by them unto all good works." " No, my child," says Holy Mother by her priests, " that light does not mean light ; that lamp is not the lamp ; God's law, though perfect, is "a falla^ cious," and mischievous rule ; " perfect" does not mean " sufficient !" " And mark me, my son," sa^^s she, — " we are ve-ry watchful, and very benevolent ; though men may have thinking powers, they have no right before me, to think ! Though God may ha\'^ given to each private man, a judgment, yet none have the rights of private judgment with me ! Though there are some things hard to be understood, and only some, it is true, — yet it is far the safest way to keep out of the laity's hands all the plain and easy parts too. Though some men, namely, the " unlearned and unstable do wrest the scriptures," yet it will be an act of pure benevolence to keep away the temptation, and abstract the whole Bible from the hands of all !

But the apostle does not say that any of the scriptures are beyond the possibility of being understood. They are SOavorira hard, that is, not impossible to be understood. Would it not be a little more benevolent, still, to make the peoi)le " learned," and and thence " stable," by a solid education ? That is what you heretics saj" ; but says Holy Mother, — "There is nothing 0(iual to a cloud of darkness brooding over tlije mind of our ' low, vulgar, and poor ignorant laity ;' it is highly salutary ; our priestly influence would vanish in six weeks, if this cloud were unhajjpily dispersed. For we know tliis by our bitter experience, ever since the squabble between Mr. Martin Luther and pope Leo X." As certainly as the " poor ignorant people" begin to read, they will think for themselves: then they will reclaim from us the rights "of your accursed private judginnnt;" and the right of going directly to God liimsolf, to have their sius i)ardonod for nothing ! Then the asses which we have long bridled and ridden, most joyfully, peacefully, and prolitably, will slip the noose. Then farewell to the gains and sweets of jjriestcrafl ; and the shrines of the great goddess, the queen of heaven ! !

'58 TIOMAN CAT Bt) Lie CD"STROVEIlSY.

III. Another promine'm feature in youi logic, gentlemen, has heen the vicious cir- cle. When we demand of the Roman Catholics, — "How do you prove your ehurch to be infallible ? And whence do you establish the marks of the true church ?" They appeal to Matt, xxviii. 19. ; and to the passage relative to Peter, the rock. In fact they seek proofs of their church out of the holy scriptures. This their fathers have done ; and even Bellarmine, De Verbo Dei, Lib. i. 2. says, — " Sacra Scriptura regu- )a credsndi certissima tutissimaque sit &c. Sacred Scripture is the most certain and most safe rule of faith. On the other hand in the whole course of this controversy, the priests have fiercely maintained that the scriptures, their inspiration, and their autliority depend on the church! And thus "Holy Mother," reasons in a circle, after the following* manner. A certain estate is in suit, in chancery ; a female of rather a suspicious character, Avith a few characteristic attendants, not a whit holier than they s'hould be, appears in court, with a parchment roll in her hand ; she claims the property on the evidence of that parchment roll. "Who are you?" says the court; "Who I am you can know by the most perfect evidence of this parchment writing." They look into the roll : there is nothing there but what is unfavorable to her. "But what, and whence is this roll?" says the court, ""What that deed is, and whence its evidence, you can know," says she, "in the most certain manner from my oral testimony. My lips certify that will ; and that vnll certifies me !" This is the literal argument of our Romish priests ! !

IV. There is one of your objections, which I am constrained once more to notice. It is your stereotype objection in all your ora/, and written discussions. Besides it is copied out of Mumford, and Milner, and put into every Roman catholic's lips. It is this : " The Protestant rule is the Bible as explained by each, by private judgment and his own private interpretation.^^ This has been answered and exposed ten thousand times by our write.rs : and yet, it is deliberately and constantly urged. Now, we pronounce this as deliberate a slander, as it would be on my part, did I assert that you recite the prayers of Mohammed at Mass ! No Protestant ever said that the Bible, as explained by each one, by private interpretation, is the rule. The reason is obvi- ous ; it involves a contradiction ; the Bible manifestly cannot be the rule, if each man's private sentiment be the rule. The priest, therefore, who reiterates this charge contradicts himself, and bears false witness against his neighbor. And yet I assure my readers, that they will find our priests recklessly renewing this slanderous charge, to the end. The reason is manifestly this : did they take our own doctrine, in our own words, and sense, it were utterly impossible for them, for lack of matter, to advance one rational objection. The Protestant church unanimously proclaims that her RULE IS the v/ord of God; and the judge and interpreter is the Al- mighty God, speaking in it to us, plainly and clearly; because God in- tends that we should certainly understand him.

V. When we urged on you, gentlemen, the fact of your corrupting the word of God, by adding to it the apocrypha, and traditions, which the fathers rejected, — you turned on us, and replied by charging on us, in genuine style of Jesuitism, the same sin. " We cannot refrain from laughter," as St. Jerome once said on a similar charge, to hear you very gravely asserting in your letter II. that "the Calvinists add to the go6pels, and to the epistles, the institutes of Calvin! — and the Heidleberg catechism to the apocalypse!" ^'And they add their professions (confessions) of ^iih to the

.Bible."

According to this unigiie and irresistible logic, we shall presently hear. i]t. 49serte^.

ROMAN' CAtHOLlC CONTROVERSY. 59^

'that Dr. Power's last sermon in' St. Peter's, is an awful and impious Edition to the pope's bull, Uuigenitus ! And our priests sacred tonsure is an addition to the pope's tiara, and will make it no more the triple, but the quadruple crown ! What miracles will not the mysterious powers of Romish logic effect !

But, after all can it be possible that our meaning is misunderstood, when we say that the council of Trent has added many books to the sacred canon ? You are aware that the Tridentine Fathers declared certain books to be as much inspired, as the holy scriptures, and thence enjoined them to be read with the same " holy and pious veneration," as the rest of the scriptures. Now surely, you do not mean gravely to charge it on us, that we canonize as inspired, the catechisms, or confessions, far less the writings of private individuals !

VI. " The Hebrews" you say " were without the written word of God for 14 generations ; hence the scriptures could not be their rule of faith." Gentlemen, yoa appear very learned in your letter II. You give a sort of dissertation on the Hebrews' losing their native tongue after the great captivity ; and the introduction of the Syriac among the Jews for fourteen generations, yau say, the Jews have not had the Old Testament in their vernacular ; it was read in Hebrew to them ; a tongue not under- stood.

All this borrowed plumage is plucked from your convenient Mumford, the Jesuit. But I deny this utterly, and I call on you for his and your proof, that the Jews were without the scriptures in their vernacular tongue for fourteen generations. Mumford's assertion is no proof to you, or to me. I am prepared to prove your and his assertion utterly false.

I shall name only one fact. Ezra, after the captivity, read! the book of the law to the people ; this shows beyond contradiction that they understood the Hebrew. He read the law, and, as a preacher, gave the sense, and made the people understand it. Ezra was not initiated into the edifying practice of praying and preaching, in Latin or Chinese, to his people ! And it is interesting to know, that all the Jews, except the apostate Jews, keep up this custom of Ezra ; the a'postate Jews, like you, continue the truly edifying and interesting habit of employing in the public worship, an unknown tongue ! This, by the way, might do with the Jews, who prayed only to him who- knows all tongues : but with you it is a fatal and foolish work ; and I beg you to look well to it ; for you ought to know that the Virgin Mary, '* the glorious Mediatrix," to whom the most of your prayers are offered, being a Jewess, knew Hebrew and Syriac, but nothing of the Latin, never having been at Rome! ! Hence all your prayers are thrown away upon her, even supposing you could get within the range of her sights and hearing !

VII. " If the scriptures had been the rule of faith," say you, *Mhe church would always have had them in writing , but before Moses, there was no writing; and in Christ's time, they had not the New Testament." We reply that in all periods before tlie written word was completed, the church had the same rule and judge. They had the word of God, uttered by inspiration from the lips of the patriarchs, and prophets, and from Christ, and his apostles. And the same judge, namely the Holy Ghoet spoke unto them, and determined all controversies, and all that was nccossaj'y to faith and sound morals. This favorite objection of our priestB, betrays gri at ignorance of biblical and historical knowledge.

VIII. In your industrious zeal against the holy scriptures, you object t(» our rule, ihat if Christ had designed them for the rule, he would have commanded the disciple*

60 ROM[AN' CATHOLIC CO.NTROVERSt.

to write, and to distribute Bibles : on the contrary, he said, " Go and teach all nations :" and by "teaching," you assume, without proof, that instruction by the lip is meant.

I beg again to reply, that " teaching," implies as much the use of writings^ as of oral instruction. And our Lord's command to teach, included as much an injunction to write, as to speak. Apostolical facts confirm this : they did write, as well as preach ; they declared that they were enjoined to write. See Rev. i. 19. And their writings they left to the church as a rule of faith. John xx. 31 ; Luke i. 3, 4 ; 2d Tim. iii. 16 ; Rom. xvi. 26.

You object in words borrowed from Mumford, that, " if the scriptures were the rule of faith, the apostles would have procured the Bible to each different nation in its crvvn native tongue. But they did not, — and gave no orders to their successors to do it." — Letter II. I reply that you cannot prove that they did not enjoin them to do this. One thing is manifest from Paul's enjoining the speaking in known tongues : — that he and his associates did preach to the nations in their own native tongue. See 1 Cor. xiv. 19. The apostle would have made a glorious figure, if he had preached the gospel to the plain Greeks in Chinese ; or taught the Romans in native Irish ! Or the Scotch and Irish in full flov/ing Latin!

The fact is this, the Almighty set the mark of his strong reprobation against this popish foolery, by his gift of tongues to the apostles. Rather than permit his servants to insult the people, and offer an outrage to common sense, by talking to them, in an unknown tongue, God wrought a splendid miracle, and gave his preachers the gift o^ tongues. And finally, they used the Greek of the Hebraic idiom. And Greek, says Cicero, was spoken over all the east and the west. It is true, you object, again, with Mumford, "that it was only the well educated in these countries, who understood the Greek !" That is exactly v/hat we mean. And hence, in all nations there were multitudes of learned men who could render the Greek Septuagint, and the Greek New Testament into all the different languages, as Christianity spread among the nations. x\nd these men needed no command, — but that of reason and common sense, to move tliem to this duty. They were enjoined to teach all men. But without books, teaching could not be earned on, when the holy spirit of inspiration departed. While he was in the church, as before Moses ; and before the New Testament was written, the church having the law spoken by immediate revelations, could do without inspired writings ; but just as he was retiring, were the inspired writings filled up. And, in fine, it is a matter of historical fact, that the sacred writings were translated into various languages, even before the last of the apostles, and apostolical fathers died. Witness the ancient Syriac ; and soon after, the ancient Italick, or Latin version, before the Vulgate ; the ; Egyptian ; the Persian, the Ethiopian, the Sclavonic. See Home's Introd. vol. i. p. 96, and vol. ii. chap. v. where a minute account of them is given.

IX. In every attempt at argument, gentlemen, I discover one of your besetting errors: it is this: you claim infallibility for the rule of your faith. But you have never preserved, nor even made, the distinction between objective and subjective infal- libility. In the Protestant rule of faith, there is an objective infallibility. It cannot be otherwise ; because Almighty God speaks to us in his holy scriptures. But there is no such thing as subjective infallibility. The subject on whom it operates is not infallible ; it does not make all men infallible in their views. By an accurate square rule of two feet, a carpenter is guided infallibly, in his accuracy, in building a house. But that same rule in the hands of a child, or a blind man, will not regulate the building: nor make the child, and the blind man infallibly accurate: and yet it is

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 61

the same perfect rule in the hands of all three. The fault lies in the subject; not in the rule objectively. The royal psalmist David, distinctly recognizes this by the guidance of the Holy Spirit: — " Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." Ps. cxix, 18. Gentlemen, you confound these two things, with studious care, in all your declamatory opposition to the holy scriptures. And the issue of your argument^ — pardon me, I mean no insult in calling it argument, — is worthy of this wretched logic.

We have not, however, observed this mode of argument against your rule : for we have shown, it is believed, to the entire satisfaction of the christian public. — 1st. That you have no infallible rule whatever : because with the deistical school, you abandon the holy scriptures; and with characteristic malignity, even taunt the He- brew and Greek volumes, inspired by the Holy Ghost. 2d. That though you had •uch a rule, your church and priesthood could no more wield it, to the effecting of any practical application, than a man can do it, who is stricken blind ; or a wretched maniac who decks himself in a triple crown, and dreams that he is pope and the vicar of heaven! and 3d. That did even such a rule exist, your succession is utterly cut off and annihilated ; and that you have neither church, nor pope, nor priest, nor sacra- ment!

X. I come now to your often repeated assertion, that "many, — nay, twenty books of the Old Testament are lost." And among these you reckon, " The book of the wars of God:" " Jasher," "Nathan," "Iddo," "Solomon's sayings," "the epistle from the Corinthians to Paul : the epistle from Laodicea." In reply — 1st. I shall for a moment suppose what you affirm to be correct. And as you make the church to be the infallible guardian and keeper of the holy scriptures, and also the very fountain of their purity and authority, it is evident on your own principles, that she has been guilty of a most scandalous and mortal sin, in permitting twenty books to be lost ? But you make the church the infallible rule. Here, then, your infallible rule has committed a mortal sin ; inasmuch as she has betrayed God's cause, and wantonly lost 20 books ! Either she is not the infallible rule, and keeper of God's word ; or no books are lost !

2d. The allusion to these books, as "Jasher," &c., by the inspired writer is no evidence of their inspiration, or their ever being a part of the holy canon. None of the inspired writers call them " scripture ;" none of them quote them as "scripture.'* They simply allude to them as St. Paul does, in some of his sayings and epistles to certain heathen poets. Thus, in the Acts, in his discourse to the Athenians, — Paul quotes a sentence found in Homer, and Hesiod : also in Plato, and in Virgil, ^n. vi. 724 ; and the poet Aratus. And moreover, in Titus i. 12, Paul quotes the heathen poet Epimenides, and pronounces his testimony a moral truth. Here St. Paul does exactly no more than what the Old Testament writers do in referring to "Nathan," " Iddo," or " Gad." Do you pronounce Homer, Hesiod, and Epimenides, gravely, to be inspired writers? Are these men's writings, then, holy scriptures because St. Paul quoted them .' We all know that the Rev. father Levins, indeed, quotes his Shakespeare ten times more frecjuently than liis Bible : and far more accurate is he and more at home with Shakespeare than with the holy Bible. But we are not pre- pared to hear Homer, and Epimenides, and Shakespeare canonized!

Your appeal, gentlemen, to Clirysostom does not help your sinking cause. I deny, and you must deny as well as I do, that lie calls these books " scripture," or a portion of the canon. You here attempt to palm an iini)osition on llie ignorant. And verily you shall have your reward. That eminent Fallier calls them "prophetical monu-

7

^ ROMAJr CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

ments ;" or remnants of prophetical times ; or Jewish national monuments. They were Tiot inspired works ; no honest man dare assert that they were ; he cannot prove it, if h« is so fool-hardy as to assert it. They were the national legends, traditions, or rab- binical books, containing historical sketches or expositions : but they were by no meaxM inspired.

In the London republication of Leslie's '• Short way with the Jews," designed as a tract for the Jews, you will see a clear evidence and illustration of the idea I now advance. Many ancient rabbinical books were found to contain expositions of pas- sages relative to Messiah, in all respects favoring the views of christians ; and by aa edict of the rabbins, a command was given to the synagogues to destroy them. These "prophetical monuments" have been wantonly destroyed. You can see a copy of this Hebrew injunction, in the London edition of Leslie's " Short Way."

I have only to add, that if you renew this charge " of twenty books being lost," without giving the public the full evidence of their divine inspiration, and of their having once formed a part of the sacred canon, then you, and Contzen, and Serrarius, and Mumford, do post yourselves as deliberate slanderers of God's holy word I

XL "The epistle of Barnabas is authentic, but not inspired.'^ "Now," say you, — "if the certainty of receiving the epistles of Paul, pure and entire from his handa, as an apostle, be your reason for admitting their inspiration, tell us why you reject the epistle of Barnabas, the apostle?" Lett. 2.

Even admitting 3'our absurd position that there is no other evidence of inspiration, than that of tradition, there is no difficulty here in answering your question. Barna- bas never laid claims to inspiration ; he did not lay his epistle before the churches as inspired : hence the church ncA^er declared it inspired : nor received as such. Henoe it wants the internal evidence.

I cannot omit here an amusing circumstance, relative to an extraordinary discovery which my profoundly learned opponents have made in their last letter. Though I have formally included tradition, and the church's testimony, in the list, as one of the e\'idences of the truth of divine inspiration, they have just discovered, for the first time, that we really do hold that ; and they exult with triumph that we have made the concession ! ! But then, gentlemen, you take care not to tell your intelligent de- votees, that we hold to the tradition of historical testimony of all the churches, in Asia, Greece, Africa, and Europe ; — and not in your ridiculous, and exclusive manner, to the sect of the Roman church only !

XIL In your letters you have more than once made emphatic allusions to the " Arian Cobbler," and to "old women," and "virtuous females." I must, for want of room postpone the objection of the "Cobbler" which you and Mr. Hughes, copy out of old Mumford ; and which you improve, actually out of Volney : of this in my next. I was at a loss for some time, to penetrate the reason why you speak so solemnly, so often, and so affectionately about "old women," and "\drtuous old ladies." After some pains I have discovered the reason. A pious man, especially a Roman priest, is always very grateful. And I have no doubt that 3'ou make theee frequent allusions with a pious view of cherishing the memory of good old Pope Joan ; that pious and sly " old woman" and "virtuous female," who contrived to obtain a cardinal's hat; and finally, to chmb up into St. Peter's chair! You have proud reasons to cherish her memory, — good old soul ! And as pious and chaste sons, to speak fondly aud gratefally of such "old women;" and " such virtuous female*." You can never forget **the chair Stercorarius ;" nor the street of Rome immortalized

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONtROVERSr. 63

by her labors. We cannot blame you for being grateful. It was not every pope that made such a present to "Holy Mother," and to " St. Peter's chair," — as Pope Joan did ; as the old Roman distich, composed by an orthodox monk, has fully shown :

Tiz. —

" Papa pater patruin peperit papissa papilum ! !

Will our learned priests oblige the reading public with a literal version of this curi- ous monkish verse ; and accompany it with historical notes, and a commentary ?

You have felt the force of our remark on the unfair writer Milner. Hence you pee- vishly remark, — " Your attack on the great Milner reminds us of the jack-ass kicking the dead lion." Tliere is a slight error here ; but such things will occur with even accurate printers. It should have been, — " it reminds us of the lion kicking the dead jack-ass !" But it is of no consequence. Even admitting him to be " the dead lion,''^ — I beg you to know that no Protestant ever strikes a fallen, — far less a dead foe! McGavin in The Glasgow Protestant, and another writer in The London Protestant Journal, vol. i. 683, have actually left nothing to be done, in despatching and skinning "the dead lion." They have annihilated every one of his objections : and exposed the infamy of that unfair writer, who never could quote an opponent without mis- statement : nor shape an argument without sophistry ; nor detail a simple narrative, without falsehood and fraud !

I am, gentlemen, your most ob't and humble servant,

W. C. B.

EXTRACTS FROM THE PRIESTS' LETTER VI.

" The letter opens with a long discussion about 'the stamp which nature impresses on dif- ferent animals.' ' So it is with fools and dunces.' Then follows a lamentation over Dr. B. s ' utter failure to prove his rule.' ' Who, not gifted with prophetic vision, could have supposed a teacher in Israel, a preacher in the Middle Dutch Church, a familiar with the interior spirit, an erudite able to interpret every crabbed idiom in the ' Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost," a ^gentleman,'' who arrogates to himself the sole right to be the * writer, to his flock, and the director of '»irt?toMS ladies,' who could have supposed he would have shrunk from the logical probation and defence of a cause to which he had invited discus- sion !"

" Had we foreseen your unenviable qualities of mind, you should not have numbered us among your controvesial antagonists ; you might still, for aught it would affect us, have been the Grand Lama of the Middle Dutch Church, and the interpreter of the 'Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost,' for your challenge would not have been honored by our acceptance."

"Your assertions were returned to you in the order of sixteen propositions. Why was your answer given under this form ? Did you suppose it would have been admitted by us as ce- tablishing the Bible to be the word of God? If you did, the sixteen propositions have fur- nislied another form of testimony."

The priests, then, proceed to go over Dr. B.'s proofs of the divine inspiration ; and declare them " puerile," and mere " assertions." " Tliere is nothing but assertion, and a reforeiu-e to bishop Newton : and, on this, forsooth, you hook your infallible conclusion — the Bible iit the word of (iod ! This is really, utterly, and disgracefully puerile, contemptible, farcical. Yet, this is a preacher's answer in defence of his rule of faith ! This is the answer of a Judge in Israel, who can, when he lists, evoke the interior spirit, and interpret the " Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost?"

"This is the Q,. E. D. of your interior apirit, and your logical basis for an article of fuith ; How will John Calvin greet you on the river Styx ? Your proofs noto are typical of what your shade will be then. Again your opponents aay, — prove your answers, logical doctors"

64 ROMAN CATHOLIC CO-^TROVERST.^

Here follows a tedious repetition of the only idea that they have ever yet advanced on this point, namely : that "the inspiration of the Bible is proved ajily from the traditionary testi- mony of the church: that 'tlie church' is their sect, and that exclusively."

We have all along admitted tliis branch of testimony to the divine inspiration of the holy scriptures: but we have insisted on the testimony of all the branches of the church of Christ. The following exhibits the eternal circle in Avhich all Romish priests move. *' But this evi- dence he has from the testimony of the church ; therefore, without the testimony of the church, he could not believe the inspiration of the scnptnres. But the inspiration of the scriptures is an article of christian belief; and to this belief, the Doctor could not be brought by the scriptures alone. Tlierefore, the scriptures alone are not a sufficient rule of faith. — Q. E. D."

" You reject the inspiration of the epistle of St, Barnabas on the authority of the Catholic church ; you admit the inspiration of the gospel of St. Luke on the same authority, and you have the assurance to tell us, ' we are not so weak and bigoted and foolish, as to believe it,. merely on the church's ti'adition !' This 'mere carrier of the mail bag' as you impiously call the church of Christ, is authority with you for rejecting as inspired scripture, the v\'riting of an apostle, and for admitting as inspired scripture the writings of one who ^vas not an apos- tle, St. Luke ; and this authority which you pretend to revere on this all important point you reject with contempt, when there is question of ascertaining its meaning."

"Where does the Catholic Church tell you that the books referred as lost were not inspired^ Would St. Matthew, think you, refer the Jews to uninspired prophecies, for proof that Christ was the Messiah foretold by the prophets? It was spoken by the prophets, 'He shall be called a Nazarene, — Matt, c. ii. 5, 23. The books of the prophets, wherein Christ was railed a Nazarene, have perished, foi- he is n«t called a Nazarens in all the prophetical books Avhich we have."

The following sets the deism of our priests in a clear light : —

'• But what are we to think of the man who libels the AlmfgJity by pertinaciously assertrng^ in the face of the public that the Almighty established as the only rule of faith, that which common sense alone tells us could not be the only rule of faith. The inspiration and cano- nicity of the scriptures are articles of faith. These articles cannot be proved by the scrip- tures alone ; therefore, the scriptures are not the only rule of faith."

Note. — The priests, in their zeal to show that the Jews had, in their captivity in Babylon, ■utterly lost the Hebrew language, ludicrously contradict their own leading tenet, by assert- ini" that Ezra translated the Bible into their vernacular tongue. Here are their words : —

" Hence we conclude, that, when Ezra, ' after the captivity, read the book of the law to the people,' he acted both the part of a preacher and interpreter. To have the people under- stand the law which he read, he must have translated it for them."

Romish priests always stoutly maintain that an infallible rule makes all those who use it, infallible also. Hence the follov;ing extravagance : "Your distinction between subjective and objective infallil)ility, is worthy of the logician, and great magician of the Middle Dutch Church. The holy scriptures are infallible, because they are the word of God. '^But there is no such thing as subjective infallibility.' So then the Almighty God, who is your inter- preter of the holy scriptures and not your own private spirit, does not infallibly teach you the truth! "

It is curious to see the priests deprecating and denying the vicious circle, and at the same moment employing it in defence of Holy Mother ! " Our church," say they, " established by miracles, comes into court, without spot or tcrinkle!^^ Yes ! the polluted lady of Babylon, " the mother of harlots," as John said, " comes into court unspotted, with the testament of her divine spouse. It is readily admitted to be genuine." — that is, exclusively, saj- the priests , by the church's oicn testimony. " Its contents are duly examined ; and behold this document, already proved and admitted to be genuine, — that is by her own word — says : ' That Christ promised to be with his church to the end of the world.' ' That he would send her the Holy Ghost to teach h£r all truth.;' she is called 'tlie pillar and the ground of truth ;' and thi*

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. (J5

Dr. Brownlee calls a vicious circle, which in logic is called a sophism, proving the same by the same, in every respect. Here you see, the document is proved to he a genuine record, on the respectable testimony of the Catlwlic church, before the infallibility of the church is proved from th* document."

Finally, in their Letter III., the priests thus express the Roman catholic sentiments, rela- tive to their vulgate : —

" It is painful to be obliged to expose your ignorance where you ought to be better informed. Are you not aware, Sir, that the Vulgate, which you call the worst of all translations, and which you say is considered as such by all enlightened Protestants, was partly made and partly corrected by the first biblical scholar, and one of the greatest and most holy men, who ever lived, St. Jerome. You ought to know that this version was made when the best and purest copies of the Hebrew, Chaldaic, Greek and Latin, together with the polyglots of Origcn, were to be had. That this version has been constantly in the hands of the Western church, in all its extent, during fifteen centuries. You ought to know, on the other hand, that the Hebrew and Greek originals have been, during many ages, in the hands of wander- ing Jews, and divided oppressed Asiatics, and that, therefore, you cannot possibly answer for the changes they may have undergone. This eircumstance ought to cause you to observe deep silence on this point. Are j-^ou ignorant that the most learned Protestants in biblical criti- cism such as Mill, Walton, Polyg. have professed the greatest esteem for the Latin Vulgate. The learned Grotius writes of the Vulgate, thus : '* Vulgatum interpretem semper plurimi feci, non modo quod nulla dogmata insalubria continet, sed etiani quod multum habet in se eruditionis." Grot, in annot. in Vet. Test. And, notwithstanding this mass of respectable testimony, the preacher of the Middle Dutch Church tells us that the Vulgate is the worst of ail possible translations" — Q,uid domini facient, audent cum talia /wrcs ?

LETTER VII.

"Strike, but liear me !" — Saying of a Greek General.

Rev. Gentlemen : — I have gone over your last letter carefully. You have not adduced one solitary new idea. There is no novelty, even in the style ; it is the old and deep stained ribaldry, dyed in the wool ; and setting at defiance, every process ta wa^h or bleach it ! — The intelligent christian will do me the justice to admit that the Protestant rule hasheen fully established : and that the Ron:ian rule has been likewise demolished by our ten arguments, which have not even been noticed, far less answered^ by the reverend priests.

I shall tlierefore close my reply to the remaining infidel objectioris, urged with such appalling intemperance against the only rule of faith, — the word of god, and the

ONLY JUDGE OF CONTROVERSY, THE HOLY SPIRIT SPEAKING TO US IN IT.

I. I shall review your hifidel insinuations, drawn from tcrtuai di.fficulties. The christian and ingenious scholar, when he meets with difficulties in the holy Bible, would seek the solution of them on the pages of those judicious biblical writers, who have devoted their time and talents to the illustration of biblical literature. Ho would examine the original; and study Hochart, Whitby, Lightfoot, *'Lux in Tenebris;" or your own modern writers, .)ahn, and Bug,and lie would discover that {here is not on« textual difhculty, which lu'ts not Ijcon satisfactorily solved.

It is charact(;ristic of the unnatural infidel's criticism, and opposition to truth, t() sport appan^nt contradictions, and uiagnitij^ difficulties, triumphanfly detcrttMl in his father's wi.l and testament! This/you have done, gentlenuMi, with the uuiliir- nity of unnatural aonsl And what gains the infidel bv this? Just as nuuh as you ti.^

66 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

in 5'our infidel crusade ! Unholy and unchristian is that cause, beyond all gainsaying,- which requires for its defence, a traitorous and parricidal thrust, — powerless though it be, — at the holy scriptures of our God and Saviour !

I would here observe that the authority and genuineness of our coinmon law, or Decla- ration of independence, would not be affected by some slight mistakes of the transcriber or printer. We maintain the same in regard to the Bible. While not one sentence i« marred ; not one item lost : not one doctrine altered, we may admit that a transcriber^ not being inspired, may have mis-spelled words, or even substituted one proper nam© for another. Would the omission of a name, or the alteration of a name, in som« copies of the signers of seventy-six, render null and void the whole instrument signed? Surely not. Apply this principle to the point before us.

In 2 Kings viii. 26. Ahaziah is said to have been 22 years old when he began to reign : in 2 Chron. xxii. 2. he is said to have been 42. The Hebrews had no arithme- tical figures : they used the letters of the alphabet. And in this case a transcriber had the letter wiem, whose power is 40, instead of the letter caph, whose power is 20. And the Hebrew scholar knows that these two letters, wdth the difference of a slight perpen- dicular dash, are much alike. Does this change of a letter affect any article of faith ?

Matt. i. 17. There are said to be fourteen generations between Salathiel and Christ ; yet thirteen only are recorded. Whitby has sol ved it, by showing that by Jeconias, named in verse 11, is meant Jehoiachim, the eldest son of Josias: and that Jeconias- named in the 12th verse was Jehoiakim's son, who was the father of Salathiel. Thi* completes the fourteenth generation. Dr. Lightfoot advocates the following solution- It was a custom, nay, even an axiom in the Jewish schools, to reduce things and num- bers, to the very same name when they were nearly alike. This was avowedly to aid the memory. I beg leave to refer to his book Hora Hthraica. Now, Matthew ha» observed the three fold division of Jewish chronology ; namely, the era before the kings ; the era under the kings ; and the era of theii national declension down to the time of Messiah. And to help the memor3% after the manner of the Hebrew school, he has divided each of the three eras into fourteen generations. Now, no scholar can suppose this to be taken in its strict and literal sense, says the Doctor. For it is just as true that Matthew has designedly left out three kings in the 8th verse, in order to make 14 generations in the first era, as that he has reckoned the third era 14 genera- lions, v/liile it contains 13 only. All this- was strictly in keeping with the national custom or rule of the Jews, which Matthew did not invent, but follow : for it was to the Hebrews that he was writing. See Poll Synop. in loco.

Luke iii. 35, 36. " Salah was the son of Cainan, who was the son of Arphaxad." Genesis records it thus: — " Arphaxad begat Salah." One solution is this: — Salali and Cainan were the names of one person: the latter being the cognomen: and hence they read it thus, — Salah the Cainan, who was the son of Arphaxad. Others are of opinion that as Cainan is found only in the Septuagint Greek translation,, and not in the Hebrew text of Moses, it was inserted into some copies of the Greek Testament, out of those copies of the Septuagint, which had this word. Beza states- that in his copy the word Cainan was not found ; and lately Dr. Hales has shown that this extra name is an interpolation in the Greek Septuagint. See his New Ana- lysis, vol. 1. p. 90 — 94. And from this it had been transfered into some copies of Luke by a transcriber. It has been observed by an eminent Biblical scholar, that all the variations, and all the various readings which friend or foe can discover, do not alter the aspect of one doctrine, or a single article of our creed. Home in

rtOMAN CATHOLIC CON TROVERS F. 67

vol. i. appendix iii. has devoted 64 pages to a minute examination of these textual difficulties. To these, for want of room, I beg to refer my reader.

You have presented an objection from two other texts. The first is Matt, xxvii. 9. " Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the Prophet." And the words quoted are not found anywhere in Jeremiah, but in Zechariah. From this you infer that a part of Jeremiah has been lost : and, therefore, his book is mutilated and the Bible imperfect. This is uttered in the reckless style of those of whose theological education an accurate and enlightened Bible criticism forms no part whatever. The echolar knows that there are solutions without supposing any such outrageous conclu- sion. First. — These words may have been first spoken by Jeremiah, and then recorded, afterwards, by Zechariah. Or, second : — we may conclude with Bishop Hall and Griesbach, that a transcriber may have, in certain copies, written Jriou for Zriou, that is, the contracted form of Jeremiah, instead of the contracted form of Zechariah. Or, third : — We may say with others, that Zechariah was also called by the name of Jeremiah, as his cognomen. See instances of this in Home, vol. 1. p. 538. One apostle was sometimes called Joses ; at other times, Barnabas. And he who was nominated but not chosen to the apostleship, is called Joseph, and BarsabaSy and Justus.

The second text from which you raise an objection against "the perfect law" of God, is Matthew ii. 23. "That it might be fulfilled which was spol^ren by the prophets, he shall be called a NAZARENE." Now this is no where found in the prophets' writings : and your conclusion is, — that some portion of the Holy Scrip- tures is lost. Here it might be quite enough to demand, — what is lost ? " Why," gay you, — "this phrase or sentence is lost, — He shall be called a Nazarene." Then 1 deny the position : for it stands here in the Bible before your eyes : and if it ever had been omitted, then here it is restored by the inspired penman. And, there- fore, you the objectors being judges, it is not lost !

I shall give another solution. Matthew refers to no one prophet : " it was spoken by the prophets." He refers to no one sentiment, or sentence ; he alludes to some marked characteristic of Christ, noticed by the holy prophets generally. And accord- ing to the four rules laid down by Wolfius and Rosenmuller in reference to the mode pursued by the New Testament writers, in their quotations out of the Old Testament,, we perceive that they often quoted the meaning, instead of the passage literally : that is, they give us the sense, instead of the formal and literal (quotation : and especially so, when they were quoting, not out of one prophet, but from " the prophets," in order to give a condensed view of the passage. Surenhusius the learned HebrcAr professor in Amsterdam, has observed in his Biblos Katallages, p. 2. that this phrase "to fuKil what was said," was a familiar phrase of the Talmudists; and used by the learned Jews, when they alledgcd not the very words of Moses and the prophets, but their setisc, which was deduced as a certain anxiom from them.

Now apply this rule of legitimate criticism to the words of Matthew under discup- sion. A Nazarene was the epithet used among the Hebrews and Jews, of old. u> denote the meanest and most despised of mankind. This was the character of tlu^ men of Nazareth. Now, it was foretold by David, Psalm xxii, and Ixix. 9, J2; and Isiuah iii. andliii; and also by Zoch. xi. 12, and 13, that our Lord Jesus Christ was to appear, on earth, a most huin])le and despised man of sorrows. And though born in Bethleliem, of David's royal line, he was brought up in Na/.arolh among the Naza- renes: and was, tlicrefore, by the malignant Jews, called and reproached as a Naza-

68 EOMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVEEST.

rene. And thus, what was spoken by " the prophets" was literally fulfilled ; and hence, no part of their writings is lost.

II. Another all prevailing error in your letters is this : In opposition to the rule of faith ordained by God, you constantly make this assumption, that Protestants sepa- rate the Bible from the holy ministry and oral teaching. On this assumption is based every objection, brought forward in your questions in Lett. 4 : on this are based all your objections relative to the supposed obscurity of the Bible : and all that steady and unflinching opposition of the Pope and his priests to Bible societies ; and the catholic distribution of the scriptures among the laity. Yet no assurance to the contrary, and no exposure of the unmanly misrepresentation, will induce the priests to do justice to truth and themselves, as well as to us. We never separate oral instruction from the reading of the scriptures. And we know from experience that, in proportion as the Bible is gratuitously distributed, is the call for the ministry urgent from the people where the scriptures are read. The appointed ministry of Christ, acting in his name, read and expound the scriptures. And as the Bible is read, pastor and people hear God speaking imto them ; and learn the law from the Most High.

III. You object out of the Jesuits Mumford, and Milner, that there are certain things, such as infant baptism, and the change of the Sabbath, which scripture does not settle; and which tradition of the Church alone can.

There is a twofold error in my opponent's argument here : —

1st. Even admitting that these are to be established by tradition, it is the consum- mation of sacerdotal arrogance in the Roman catholic priests to despise the Syriac, and the Greek, and the African, and the ancientltalickchurches, and tocleiim the absolute and exclusive right of handing down that which all the other churches did hand down by tradition.

2d. These ordinances were established by scripture as well as the faithful testimony of all the churches. See 1 Cor. xvi. ], 2. Here St. Paul gives a divine injunction as much to observe the Sabbath on the first day of the week, as to make a collection for the poor on that day. And the scriptures call the first day of the week the Lord's day. And for infant baptism, see Matt, xxviii. 19; and Acts ii. 38, 39. Now, I am not going to dictate to my honored Baptist brethren. They have a right to hear God's word and to interpret that word spoken to them and to me ; just as you claim the right to interpret what " Holy Mother" says to you, gentlemen. And availing ourselves of the right of hearing for ourselves, we say God commands us to teach, or disciple, and baptize " all nations." And as infants constitute the third item of na- tions, as much as men and women do the other two, we fairly infer that we have the command to baptize our infants. A christian brother says, " infants are not expressly named." "True, but neither is man, or woman mentioned: infants are as much mentioned as adults." And, moreover, in Acts iii. 38, 39. we have another testimony : and we erect our argument thus : When an ordinance and a promise are combined and connected, as here, all those mentioned and named in the promise, have a right to the ordinance : but the promise here connected with baptism, includes infants and parents : here are the words literally rendered " Repent ye," [in the plural,] " and be baptized every one of you; for the promise is to you and your children." There- fore infants ought to be baptized. If Protestant brethren differ, — so do Jesuits and Jansenists, Franciscans and Dominicans under their infallible rule !

You lay much stress on the traditions, alluded to by Paul in 2 Thess. iii. 6. And

ROMA^ CAfnOLie CiiNt'ltOVJE^SY, G^

you infer from this, that besides the written word, Paul delivered unwritten traditions, "Hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle."

Now, gentlemen, it cannot have escaped you, that the Apostle mentions three dis" tinct classes of traditions ; namely, the traditions of men, which he reprobates ; Coh ii. 8. and which our Lord also condemned, Mark vii. 9. Then there were the tradi- tions touching things indifferent ; or mere opinions, such as frequency of communion,r and so forth ; and finally, traditions by inspiration : and which regard the same doc- trines and ordinances exhibited in the New Testament. Thus Paul lirst gave the Corinthians the Lord's Supper by oral tradition, and then he gave it by writings " For I have received of the Lord, that which also / delivered,'^ or gave you, that is, by tradition, from Christ. These traditions fiom Christ are the same as immediate com- munications by inspiration — and were, like all revelations from God, established to the satisfaction and faith of the church, by the evidence internal and external so often mentioned already.

Now if we, or an angel from heaven bring any thing by a tradition without aposto- lical and miraculous evidence, let that tradition, and its fanatical votary be accursed. If your traditions, gentlemen, are of men, we reject them as "accursed" — if they came from God, then they are accompanied by the evidence of miracles, prophecy, and tongues. But your traditions have none of this divine evidence. Therefore they are human inventions ; and are " accursed."

IV. Of the Latin Vulgate. — I had called this version, after deliberate examina-- tion "the worst of the worst translations." You usher in your defence with these words, — "It is painful to be obliged to expose your (Dr. B's.) ignorance, where you ought to be better informed." This benevolence, in which you are as generously sincere, I dare say, as if you had been administering extreme unction to your victim, — is quite out of keeping, and in bad taste. I invoke the whole body of the learned, now to judge between us, — both Roman Catholic, and Protestants; and let them pro- nounce who is profoundly ignorant of translations.

In reference to the Latin Vulgate, I beg leave to remark, that Jerome finished his labors on his'' translation in A. D. 384. There existed, before him, the old Italick version from the Greek Vulgate. This version is the oldest in Latin : it was made in the close of the secont/ century. Jerome endeavored to improve on this version; but, in too many instances, it was corrupted. I refer you, gentlemen, to the profound critic Nolan, on the integrity of the Greek Vulgate. In the second chapter of Luke, verse 33, the Greek Vatican, and the Vulgate make Joseph the father of our Lord ; " pater illius, et mater." — And this eminent critic shows that these two versions, on this text, are "grossly corrupt." See Nolan p. 169, note. And Lowth has shown, that in some instances, the Latin Vulgate is found "to be notoriously defi- cient in expressing the sense." See his translation oflsaiah, p. Ixxviii.

You seem lo think, gentlemen, in your Letter III. that Jerome possessed a cojw of Origen's Hexapla, or Polyglolt, as you call it. Jerome had not so many facilities as your exuberant imagination has conceived. He had not the Hexapla : and you ought to have known this. He was compelled to perform a long voyage, from Rome to CsDsarea, in order to see and consult that book. See Home, vol. ii. p. 198. You have betrayed an utter ignorance of tlie subject: and, I am no hyixicritc, — 1 am not •orry in exposing your ignorance, pro bono publico!

Yet severely as we may criticise (his old version, I assure you gcnlk'nien, I did not allude to Jerome's true version, when I called it the worst of translations. I alluded

7V' ROMA"* CATHOLIC CONTEOVEKSt^

to your Vulgate, as it now exists ; and as it is spread out before the English reader in the Douay Bible. The Roman cathohcs seek to palm this on the pubhc, as the genuine vcrsiion of Jerome. But, this pretension ; and all your quotations from ap- proving Protestants, such as Grotius, Walton, and so on, — are not only to no pur- pose; but absolutely deceptions; and you, had you been Greek and Hebrew scholars, would have known all tliis. I here, beg leave to challenge any scholar, in good faith, 10 produce one of our learned Protestants who applauds the Roman Latin Vulgate,

AS IT NOW IS.

Of the valuable labors of Jerome, none approved more highl\', — and none are more able, by virtue of their accomplished education, to approve more highly, than the Protestants. But can you possibly be ignorant of what Nolan has given ample evidence, that St. Augustine himself, though he did indeed appro\e of the labors of Jerome, did not use his version : he used the old Italick verson to the day of his death. See Xulan p. 15. aud the learned Home has shown that, from the days of Cassiodorus, down to Alcuin, in the 8th century-, •* the text of the Vulgate fell into great confusion : and was disfigured by the innumerable mistakes of copyists." But the most curious part of the historj' of the V^ulgate remains to be told. The Council of Trent, small, — very small in nimibers; and by the best judges, namely the Pro- testant hterati, deemed still smaller in literature and theology [see also P. Sarpi Lib. 2. s. 51.] did actually pronounce the Vulgate with all its palpable errors, to be inspi- red and divine. Like father Le\'iDS, whom I have had the honor of introducing so advantageoasly to the -Christian public,'' — and who really seems not to be conscious in what language the Old and New Testaments were written, tmless it was the old Irish ; — and dierefore, he blunders out his taunts, incessantly '' against the Greek and Hebrew of the Holy Ghost, in the inspired volumes," — these same Tridentine fathers actually preferred the Latin version of the Bible, to the inspired originals of the Greek and Hebrew.

These fathers appointed a committee to revise and correct tliis same version, which they had pronounced inspired ! But, in as much as this thing displeased the pope, it was dehvered over into his care. It passed through no less than three popes' hands. Sixtus V. had it published as the only pure and perfect Vulgate. He issued a Bull, ''enjoining its universal reception; and threatening with no less than perdition, the man who should make the slightest alterations."' And, though issued by the Infallible, in the plentitude of his knowledge and power, it had not been long before the pubhc, before it was foimd to abound with damnable errors! Hence it was quickly called in. Clement VIII., not having the fear of the Bull of Sixtus before his eyes, did actually make very many alterations ! His new edition he published in A. D. 1592 ; and hke a good pope, he proped and barricaded this new, and a second time, perfect edition, by a similar Bull, pronouncing it now to be immaculate, and tlie only Vulgate ! And, in the plenitude of infallible power, he prohibited any alterations to be made in it, by anybody, on pains of the most terrible anathemas! But behold, the very next year, namely, 1593, a new, corrected, and altered edition was issued; and pronoimced to be more perfect then his former most perfect edition !

Now, all these phenomena are easily accounted for. It was not for want of scholar- ship to translate Hebrew and Greek into Latin. No; the real insuperable difficulty- lay in getting something hke a translation, simply with a \dew to lend countenance to the new Roman system of doctrine, and rituals, which had no place, nor name, nor recog- nititai in all the word of God ! (

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 71

ISfow, gentlemen, in your laudatory zeal for the Vulgate, I call on you publicly, to say, whichof these *' infallibly accurate," and "contradictory" versions you adhere to. Dr. James in his book, " BellumPapale," has set down two thousand variatioiui between the Sixtine, and the Clementine editions of your Vulgate ! I have now before me a large selection, in which the first pope's version leaves out whole verses which the last pope's version has! Again, the Clementine has omitted entire clauses which the Sixtine has inserted. I have, before me, a list of "manifest contradictions," between the two : with many other remarkable differences. Now, gentlemen, to which of these " only perfect copies," of these equally " infallible," and equally contradictory popes, do you yield your conscience and faith ? The call is made on you to declare this in good faith. We know that you cannot. We know that you have manifested an utter want of information on this whole subject. In your Letter III. you say, — " You, [Dr. B.] ought to know that the Vulgate version was made when the best and purest copies of the Hebrew, Chaldaic, Greek and Latin, together with the Polyglots of Ori- gen were to be had : that this version has been constantly in the hands of the Western church, in all its extent, for 15 centuries." I profess it is impossible to quote, even from your own letters, gentlemen, another sentence containing more wilful and wicked misrepresentations than these : or one exhibiting more profound ignorance of the history of your Vulgate ! You unblushingly hold up the idea that your Vulgate is now precisely what Jerome left it ! And you conceal the endless variations and innovations that have been made on Jerome's version, by the Sixtine and Clementine labours ! ! I beg leave merely for want of room, to refer to Home, vol. ii. p. p. 200. 201 : for a comparative view of these variations : and " manifest contradictions," beween the two popes' editions of your Vulgate. As for the true version of Jerome, it is of great value.

The Doaay Bible, now before the public, exhibits the unhallowed liberties taken by unprincipled men, with the word of God. For instance, in the second commandment your Douay renders the first clause, " thou shalt not make unto thee any graven thing" instead of " image :" And the phrase "thou shalt not bow down thyself to them," you corruptly render "thou shalt not adore them." In the New Testament you render nEravoure " do penance;" whereas it never meant on classic, or Bible page, any thing else than this, — " be ye changed in your minds by repentance," or "re- pent ye." In violation of all chronology, you convert John the Baptist, and St Peter into heretical Roman priests, and make them preach the modern cant of, — " Do penance; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;" and again, " do penance and be baptized." Do penance, verily ! A thing this is, which John and Peter never heard of, and never conceived of, in their pure evangelical minds !

Moreover, this same Douay Vulgate converts the apostle Paul's solemn warning in Colosians ii. 18, against the idolatrous worship of angels, into an impenetrable mysticism of language; or else a real exhortation to be "voluntary in humility, and the religion" or worship " of angels !" And what fills every devout chrisiiaa with utter amazement, your Vulgate converts the good old patriarch Jacob into a drivelling Roman idolator, in his last moments. Will the public believe me, when I assure them that the Roman Douay Bible, lately published in New York, renders Hebrews xi. 21, in the following manner — "JACOB ADORKD THE TOP OF HIS STAFF !" Therefore I repeat what I formerly asserttMl, that the Vulgate, as it now is, is one of the worst and most mischi<wous versions of the Bible ! And it is a base and immoral hterary imposition on tlio public, to call ^our Vulgate the version of Jerome !

72 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

I ought here to notice your injurious reflections on the Hebrew and Greek origi- nals in Letter III. — "These have been, during many ages in the hands of wander- ing Jews, &c. ; and, therefore, you cannot possibly answer for the changes they have undergone: and you thence recommend "deep silence on this point." Hers you gravely assume the supposition that the wandering Jews and oppressed Asiatict have been carrying all the Hebrew and Greek originals with them : that the christ- ian churches in Asia, in Africa, and Europe had no copies i Does this require any sober reply ? Does not every scholar know that Jews and christians, possessing each, many ancient copies, have been anxiously watching each other. And the immens* labours of Dr. Kennicot, in his splendid Hebrew Bible, and those of M. De Rossi, of Parma, have fully " ascertained the integrity of the sacred Hebrew text." Not one item touching " doctrines, moral precepts, and historical relations," is injured, far less invalidated by the Variae Lectiones. And to give some idea of the pains taken by these Hebrew scholars, Kennicot has given a catalogue of a hundred Hebrew manuscripts in the libraries of Oxford, Cambridge, and the British Museum. And M- de Rossi collated 479 Hebrew manuscripts ; and 288 printed editions I And, finaJly, I shall quote in reply to you, the words of Jerome Lib. 3. com. in Esaiam : — " Si quis dixerit, <Scc. If any one shall say that the Hebrew books were afterwards corrupted by the Jews ; let him hear Origen what he answers in the 8th volume of his explanations of Esay, &c." Again, — " But if they say that the Hebrews falsified them after the coming of Christ and the preaching of the apostles, I cannot hold from laughter that our Sa\dor and his apostles ehould so cite testimonies of scripture, as the Jews would afterwards deprave them, &c." See also Bishop Hall, p. 589. And the famous saying of Reuchline, and Jerome advers. Helvidium., ought to be well known to you, — " The Hebrews drink of the well head : the Greeks of the stream ; and the Latins of the puddle !"

I remember that, in one of our Protestant debates, Dr. Power raised his hand toward heaven, and made an awful appeal to God, that he and his clerical friends did earnestly encourage his people, the laity, to read the holy scriptures ; that is. in the English language ! Now, gentlemen, will you affirm that THERE IS ANY ONE VERSION OF THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH, TH_\T IS AUTHORIZED BY THE POPE, OR THE CHURCH? I defy you to answer in the affirma- tive ! And, if not, where was Dr. Powder's faith, and honor, in that heaven daring appeal !

V. You have not the unanimous consent of the Fathers to your novel rule : on the contrar^s the best and greatest of them are decidedly against you, and in favor of our Protestant rule. This is a matter of historical fact.

Augustine says; — " The city of God detests doubts, as the madness of the Aca- demicians. For she believes the sacred scriptures both of the Old and New Tes- tament, which we call canonical ; whence our faith is derived, whereby the just lives; and by means of which we walk without wavering." Civ. Dei. lib. 19. c. 18, vol. 7, Paris Edit, of 1685.

Again: — "Who is ignorant that the canonical scriptures of tlie Old and New Testament are contained within certain hmits ; and that it is to be preferred to all the subsequent wTitings of bishops ; so that no one can doubt, or dispute concerning it, whether whatsoever is -wTitten in it, be true and right." On Baptism against the Donatists, Lib. 2. c. 3. vol. 9.

Again: — "In things which are openly set forth in the scriptures, those things are

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 73

to be found which comprise faith and moral conduct." On Chr. Doctr. Lib. 2. c. 9. vol. 3.

Again : — " There are undoubtedly books of the Lord, whose authority both of us acknowledge, which we mutually believe and obey. Here let us seek the church ; here let us discuss our doctrines, &c." " I will not have the holy church proved by human documents, but by divine oracles." Tom. 9. p. 341.

Again: — "Read these things to us from the law, the prophets, the Psalms, the gospels, apostolical writings ; read, and we v/ill believe." Do. cap. 6.

Again in his Tract 2. in Epist. Johan., he says, — " Against treacherous errors? God would place our strength in the scriptures ; against which none that would, any way, seem a christian, dares to speak." I beg the particular attention of you all, gentlemen, to these last words of one of your own saints ! And, as my simile of the *' carrier," wasdeemed by you impious, learn if you please whence I had it. Augustine on Ps. Ivi. Vol. 4. p. 534, says, — "We produce books from our enemies ; and con- found others of our foes. In what opprobrium, therefore, are the Jews ? The Jew carries the book whence the christian draws his faith. These have been our librarians.^* " These Jews appear from the holy scriptures which they carry, as does the face of a mirror, &.c."

Again : — " Whether the Donatists hold the church, non nisi divinarum, &c. let them only show by the canonical books of scripture. For neither do we say they should believe us, that we are in the church of God, because Optatus or Ambrose had commended this church unto us, which we now hold ; or because it is acknow- ledged by the councils of our fellow teachers : or because so great miracles are done in it : it is not, therefore, manifested to be true, and catholic. But it is the will of Christ that his disciples should be conjirmed by the testimony of the law and prophets* These are the rules of our cause : these are the foundations : these are the confirma- tions." Aug. in Psalm 69. Bishop Hall, p. 592, folio.

I beg one quotation more to show this father's views of the plenitude of scripture : ** John testifies that Christ hath said, and did many things that are not written. Bid those things ivere selected to be ivritten ivhich seemed to suffice for the salvation ofbt- lieversy In John. Tract. 49, vol. iii. 619.

Jerome thus writes : — " The church of Christ, who has churches in the whole world, is united by the unity of the Spirit; and has the cities of the law, the prophets, and the gospel, and the apostles : she has not gone forth from her boundaries, id est &c. that is, from the holy scriptures.'^ Tom. 5. p. 334, Paris Edit., of 1602. Again : — "But the word of God smiteth the other things, which they spontaneously discover, and feign as it ivere, by an apostolical authority, ivithout the authority and testimony of scripture.^' Comment, in Hag. c. 1 Tom. 5. p. 506. This testimon}'' of Jerome strikes your popish rule dead ! Again : — " The Lord will speak in the scriptures of the people : in the holy scriptures ; which are read to the people with the intent that all may understand it." " As the Apostles wrote, so also the Lord hath spoken ; — that is, by the gospels; not in order that a few, but tliat all may understand." " The chiefs of the church, and the chiefs of Christ did not write to a few but to tlio whole people. And see what he says of the princes, that is, of the apostles, and tlie evan- gelists who were in her. He says who ivere, not are, so that, tviih the exception of the apostles, whatsoever should aftenvards be said, should be cut off, and should henceforth have no authority.'^ Jerome, Tom. vii. p. 259, Paris Edit. 1602.

8

74 ROMAIC CATHOLIC CON TROVERST.

In Tom. iii. lib. 24 ; and in Tom. ix. p. 186., Jerome mentions the books of tiff apocrypha : and declares them not of the canon : and " not to be brought forward for the confirmation of faith."

Chrtsostom, another of your saints, is decidedly pitted against yonr popery. And will any intelligent Roman cathohc prefer the extravagance of modern priests to St. Chn,'sostom? "I alwaj^s exhort," said he, "and will never cease to exhort yon, that you will not only attend to the things spoken to you here, but when you are at home, you continually busy yourselves in reading the holy scriptures ; which pra«- tice also I have not ceased to drive into them which come privily to me." Homil. iii. on Lazar.

Again : — " Sayest thou, O man, it is not for thee to turn over the scriptures, who art distracted with cares? Nay, it is for thee, more than for them, &c." Thi« great preacher then goes on to answer the people's objections that they could not well ■understand the Bible. Now, behold how much the tables are turned by the modem innovations of popery : " The spirit of God has so dispensed this word, that publi- cans, fishers, tent-makers, shepherds, goat herds, (aipolous) and even idiotai, the most illiterate men, may be saved by these books." Homil. in Genes. 29. And I shall add out of his Homily ninth on Colossians : "Hear I beseech you all ye secular men ; provide for yourselves Bibles, which are the medicines for the soul : at least get the New Testament." Again: — " All things are intelligible and straight ia the divine scripture : all things that are necessary, are clear." Hom. iii. on 2 Thes. ii. Again: — "Ignorance of the scriptures is the cause of all evils." Hom. ix. on Colos. iii. And finally: — "The knowledge of the holy Bible is a powerful defence against sin: while an ignorance of them is a deep precipice, a profound gulph! It is a great betraying of salvation to know nothing of the divine law : it is this igno- rance which has given birth to heresies ! They have occasioned the corruption of inorals !" Third Serm. on Lazar.

I have copied thus fully from this great and beautiful Greek writer ; because padie Le^■ins seemed to insinuate my ignorance of him : and boasted rather unseasonably of his own acquaintance with him I Docs padre Levins read Greek ? It is different from Irish, somewhat!

Athanasius thus writes; — "If ye are disciples of the gospel, speak not unright- eously against God : but walk in the things that are written. But if you will speak any tbing besides that which is written, why do ^^ou contend against us, who are de- termined neither to hear, nor to speak any thing but that which is written ? The Lord himself says, if ye continue in my word, ye are truly free !" On the Incam. of Christ, Paris Edit, of 1627.

Once more : — " For the holy and divi7iely inspired scriptures are of themselves suf- jicient for the discovery of truth.'' Speech against the Gent. Paris Edit. And per- mit me to add that this father who flourished from A. D. 335—340, has given us a list of the canonical books ; and a list of the books not inspired, viz. the apocrypha. See his Synops. of the holy Script. Paris Edit, of 1627. This list accords entirely with ours.

Tertullian says, "I adore the plenitude of the scriptures." And in his book against Hermogenes, he says, " Let this man's school show that it is in the scriptures : if it is not in the scriptures, let him fear the curse directed against those who add or diminish." See his Advers. Hermog. Paris Edit, of 1675, p. 241. I put it to every discreet la^inan, if our priests v.dll honor and obey this father, in these words !

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST. 75

la a word, I am prepared to prove, by any amount of quotations, that the Greek and Latin fathers of the first five centuries, held to the very letter of the following words of Augustine : " Sancta scriptura nostras doctrinse regalum figit." " The holy scriptures determine or fix the rule of our doctrine". Or with St. Gregory, the pope, " In this volume (the Bible,) are written down all that can instruct us." Horn. 9. in Ezek. ; and in the most accurate conception of St. Chrysostom, — " The canon ceases to be the canon, if any thing is added, or taken away from it." Hom. 12, ofi «h. iii. of Philippians : and in the decisive works of Basil : " It is right and necee- »ary that every one should learn that which is useful, from the holy scriptures ; both for the purpose of furnishing the mind with greater piety, and also that they may not he accustomed to human traditions.'''' Tom. 2 p. 449. Bened. Edit. Paris, 1722.

And here I deem it not inappropriate to introduce the testimony of your own Bel- larmine, De Verbo Dei Lib. i. cap. 2. Sacra scriptura &c. — " Sacred scripture k the most certain rule of faith." And again: — "At sacris scripturis, &c. Bat no- thing is better known, nothing more sacred than the holy scriptures, which are con- tained in the prophetical and apostolical writings: so that he who refuses to believ* in them," namely, as "the most certain rule of faith," — " is the most foolish being" — the most consummate of fools, — stultisimum. For that they are most perfectly known, the christian world is witness ; and the consent of all nations, among whom for ma- ny ages, their supreme authority, summum auctoritatem, has been admitted ; and they are moreover most certain, and most true, containing no hmnan inventions^ hut the divine oracles^ Lib. i. c. 2.

We are now prepared, gentlemen, for our argument. Whatever, -with you, has not the unanimous consent of the fathers, cannot be a doctrine of j^our church. But, here we have demonstrated the historical fact, that you have not only not the unanimous consent, — but it is entirely, and most manifestly against you, and in our favor. Hence, on your own principles, you must admit that the holy scriptures alone are the rule of faith. And your pretended infallible rule, is condemned by the holy scriptures, and by the fathers.

VI. In you Letter III., you make Augustine affirm, that Marcellinus was not an idolater ; that this " slander was raised by the Donatists." In reply I beg leave to say that you ought to know more accurately the sentiments of your own writers. Your own Pope iEncas Sylvius, Pius II., says: "We might adduce many exampleg of Romish pontiffs, if our time permitted us, who were either heretics, or stained with other vices. Nor does it escape us that Marcellinus offered incense to idols; and that another pope which is worse and more horrible, was raised to the popedom by the arts of the devil !" You will find these words in his Comment on the Acts of the Council of Basil, p. 9; Finch p. 110.

VII. In Letter III., you also venture to represent "Holy Mother" saying that "no enlightened son of mine ever taught the doctrine that infallibility was lodged in th« pope alone." Here is another instance of the most reckless disregard of truth. You do certainly admit Bellarminc to be an "enlightened son;" at any rate, in the same letter, you make "Holy Mother" call him "my faithful son!" Now let me direct your eyes to Bellarmine De Con. Auct. Lib. ii. cap. 17. " The supreme pontiff ifi simply and absolutely above the churcli universal, and above a general council ; so tliat he acknowledges no jurisdiction on earth above himself," Arc. Again: "Se- cundo : probatur," &c. Secondly, it is proved by an argument from scripture. For &11 the names, which in the scripture are applied to Christ, proving him to be above

76 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

the church, are in hke manner applied to the pope : as, first; Christ is pater familiaSf the head of the family: so is the pontiff: he is pater familias; loco Christi, in the place of Christ!" I do not know, gentlemen, ivhat your bishop may think of this misrepresentation, and unprincipled disregard of truth and honesty : or whether six months penance, by flagellation, and hair cloth would not be deemed too little ! But, we Protestants think that such flagrant crimes cannot be washed away, but by year3 of deep repentance through the Redeemer's blood !

VIII. The Jesuits have been in the habit of opposing the Bible rule of faith by an argument taken from the abuse of it by the different sectaries. My opponents, and Mr. Hughes also copy it out of Mumford; and select " the Arian Cobler" into whose lips they put many possible objections ; and profess, finally, that his opponent cannot defend the Bible doctrines against him. It is a singular circumstance that the infi- dels of France employed this silly form of argument against Christianity. Volney has it, at full length, in his "Ruins," Lond. Edit. Chap. 21. He introduces the Jews, tiie Roman Catholics, the Lutherans, the Mohammedans, and the Pagans, into the presence of the French Director3^ Into the lips of the christians, he puts speeches, •which exhibit the quintescence of nonsense and absurdity ; and from the abuse of a good and holy thing by bad men, Volney exactly as you do, turns all religion into ridicule. This is matched only by the priests' case of the "Arian Cobler," into whose lips the greatest absurdities are put by them. And while all his objections might be easily refuted by any of our sabbath scholars, who are well taught the usual texts to prove our Lord's supreme deity, the priests quote his abuse, as arguments against our Bible rule. Most unquestionably that is a bad cause which resorts to the logic of reasoning against a good thing, from the abuses of it by the follies of men : and blesses the deist, in order to hurt the Protestant.

IX. The doctrine of intention as held by your church, I did fairly state in my argument against you. You make the efficacy of all your sacraments to depend on the priest's intention to make them what the church intends them to be. Thus, unless the Bisiiop had the intention in his soul and conscience, to ordain you, and make you, bona fide, the priests of the church, — then jou are not ordained. This is the solemn doctrine of Trent, backed by anathemas! But you cannot prove his intention ; and no mortal can. Hence, you have no evidence, under heaven, that you are true priests. x\nd if you claim the office, and administer at the altar, with- out true ordination ; you expose yourselves to eternal damnation ! And how did you, gentlemen, reply to this, in Letter v. ? By a marvellous process, verily ! You assumed without an attempt at proof, that Protestants held also this absurd and impi- ous doctrine : and then very gravely turned on me, and asked how I knew when I had the intention! This is supremely ridiculous, that learned priests, professedly opposing Protestants, should be so profoundly ignorant of our doctrine ! Sirs, we reject your doctrine of intention with abhorrence ; as one of the prominent marks of John's Apocalyptic Beast! And we reiterate our argument: and put you to prove the Bishop's intention, or your ordination. You never can prove your ordina- tion ! You can never have faith in your own priesthood ! You never can have a moment's freedom from the justest doubts that you may be in mortal sin ! You can never find repose, by a thousand masses, from the alarming uncertainty, that in a few- hours, you may be in the horrors of perdition ! Deplorable result of practical popery !

In your last two letters you have not succeeded in bringing forward one single new idea, in the way of defensive, or offensive operations ! And what has struck all our

aOMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 77

readers, you have not replied to, nor even noticed, one of the ten arguments brought against your novel rule of faith ! This silence being the full admission of discomfi- ture, I shall now leave the rule of faith, and go forward into the chambers of your *^Holy Mother's" imagery, — which will be seen to set at defiance, in sober truth, all that the holy Ezekiel, in vision, beheld in olden times of the wicked Jews !

This closes the first part of my letters. We have succeeded, we believe, in esta- blishing the fact by evidence of a painful nature, namely, their own admissions and arguments, that the Romish priests are decidedly deists from principle! I have rea- »dh to believe that there is not a doubt of this left on the minds of the religious com- munity. And one of the strongest confirmations is this, every infidel has hailed the priest's letters as uncompromising auxiliaries to their cause, and bitter warfare against our Lord Jesus Christ! ! This is a matter of public notoriety.

We have succeeded, also, we trust, in establishing this fact, that the first principle held by the Roman catholic church takes away from its members, the sacred rights of ihinJcing, and reasoning, and acting according to their own consciences : that, in fact, the priest permits no exercise of conscience : no rights of private judgment whatever, on matters of religion ! ! The Roman priests wield a system which converts man into a mere mechanical engine, in order that he may think, and move, and act, and dispose of his soul, body, spirit, and property, just as the holy priests prescribe. No Roman Dictator ever wielded a more tyranical and terrific power, in pagan empire, than that of our priests ! !

And finally, we have shown, even at this stage of our argument, that the Roman catholic church, — I mean not the many gallant and patriotic men in her, — but her system of religion, is a necessary and deadly enemy to all liberty, — personal and 7ia~ ti&nal ; to all liberty, civil and religious ! !

I am, Gentlemen, Yours, &c. W. C. B.

EXTRACTS FROM THE PRIESTS' LETTER VIL

It opens with a discussion on Dr. B.'s " gnawing and bitter conviction of defeat," — and his ''writhing under the bitterness of discomfiture." '* The inspired of tJie M. D. Church has exhausted his argument." " His rule of faith and calvinistic creed are in our clutch .'"

They proceed to go over all of Dr. B.'s letters, one by one, and lament his hopeless fail- ure, in characteristic slang.

"Aware of the torture of mind you now experience from defeat, we will, in charity, as;- cribe the irritability of your temper to the consciousness of failure in establishing vour rule of faith."

"To affix a stigma on Nuns and Jesuits, you and your ^virtuous ladies' sanctioned the gross and polluting fiction — ' Lorette.' "

" Yes, whether in the pulpit or the street; whether interpreting the ' Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost;' whether directing your 'virtuous ladies' by the gaslight of your interior spirit to the realms of Elysium, or manufacturing, ))y patent right, chains, and sulphur, and anathema for your polemic antagonists, you will be hailed the Preacher who ap{)rovcd an obscene slander for the instruction of their sons and daughters."

" Docs it make your heart the domicile of the interior spirit ? Does it not [>rovo your uiti- macy with the 'Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost?' "

" You inform 'your (Vicuulsyou were but skirmishing.' This was a strange av(nval from a Religionist, who professes such zealotry of adhesion to tiio 'Hebrew and Greek of tiio Holy Gliost'/' "

8*

78 BfOHAF CATHOLIC C05TR0VEIIST.

*• There is no proof , no form of proof; and, yet, the logical Preacher imagined he had de^ monstrated the Bible to be the word of God f

'' Therefore he has not yet demonstrated that the Bible is the Word of God : therefore, he has not yet affixed a rational character to his Rule of Faith : therefore, in the selection of his religion he is not governed by discretion : therefore, his faith is mere human opinion — therefore, he has no foundation on which to rest bis hope of eternal salvation ! I !"

•' What think you now. inspired Preacher, of your rule of faith ? ^Miat think vou of ' our forms of reason !' ' Is not your rule,' — that is, the holy scriptures. — ' torn np and scat- tered to the winds ? Is it not,' — that is. God"s holy scriptures. — • like the bubble blown by the child in the sport of inlancy. flimsy, and hollow ? Is it not,' — that is. the Holy Spirit speaking in God's word. — • a shell around vacuity ; but ^Tthout a tincture of the rainbow colouring, which gladdens the inlant's sight V "

[Note. One is forcibly reminded of the similar impious boastings of Thomms Paint, diat '•^e had. also, annihilated the holy scriptures I]

'•You have not yet proved the Bible to be the Word of God. and the Bible, by the very terms of your rule of faith, must be the actual foundation of ever}- argument you logically should use."

•' Excellent, — worthy of the gigantic Erudite in the ' Hebrev, ar.d Greek of the Holy Ghost.' "

•• His intellect is not manufactured from penetrable stuff: — it is as guiltless of tliought and argument at the present hour, as when it exulted in the gasconade of '•CHALLENGE'^ against his opponents."

^ To chaof e poor Browulee, do not hope ;

Tis vain to shave an A?islace,

And onlv labor to mi-^piace.

And loss of words, mdeed, as well as soap."

" \o"ar creed is the dropsied offspring of mere human opinion. — it is an emanation from the passions of earth, — it is too gross to ascend above earth's exhalations, — ^it cannot elevate human hope to the Seraph's abode. — ^it cannot console on earth, it cannot say I have a rest- ing place in Heaven I — Defeat, discomfiture, and rout, this is a bitter and gnawing convic- tion. Degraded, dishonored, unpitied I How vanquished gasconade will fret its heart in sullenness ! How misery will ruminate over the indiscretion of CHALLENGE, and yearn for the reputation lost and the pinnacle from which it fell ! A GREAT MAN has fallen in Israel I Ye choristers of the 3Iiddle Dutch Church muffle your tones of joy. • the inspired Writer of Zion. and he that was clothed in the best gold. — how is he esteemed as an earthen vessel !' "

'• In pointing out some of the apparently contradictory texts of the Bible, we were con- vinced that Dr. Brownlee believed his rule of taith to be perfectly consistent, and that his proofs would be given in all the fulness of an erudite in the * Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost.' We have not been disappointed. This theologue. whose ' only rule of Faith is the trrittin vcord of God^ and judge of controversy, the Holy Ghost speaking to us in it* tells us that this rule, is not contradictory, because Bochart, Whitby. Lightfoot, Jaha and Bug. teli him there is no contradiction to be found in the passages we have quoted. Doctor Brownlee believes that there are no realiv contradictor^- passages in the scriptures,, his rule of faith."

'' We now call on the Preacher of the Middle Dutch Church, to produce one passage of holy writ, to prove, that there is no contradiction in the places to which we have referred.'"

'■ But, hoic can you refer the people to the scriptures for the belief of those points of chris- tian faith, which are not found in the scriptures, such as the canonicity, the integrity, and inspiration of the books of scriptures ?"

'• But is it not the extreme of folly in one, whose only rule of faith is the Bible, thus to declaim infaror of tradition ?"

*■ Why, Rev. Sir, the veriest old crone amonof vour virtuous ladies, will see that this con- ftdusion is not contained in the premises, and that the inveterate habit of draw-ing such con-

ROMAN CATHOLIC C0NTR0VER3T. 79

elusions, argues a 'derangement of the moral faculty.' One thing is certain, the Holy Ghost must consider you, no extraordinary genius, when after a course of some thirty or forty years in his school, you display such ignorance of elementary principles."

'' Strange, Rev. Sir, that YOUR ONLY JUDGE OF CONTROVERSY, THE HOLY GHOST, SPEAKING TO YOU IN THE SCRIPTURES does not decide this Contro- versy between you."

" Your attacks on the Vulgate you have borrowed from Pope's fourth speech in the dis- cussion witli McGuire. The Catholic champion earnestly called on the biblical crusader to compare the Sixtine and Clementine editions of the Bible, with the Vulgate of St. Je- rome, and to point out any substantial difference, if any could be found. This he did not do, and for a very obvious reason. Yet after this failure on the part of Mr. Pope, you have the eiFrontery to invoke ' all the learned to judge between us,' and you pronounce our quota- tions from approving Protestants as deceptions and absolutely to no purpose."

" Protestants ought to pause before they institute a comparison between their English translation of the Bible, and our Do way translation. They are the children of the Bible, and of the most abominably corrupted Bible, that ever appeared. We make no random assertions. Mark our proofs and weigh them well. Read the famous Broughton's adver- tisement of Corruption to Loi-ds of the Council in the year 1604, and recollect that he was a Puritan."

"In the Hampton Court Conference, pag. 45, 46, 47, all the English Bibles are pronoun- ced infamous translations. For the history of these translations, we refer to Bishop Pre ty man."

" For the corruptions' that exist even in all the late editions of the English Protestant Bible, we refer to the pamphlet of Mr. Ciirtis on this subject. As you profess intimacy with the ' Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost,' and are interested in the Protestant translations of the Bible, you, of course, have seen the pamphlet of Curtis, a dissenting minister, addressed to the present Protestant Bishop of London. In this pamphlet Curtis states, as the result of a laborious examination of a great number of Bibles, that, in the modern editions, he has detected no less than 2931 intentional departures from King Jame's Bible, in seven books, or only o. fourth part of the canon of the scriptures ! On the inten- tional departures from what is termed in England, the authorised version of the scriptures, we refer you to the averments made by several highly respectable witnesses before the se- lect Committee of the House of Commons on King's Printers' Patents. Fx'om this examin- ation and the pamphlet of the Rev. Mr. Curtis, you will obtain knowledge of which you are now ignorant, though you exult in your Protestant education."

** Let it suffice for the present, that the Pope is convinced, from the report of the Bishops in the countries where the English language is commonly spoken, that the Doway transla- tion and the different editions of it, are all free from substantial error. This is all that the discipline of our church requires with regard to the different translations from the Vulgate — and it is in virtue of this discipline, that Doctor Power did assert, that Roman Catholics were not prevented by their Pastors from reading the Bible in tlie Vulgar tongue."

"A correct edition of the fathers, does not exist, says Dr. B. : for he says, the monks of the dark ages corrupted them. Yet in opposition to this positive assertion, he quotes from the fathers, corrupted by the monks, because he thinks it supports his cause ! He says, *' produce Si genuine copy and I will receive their pages with profound veneration!" Yet, to supi)ort his rule of failh, and wanting an editio cxpurgata, he props his creed on quota- tions from the Fathers ! Is there in the records of controversial history so striking an ex- ample of inconsistency — such direct contradiction?"

" In the seventh section of your Hydra Epistle, you accuse us of a ' reckless disregard of truth,' for saying that 'no divine of the church of Rome ever taught that infallibility was lodged in the Pope alone.' We do not avoid the weight of this assertion. But how do you convict us of falsehood 1 By an argument at once the most stupid and absurd. Bellarmine is a son of the church ; but Bellarmine says tlmt the Pope is above u general couuciK

80 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

Therefore, Bellarmine believed that infallibility resides in the Pope alone. Now, Sir, Bel- larmine believed that Christ was above the Apostles. Therefore, according to you, Bellar- mine believed that infallibility was confined to Christ alone, that the Apostles were not in- fallible. Dear Doctor we despair of ever making a logician of you." Then follows the often repeated quotations out of Hooker, Field, &c.

At this stage of the discussion, serious diflSculties, it was understood, had occurred among the priests. Dr. Varela had already refused to go with his associates: and now Dr. P., it was whispered, was dissatisfied. My Letter VIII. in reply to the priests' Letter VII., was, by their influence, kept up, and withheld from the public, for some time. And it was not until they and their editor were notified, that, unless they published it forthwith, it should certainly appear in other papers, that it was at length, reluctantly printed. Meantime the following reply was brought forward to Dr. Varela's occasional Letters.

TO THE REV, DR. VARELA.

"Magna est Veritas, atque presvalebit !"

Great is truth, and it shall prevail ! — An old Protestant maxim.

My Reverend Friend — I give your great credit for you honesty and taste, in not permitting the priests to use your name, in the revolting and scandalous letters which ihey inflict on tlie public feelings : their infidel assaults on the holy scriptures ; and their illiterate and rude taunts on " the original Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost." Now, sir, proceed a little farther, according to the correct instinct of taste ; and re- nounce the vice of slandering the immortal authors of the " ever blessed Reformation," and of perverting the pages of the elegant and classical Calvin. Permit me briefly to reply to your two letters : and, here, let me say that I shall not follow you on any of the points discussed in our regular series- I reserve your remarks on purgatory and the mass, until I shall reach them in proper order.

1. My friend Varela sa3's, he produced a text from St. Ambrose to show that he taught the invocation of the saints. Now, I affirm that no honest man can read Am- brose on the first chapter of Romans, and then venture to tell the public that he ap- l^roved the invocation of saints. No, Sir, you know, if you have Ambrose, that he wTote against it with great zeal and indignation. Theodoret on Coloss. 2, and Am- brose on Rom. 1, having stated the detestable origin of invoking Saints, thus declare against it: — "The heathen idolaters to cover the shame of neglecting God, used this miserable excuse, that by these (tlieir departed heroes, daimones) tliey might go to God; as by officers we go to a king." Now, Sir, hear Ambrose farther: — "Go to, is any man so mad, or unmindful of his salvation, as to give the king's honor to an officer? And yet these idolaters do not think themselves to be guilty who give the honor of the name of God to a creature : and, forsaking the Lord, adore their fellow servants, as if there were any thing more that could be reserved to God!" — "To procure the favors of God (from whom nothing is hid, he knows the works of all men) we need no spokesman, but a devout mind. Suffragatore nan opus est ^c." — You quote the words of the church of Sm3-rna to Polycarp, to sustain your prayers to the saints, — namely, "We adore God, we venerate tlie martyrs." But these words condemn you ; Protestants venerate the saints ; you adore, or pray to them. You even

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 81

make Jacob '' adore the top of his staff." See Doway Bible, Heb. xi. 21. ; and quote him as an example in your idolatry.

I have thus convicted you, Sir, of misrepresentation ; and you owe a solemn apo- logy to St. Ambrose the first time you invoke him ! You charge me with misquoting St. Augustine on this same point; and you profess to quote from him the doctrine of the invocation of saints and angels. In reply, I assert that Augustine every where most solemnly and indignantly rebukes the idolatry of invoking saints, with which you criminate his memory ! Just look into his professions, Lib. 1 c. 5, Lib. x. c, 42, &c. In his book, De Quant. Anim. c. 34, he says: — "In the Catholic Church, it is divinely and singularly delivered that no creature is to be worshipped by the soul, but the Creator of all things alone." And, in his book De Vera Relig. c. 55, he says : "The adoring of men that are dead, should be no part of our religion; because, if they lived piously, they will not seek that kind of honor; they are to be honored for imitation : not to be adored for religion, or invoked in a religious manner." Now, Dr. Varela, the next time you go to invoke your Saint Augustine, I beg you, as an honest man, confess to him that you have been most greviously perverting his Vv-ritings ; and doing that wickedness, which he has solemnly condemned and reprobated! But, you gave an opposite quotation from his pages. Here then it is manifest, either that St. Augustine has beenaltered and mutilated by the monks of the dark ages, who tran- scribed his works : or that this saint did grossly contradict himself. If so, then you have not the unanimous consent of the same father with himself; far l<^ss the unanimous consent of all the fathers ! Take it either way, it is fatal to your idolatrous practice of invoking the absent spirits of dead men, and dead women ! ! !

2. 1 again affirm. Sir, that Romish conversion is simply "a reconciliation to the church." Every one accustomed to the style of Roman priests and writers, knows that this is invariably the mode of expressing it. And reconciliation to the church, mean- ing a nominal union to the Romish church, is the consummation of virtue, and the perfection of holiness? And if he only die in the bosom of "Holy Mother," and pay the church's dues, let his ignorance be ever so great; or the vices of his life, up to his dying hour, ever so many, he is perfectly safe ! Here, as every one sees, the Romish church has assumed the very ground of the Jews, "We be Abraham's iBced." And because they were his descendants, they held it up as a self evident point, that God was under an obligation to save them ! — The Roman Mass is a sub- stitute for the true atonement; and hence the only ground of a pinner's hope by jus- tification and reconciliation to God, is wholly taken away ! And Belkirmine in Lib. iii. De Eccles. cap. 2 and 7. has fairly and honestly expressed the opinion of all Ro- man catholic priests of our day. They do not believe in the need of a spiritual renovation ; they hold with unblushing assurance, that there is no need of internal grace in the members of their church : all they require is only the external rite and public profession. And hence they say, in the words of Bellarmine, and the Khem. Annot. on John 15. sect. 1. that "wicked men, and even rej)robates, remaining in the public profession of the church, are true members of the body of Christ !"

3. You follow the Romish church in her singular zeal for image worship ; and you remind me of my " ignorance in this matter, and of the confusion in my dates." There is no mistake, my friend, in the matter. Tlie use and worshij) of images in the christian church is a mere novelty. I stated thattlie seventh general council held in 754, in which were present tiS'S Fathers, did solemnly condemn the worship of! images, and their use iu churches, it is true, tho Roman popes stood out

32 ROMAi* CATHOLIC CO^TROVERST.

as usnal, for the use and veneration of them. I am well aware that vonr church does not acknowledge this 7th general council of the Greek church. But you hesi- tate not to admit the infamous decrees of the idolatrous council of Nice, the second of that place. These decrees revived image adoration; and poured worse than Pa^aa superstition over the western church.

There are two things, my good Sir, which have excited my surprise. Why did you not state that the council of Frankfort, consisting of 300 bishopss did in 794. unanimously condemn the tcorship, and the use of images, and thus overthrow your wicked council of Nice ? But what surprises me far more, my good Doctor, is thi»; that you could, in your conscience, approve of any decision of that council. Is it possible that you can applaud a cotmcil summoned together, and guided, by the atn>- cious Irene, who murdered her husband, and then usurped the imperial throne ? Do you, then, avow that your images were sustained by the council under the dictation of a bloody murderer ? And this is not all. In the West, or Latin church, at th« same time, the two popes, Gregorys, kindled the flames of rebellion, and war, against their lawful princes ; and spread civil war over Italy and the islands adjacent. And in their horrid popish rage for image worship and superstition, they caused the death of unnumbered thousands. It ^-as in the eighth century that those ghostly barbari- ans on the pontifical throne, spread ruin and havoc, far and wide. And your felloi^ priests and you cease not to applaud these bloody idolaters I

4. You complain that I did not truly represent your church's doctrines on graee. And "you produced a text out of the council of Trent" which, you say, removes all doubt of its being a caltmany, that "the catholic church denies the work of grace: and holds that the sinner is saved purely by human merit.*' That text I find in the decrees of the council of Trent. But. though pained to hurt your feelings, I am con- strained to tell you. that you have made a scandalous misquotation which perverts the sense of these fathers.

Here is your quotation : — " Eternal life must be preached as a grace mercifully promised to the children of God." This is very sound Protesiantism. But it is mere mangling of the whole sentence : the whole of it, is as follows: — "Atque ideo &c. And therefore to these who work well, and (persevere to the end. and hope in God, eternal hfe is to be proposed, (proponenda) both as a grace mercifully promised to the children of God. through Jesus Christ, and. also, as the reward to be faithfully ren- dered by the promise of himself, to their good works and merit.*'

Your whole quotation, in the Truth Teller p. 207. Col. 1. is given as if one conti- nuous sentence ; whereas it is composed of four garbled extracts I Your second clause stands thus . —

'•Jesus Christ communicates virtue to those who are justified, the same as the head does to the members, or the vine to the branches, which virtue alwavs ante- cedes, accompanies, and is subsequent to the good works, and without it they could not be by any means meritorious."

This you give as the entire sentence ; whereas you stop in the very middle of it. The rest of the pa;^age stands thus : — " it must be believed that the justified are in no respect deficient ; but that they may be considered as fully satisfying the di\iae law (for the state of this life,) by their own good works, which are wrought in God ; and as meriting eternal hfe to be obtained, in due time, if they die in a state of grace."

In this manner. Dr. Varela, you go on man^line the poor Tridentine Fathers in a mercileas way. See C. Trent, S. 6. cap. 16 and Cramp's Text Book p. p. 104 &41i.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTRaTERSY. 83

*1?he real doctrines issued by the authority of these Fathers, and held by all ortho- tlox Roman catholics, are these ; that good works done before conversion, have a merit de congruo ; that is, they merit a divine reward from a principle of congruity, or fitness, and the free bounty of God : and good works done after justification, do truly and properly merit eternal life. And thus they overturn the doctrines of the free grace of God ; and the special grace of the Holy Ghost.

5. You challenge me to produce a single Roman catholic divine who has claimed for the pope, or the church, the power of appointing new articles of faith. Have you forgotten. Sir, the words of Bellarmine and others, who constitute the pope a "God upon earth :" and the pater familias of the church, having the titles, and the place of Christ in it? Can you be ignorant that Pope Innocent IH., during the session of tb« 4th council of the Lateran, did, without consulting any body, publish and enact no less than seventy laws, or decrees, by which he not only established the power of the popes and clergy, but also imposed "new doctrines, or articles of faith, on the christ- ian church." See Mosh. ii. ch. 3, p. 2, and Daille on Confession. Will you deny that the Trentine council added twelve articles to the church's creed ? And can you seriously dispute, that Leo X. condemned this among the forty-one tenets of Luther^ ^^that the pope, or church had no power to establish articles of faith." And here, Sir, are the words of the bull which you challenge me to produce " Certum est in manu Ecclesiae, et papse, prorsus non esse statuere articulas fidei, imo nee leges morum, seu bonorum operum." That is, "It is certain that it is not in the povvxr of the church or of the pope to constitute or determine articles of faith, nor even laws of morals, or good works." This is Luther's tenet which this pope condemned. And the Rhemist Annotators speak strongly on the point : " We must believe the church of Rome and trust her in all things." On 1 Tim. iii. sect. 9 : Again, "we ought to take our faith and all things necessary to salvation from the hands of our superiors." On Acts x. sect. 8. And finally, see the bull of Leo X. added to the last council in the Lateran : "Ad solam, &c. To the sole authority of the pope does it belong to give a new edi- tion of the creed; or a new giving out of the creed belong to him solely." And to crown the whole, see Corpus Juris Canon. Dist. 40. and the following declaration in Dist. xix. cap. 6. " Inter Canonicas &c. Among the canonical scriptures th© (pope's) decretal epistles are to be numbered." These need no comment. Here is evidence of the highest order, — namely, your own books!

6. You write. Sir, with an amazing degree of non chalance, about your admitting seven sacraments ; and of our admitting two, as if your will, and mine, by a mere choice, were left to settle this. Nay, by way of a most ludicrous blunder, yon add: "If I am not greatly mistaken, the Presbyterian church admits of only one proper sacrament !" How so, — why, say you, " because they make it only an ordinance!" What naivete in this blunder of the true sons of Loyola ! They arc »o accustomed to receive the laws, ordinances, and rites simply from "the Lord God, the pope," — that they really do not know this elementary truth, that the true churcli — that is the Protestant church, receives it as an undoubted article of her faith, that Clirist, her only King and Head, ordains all the institutions of his house: that the pope, and he of the Koran, have no more power and authority to institute a new statute or rite, in ins church, than to add a new world to his dominions ! Hence he has made, fixed, and pronounced in the New Testament, every law, and every ordinance, which the church is ever to enjoy. And from this divine institution, wc call the holy supper, and baptism, ordinances. Our Romish priests have no idea of this; for the pope is

S4 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

soul, conscience, heart, law, and gospel to them ' While the christian looks up to hii God and King in heaven ; the romanists lift their eyes over the hills and seas, to Rome ! My dear sir, they take no pains to spare the priestly character : they heap proof upon proof that they linger a thousand years behind the light of God's holj gospel, in the darkness of the darkest ages !

7. I vv^ill once more ansv7er the often repeated question respecting divisions exist- ing in the Protestant world, and their causes, whenever you will have the goodnew to answer frankly, the following queries : —

First — ^What is the reason why two equally learned lawyers will differ on a plain point of law ? Or, why do you, and Dr. Power, and Mr. Levins so far differ that your taste and delicacy will not permit you tp lend your name to their rude and blasphe- mous Letters ?

Second — What has caused the endless divisions in Holy Mother's bosom ?" Your *' infallible rule," which as certainly fell down from heaven, as did the image of Diana from Jupiter, is firmly believed by all the different sects in your church. Now, why do the Jesuits and Janseuists differ, and persecute each other? Why do the Francis- cans and Dominicans differ, and quarrel, beyond the powers of the pope and the church herself to unite them ? W^hy did you and your bishop quarrel with the priest of Brooklyn? Had he no "infallible rule of Holy Mother," to guide him, as well as you?

Third — ^Whether your superior education enables you to apprehend the distinction between subjective infallibility, and objective infallibility ? Your colleagues in their Letters to me, ventured on the attempt : but it proved a complete abortion ! And in order to cover their retreat, and throw, at least, something like a veil over invincible ignorance, they actually turned into ridicule, the plain and logical distinction of o6;ec- tive and subjective infallibility !

We cease, however, to wonder at any thing. The state of education among Romish priests is deplorable. Hebrew and Greek, with Biblical criticism form no part of their training ! Why, some of them conceive the Latin Vulgate to be really the ori- ginal language of the Bible, given by inspiration. Others seem equally as igno- rant as the Romish Archbishop of a town in Italy, in the dark ages, who happening to find a Bible in some old box in the library ; exclaimed upon reading it, — " / have found a singular old book here : I know not ivhat it is, but one thing I see, it makes entirely against us!" They imagine that if there be any "original" of the Holy Spirit's inspiration, it must be the old Irish tongue ! For, there can be no doubt, say they, that the prophets and apostles lived in old Ireland, and vvTote the scriptures there ! ? Hence these furious taunts flung at " the Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost." The author of them exhibits a burning zeal in support of this Milesian theory-, at all risks, and hazard of character !

But, Sir, your better education must enable you to apprehend the difference between subjective and objective, as apphed to this point in theology. There is an infaUibihty objective, in our Protestant rule ; because God speaks to us infaUibly in the Bible. But the subjects on which this rule is brought to operate, namely, men, are not infal- Kble. Hence, there is no subjective infallibility. That is, the infallible rule of God, does not make men, personally, infallible. Hence it is easy to see that under the best and most divine rule, men will err ; and hence, they will differ. The fault is in men obviously, not in God's word !

8. When gi-ave and solemn charges are brought against the pope, and Holy Mo-

EOMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 85

ttlier^s priesthood, and their spiritual and moral character is thence annihilated : and when these charges are fully proved out of your own writers, such as Baronius, Pla- tina, ^nd Clemangis, how have you replied ? Why, by throwing the oblivion of si- lence over it : or by a quotation from Roscoe containing an eulogium on two or tlirte tolerably decent popes ! And this done, you thence piously infer, that because a few were decent, and rather more moral than others, therefore they were all good popes, and the perfect rule and judge of all truth, human and divine! This is a fair speci- men of the precious "dialectics, and logic" of our priests !

You had, in reserve, another characteristic mode of replying to our charge of infi- delity and profligacy made against popes and priests. The Reformers have been, you say, the worst, and most execrable of men; "Luther was a pupil of the Devil;" and, " therefore, our wicked Popes were angels, and our polluted Priests, chaste saints!"

Now, admitting that you could induce yourselves to believe the Reformers to be a» bad as demons, that does not touch the question. We never constituted one of these men, — not even Paul, or Peter, the living rule and judge ! We repeat it, the bible is

OUR ONLY RULE, AND GOD SPEAKING IN IT, IS THE INFALLIBLE JUDGE. But yOU

declare the pope, or the church, made up of these base and profligate men, to be the living speaking oracle, and judge ! Hence, when we adduced evidence that the popes, as your Father Paul says of the Trent Fathers, were — " A camp of incarnate demons," and your priests, by your own witnesses, a race of polluted, sensual men wallowing in vices, — we did, thereby, annihilate, utterly, and for ever, your Roman, catholic rule of faith ! ! It died by the virulence of its own corruption!

Come, now. Father Varela, open your eyes in candor; read God's holy word; retract your errors; embrace the truth; come over to the fold of the only true Shep- herd, our Lord Jesus; and I will greet you, in Christ.

Your affectionate brother,

W. C. Brownlee.

P. S. Since writing the above, I perceive that you have charged me with publish- ing a falsehood^ in as much as I affirmed that the Trentine Fathers added twelve arti- cles to the creed.

The Trentine Fathers did this by their agent. Pope Pius IV. to whom they left the matter merely : as the echo of that council and its head, he published the creed. By 3iim acting in its name were the additional articles added- I have made one mistake which I hasten to rectify. Instead of twelve, he added fourteen new articles to the creed ! And I challenge Dr. Varela and all the priests to deny it ! Let any one take up Cramp's Text Book: let him look into pope Pius IV.'s creed, in Cramp, p. 450 : there he will see the original Latin copy : and in p. 387, he will see the translation. Firsts you have the creed, and then attached to that, fourteen new articles, unknown to the Apostles, and unknown to the clmrch of Christ in the first six centuries.

Sir, I have here established another proof, that our Jesuit priests will deny any thing, and will assert any thing, even loith the most glaring evidence to the contrary, before their eyes ! I can assign no other reason than this : they set Protcstant^s at defi- ance ; their unlettered votaries, they know, have no access to these documents, in our iiands, and in the priests' hands. And they are satisfied that their victims will iak«^ the priests' word against all the evidence that truth can ])our forili. Their siniph: votaries have been volunteers in self innnohilion, and have always believed by proxy.

w. b. B.'

9

8d Roman catholic coNTRovERsr.

A CARD. — TO THE PUBLIC.

The subscriber owes it to the public respectfully to state, that the foUowLDg Letter iras kept back by the Roman catholic paper, a whole week, without any reason, or excuse being offered. And he also owes it to himself to state farther, to all who read the Roman catholic paper, that, after it was at length given, it appeared in its col- umns, so deformed and mangled, by the omission of lines and words, and by errors of the grossest nature, that it is next to being unintelligible.

He takes this occasion also to state, that that catholic paper has from time to time, admitted the most indecent and outrageous attacks on Protestant ladies, whom the priest ISIt. Thomas C. Levins has seen fit to drag into the present controversy ; and yet the editor has been induced to refuse positively to admit a reply from the subscri- ber, or from ladies, lo these personal outrages !

The little book "■ Lorette, or the history of the daughter of a CayiacUan nun,'* which has slung the priests' conscience, and inflicted such acute pain, — was submitted to none of my parishioners. No one of the ladies of the 3Iiddle, and North Dutch churches ever saw, or even heard of it, while in manuscript. I repeat it distinctly, — no one of them was of the number of those judicious and virtuous mothers of fami- lies, who took the trouble of reading and recommending it. These were all of the Presbyterian church exclusively. This I made known, confidentially, to the priest. Yet, in violation of all the decencies and courtesies of life, the priest Mr. Thomas C. Levins, has dragged in the ladies of the Middle Dutch church into this controversy : and he still continues, under his own signature, and the shocking ^-ulga^ities of " Fergus McAlpine," published weekly in the popish newspaper, in violation of every principle of honor, — to offer insults to ladies who move in the first circles of New York !

I deem it, therefore, my duty to hold up this Romish priest, before the fathers, hus- bands, and brothers of those ladies, — as the rude ^-iolator of the decencies, and com- mon courtesies of society : — as one who has insulted ladies in language, and terms which can proceed from no christian, or gentleman ! As one who has added coward- ice to these unmanly insults, by employing his priestly influence to prevent all re- plies, and exposures from appearing in those columns, where he publishes his outrage- ous attacks !

The subscriber begs leave to make an appeal to even.' gentleman, and every lady in our community, whether this repeated insolence to ladies, on the part of a Romish priest, is to be tolerated. He can have no objection that Mr. Levins should heap on his head his unmeasured abuses, and sacerdotal vituperations. The subscriber is his public and avowed theological opponent ; and he is prepared for it. For it is just as natural for a priest of Roman faith to persecute those, whom, in his vulgar and illibe- ral views, he is pleased to call '• heretics ;" as it is for liim to breathe ! But, then, let him confine the outpourings of the vials of his ghostly wrath, to those, exclusively, who war against his unpieties ; and not, with the graceless coward, insult ladies, and those who never entered the lists with him I None but the rudest being, that ever was trained up in all the heartlessness of Jesuitism, and monastic celibacy, which paralyzes every noble, and virtuous, and holy feeling of the human soul, — can per- mit himself to insult ladies ! And when, in the calamitous events of providence, such outlaws intrude themselves on virtuous and polished society, and rudely violate social courtesies, — then, every gentleman, and, most especially, every young man, is bound,

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 87

promptly to show that there are husbands, and fathers, and brothers to defend their wives, their daughters, and sisters, against such brutal assaults of priests !

I am, most respectfully, &c. W, C. Brownlee, May 14, 1833.

LETTER VIII.

TO DRS. POWER AND VARELA, AND MR. LEVINS.

*' Upon this rock will I build my church !" — Jesus Christ.

*' And that rock was Christ." — St. Paul.

" Other foundation can no man lay, than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

Gentlemen : — Your seventh letter I have carefully perused. You would have saved trouble, and been as near your object, had you reprinted the sixth against me, in. reply. You have offered, in both, much incense to the spirit of error and heresy. I fear he is the presiding genius over all your nocturnal orgies and lucubrations. You have renewed your crusade against the holy Bible ; but without advancing one single new idea ; or even one semblance of a fresh argument on the point. My ten argu- ments against your rule, by which I trust, it has been logically demolished and anni- hilated,— have been passed over, unnoticed by you. And, gentlemen, whatever attri- butes your enemies deny you, I shall maintain that in this silence, you possess both wisdom and cunning. We have also fully established the evidence of the holy scrip' tures, by the usual arguments and proofs, briefly given, from internal and from exter- nal evidence ; from miracles, prophecy, and historical evidence or tradition. And I trust, I have fully exposed your besetting sins touching tradition. It is truly ludi- crous to see grave and professedly learned men insisting on it, forever, that tradition alone is all the evidence of the Bible's inspiration ; and that tradition belongs solely and exclusively, to " Holy Modier" of Rome, verily! You repeat here, again, with flolemn trifling, all your deism and twaddle in this matter, which had been refuted, and exposed, and logically put to rest. The only thing that seems to be novel is this : you have fallen, like theological sophomores, into the silly error of confounding the act of faith in the external evidence of the holy Bible, wilh the act of faith in our Lord, speaking in the Bible. By the former, we are assured that the Bible came from God — by the latter we do believe in Christ, speaking in the Bible, and through that faith, are justified from guilt before God. Now my profound opponents cannot comprehend the distinction ! And what is more, no papist ever can. For he believes in the "church, namely Holy Mother." And by that faith is he saved. This, gravely, is their avowed sense of that sentence in the creed — " I believe in the catholic Church" ! ! !

1. My exposureofyour Vulgate Bible has, I see, taken eftect: it has stung the priest's eonscience ! And you cannot conceal how much you writhe under it. No wonder : Magna est Veritas, atque prfcvalebit ! — But you have not examined, far less refuted one of my statements. And I compliment you again on your wisdom in not touch- ing tliem. Every Jesuit is a spiritual man of war, from his youfli up. And in your tactics Holy Mother cnforc<is no rule more anxiously than this : — irhe?H'Vcr your opponent advances an argument which you cannot ansiver — take special care not to touch iV !

88 ROMAN CAtHOLIC C0]*rTR0V£R9r.

The strongest thing j'-ou have said here, in reply to my exposure of your Vulgate, is this : " Your attack on it, you have borrowed from Pope's discussion with M'Guire^ &:c." My good padres, T did not know it : for, I am sorry to say, that I have not yet been able to add that book to my list. I have never seen it. * But, gentlemen, you must have seen that I copied my authorities from the fountain head, — such as Nolan, Home, Willet, Father Paul Sarpi, Pallavicini, and the collections of Cramp. And, gentlemen, if, as you say. Pope was so ill informed on the subject, as not to be able lo silence M'Guire promptly on this point, by an exhibition of the endless errors, varia- tions, and contradictions existing between the Sixtine, and the Clementine editions of the Vulgate, he was very ill qualified for his duty. Every scholar knows that Dr. James, in his Bellum Papale, has pointed out two thousand variations between these two papal editions. And an}'- one by taking up Home, vol. ii. p. 200, 201, can see a specimen of these errors, omissions, additions, and contradictions. I mention Home, because he is in every minister's library. And I again refresh you with Reuchline and Jerome's words,^" the Hebrews drink of the wellhead; the Greeks of the stream ; and the Latins of the puddle !" And, at the same time, I renew my public challenge to you to tell the public, to which of these erroneous and contradictory editions of your Vulgate, from the hands of these two equally infallible and contradictory popes, you give in the adhesion of your flexible faith and conscience.

2. I also beg leave to renew my demand of an answer to the question in my last, and which you have shunned. You have always averred, and can we doubt your honor, that j^ou insist that your laity read the holy Bible ? Even your pope, you said, approves of your Douay ! Now, we demand of you to tell us if there he one English virsion of the Bible authorised by either the pope or the church ! We say there is not one authorised version in our language ! Will you venture, Sirs, to contradict it ? I possess evidence ; namely, the testimony upon oath, of some of 3^our first men in Ire- land, given in before the British parliament, to confirm what I say!

3. You are involved in a difficulty, really inextricable, from my quotations from the Greek and Latin fathers. And 1 am anxious to show how great this difficulty is. There is no contradiction as you affect to say, between my Letters I. and VH. You know as well as I do, that the fathers have been altered, mangled, and corrupted in many parts. But providence so ordered it, that these knavish monks who corrupted many parts of them, did not succeed in corrupting all of them ; or all parts of each of them. Hence the many glaring contradictions on their pages. Now, take it which way you please, gentlemen, the quotations from the fathers are absolutely fatal to your sinking cause. It is an immutable doctrine of your church, that no rite, nor doctrine is from God, unless it have the unanimous consent of the fathers. Hence it is utter folly in you, gentlemen, to do as padre Levins has done ; namely, to quote a sentence or two. This will never do. You must have their unanimous consent. If 1 do produce, as you know I have done, a sentence from these, contradicting yours, it is of no conseciuence to our Protestant cause, which of us is right. It is enough for me that I destroy your unanimous consent. I beg my readers to remember this important maxim. It is to administer glorious service to us in our future discusions of the Ro- mish doctrines and ceremonies.

* This statement brought nie in no less than fico copies in one day: and one of them, I wish to be grateful in saying it, was from a R. C. Pncst ! Here let me add, that so deep and solemn was the sympathy of the protestant public, that books were sent in to me from persons of every sect and denomination, many of which generous friends, I never saw,, nor heard of, before.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 89

4. You call Protestants " the children of the Bible." We are grateful for this honor wrung from such lips. Truth is rare and valuable like gold ; especially when it comes in small grains amid mountains of falsehood. But you venture to say that we have " the most abominahly corrupt Bible that ever appeared.^' You add : " Mark our proofs and weigh them well: read Broughton's advertisement of corruption, to the lords of council in 1604."

Our priests are as defective in historical education, as they are in biblical criti- cism. Is it not astonishing that a priest, or any school boy, should really not know that our translation now in use, was not in existence in 1604 ? It was not finished until the year 1611 ? Our priests are absolutely so illiterate ihat they do not know that they are charging on our present, and admirable translation, the errors that existed in preceding translations !

They commit a similar blunder when they say that, "in the Hampton conferenc® all the English Bibles were pronounced infamons translations." Is it credible that priests should be so utterly ignorant of familiar historical facts ? Our version, now in general use, was made after the Hampton conference ; and in consequence of the learned puritans requesting King James to select able men to give an accurate trans- lation. See Neal's Hist, of the Puritans, ii. ch. 2. Home's Introd. vol. ii. p. 249.

5. And as our priests appeal to Walton and others, as favoring their sentiments, re- lative to the Douay, and to our version, the public can conceive what reliance is to be placed on the faith and quotations of the priests, from the following criticism of Walton : "The last English translation of the Bible, made by divers learned men, at the com- mand of King James, may justly contend with any now extant, in any language of Europe." And the learned Selden, a better judge than the pope, and his millions of priests combined, calls it " the best translation in the w^orld!" And omitting other equally great judges, your own Geddes, a Socinian Roman Catholic priest, speaks of it thus: "If accuracy, fidelity, and the strictest attention to the letter of the text, do constitute the qualities of an excellent version, this, of all versions, must, in general, be accounted the most excellent !

6. You have not given a fair exhibition of Bellarmine's views of papal infallibility. He and these of his sect in the Romish church, do actually place it in the pope alone. I quoted him and the canon law. These exhibit the pope as absolute: "a god on earth," in the place of Christ, " loco Christi :" and accountable to no council; doing on earth what he pleases, even as God does in heaven ! Hence they make him the sole depository and fountain of infallibility ! You simply deny that any son of" Holy Mother" ever held such sentiments, and get rid of my quotations by misstatement, and mysticism. I need scarcely add that those who look into Beljiarmine and the canon law, will perceive that you are either by design, or accident, absolutely ignor- ant of your own standard papal writers !

Finally — There is one other point on which I find something apparently new. In a fresh and most unchristian ebullition against the holy scriptures, you (juote Dr. Curtis's pamphlet in which he numbers no than 2931 intentional departures from the received version of our English Bible ; that is, he undertakes to show that, in the printing, all these errors have been introduced. And in this detection, our reverend christian priests exult, and leap for joy, as if they and their agrarian auxiliaries had actually made a breach in the walls of Zion! I

I have convicted my opponents of Deism : and I have evidence that every tliiuk- iiig christian in the community is fully and painfully salislied with the evidcuwe.

9«

90 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

And to establish this fact was in indeed my main reason for lingering so long on (ha rule. We have succeeded in dragging out this lurking Antichrist from his deceptions den ; and we have branded on his forehead a mark and a name which all his holy water can never wash out — namely : " This is the father and prince of Deism!''

And as if they were resolved, unblushingly, to wear the mark and the name, the priests have made this new assault, through the aid of Dr. Curtis, against the holy scriptures. Now, mark the proofs of their dishonesty in this matter. When we remember the source whence our priests got their information of Dr. Curtis' re- seaxches, it was morally impossible for them not to know that the profound scholar, Dr. Cardwell, of Oxford University, has entered the lists against him, has overthrown him, and exposed his errors completely. I shall edify my honest and accurate opponents, by quoting a little specimen of this exposure. In the book of Genesis, Dr. Curtis musters the formidable array oi^ eight hundred and sev^.n variations, and in the gospel of Matthew, no less than four hundred and sixteen ! This, to you and every infidel, is a very refreshing and comfortable discover^-. But pause a little. Our champion, Dr. Cardwell, goes over the same ground, collates the various copies, and shows triumphantly that in Genesis there are only nin€ variations ; and in Mat- thew only eleven ! And these affect not the sense : nor trench on doctrine ! If a Jesuit could be brought, by any power short of di^-ine grace, to blush, my guilty and treacherous opponents ought to blush to their ver\- tonsures! But, the grace of God only can make a culprit see and feel his crimes !

I have one remark more. I am prepared for even the ultra deism of the Vol- taire school from you, gentlemen, but the indecent sally in your last letter, I was really not prepared to hear. I allude to your revolting blasphemy, in your last letter. Will the christian community pardon me for quoting it ? " One thing is certain, the Holy Ghost must consider you (Dr. B.) no extraordinary genius, when, after a course- of thirty or forty j^ears in his school, you betray such ignorance." &c.

The ignorant and deluded victims of popery, who can write and inflict on the church, such outrageous blasphemy against the most Holy One, cannot be said to believe that "there is any Holy Ghost." And it were mockery to call ihem christ- inns! I appeal to every one of the five hundred thousand christians in the United States, who read our letters ! Have we not convicted tl:e priests of Deism, and deliberate blasphemy ?

One word to the confederated parties : Gentlemen priests : Your very natural and anti-christian invectives against God's holy word, have been gladly hailed by all the infidels in the land. I said gladly, for in the absence of the Agrarian chief, now laboring in the cause of deism, in England, they rejoice at any little aid to their cause, come it from a lloman priest, dyed in the wool : or come it from a genuine pupil of Frances Wright. x-Vnd this is no despicable attribute of their system, that they are very thankful for very small favors ! It is true ; and I only remind you of it : they have applauded your intellectual industry against God's holy Bible, at the expense of your sincerity and moral honesty. And it ought not to be concealed that these, your auxiliaries, gravely pronounce you hypocrites. Prepare the watch-word, there will soon be trouble in the camp !

And, gentlemen deists, — I use not the title invidiously, — are you av.-are of tha character and pretensions of the Roman priests with whom you make common cause ? Are you aware of the consequences which will follow, should you succeed in conduct- ing tliem into power, in these United States ? Look at Italy, at Austria, Naples, and

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 91

Spain. You are helping to light up the fires of the Auto da fe ! The Roman church cannot exist without persecutions, massacres, and the burning of her foes. For she holds no faith with heretics : and that it is a most meritorious deed to extirpate heretics ! In aiding the Roman priests (who laugh in their sleeves at your credulity and weak- ness) you are preparing the fire and fagots ! You are preparing for yourselves the unenvied distinction of being the last devoured ! Pause, and think. Do not strengthen the tyrant's arm which is raising the blow against our fair and happy Republic !

I now go on to show that the Roman Catholic Church is younger thaw Christianity : and that Popery is a mere novelty in the religious

WORLD.

Here I would observe that the church of God is one great and holy body, of which Christ is the head. The church has existed from the beginning of the world, it exists now, and will exist to the consummation of all things ; unaffected by the lapse of time, or the change, and succession of individual members.

The church has ever held the truth. And truth descended from God, and has ever kept her throne in Zion. Christ the King of truth, reigns in her forever. Nothing of human invention is of the truth. Every item of it comes from God, through Jesus Christ.

The following are some of these leading truths which never failed in the church; and which have ever distinguished the church from all human societies. And wher- ever these doctrines are wanting, there " Satan has his seat;" — there is " his syna- gogue."

1st. The one living and true God is the only and exclusive object of divine worship and veneration. The church of God never prayed to creatures ; never made suppli- cations to dead men, or dead women. The pagan, and afterwards the anti-cliristian apostacy alone, did this. The pagans deified their heroes and heroines, and made supplications to them. The antichristian apostacy, faithful copyers, have, in like man- ner, deified or canonized their dead spiritual heroes and heroines ; they offer incense to them ; bow down before them ; and make solemn supplications, and prayers to them. These systems are twin sisters ; begotten by their common father, the prince of dark- ness, the grand enemy of divine worship, and the originator of all idolatry.

2d. The Church has always held faith in one savior, Jesus Christ; and his ONE perfect sacrifice. Pagan and antichristian apostacies have renounced this. The sacrifices of the former, and the mass sacrifice of the latter, have displaced and rejected, completely, the one only sacrifice of our blessed Lord. Besides, popery has created such a host of mediators, and mediatrices, and intercessors, in the deified saints, that the humble faithful cannot get a sight of the one only mediator Christ, on account of the countless rabble of saints put into the place wliich HE alone occupies.

*5d. The church of God never used images to aid her worship. She was sohMinily prohibited from this iniquity by the second precept. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, nor the likeness of any thing, &c. Thou shalt not bow- down thyself to them, &c." This is the literal version of the Hebrew original ; and every other version is false; and docs, of design, cover idolatrous practices. As for the cherubim, and the brazen serpent, they were made by an e:rpre.<^s command of (hd : and they were not used to worship God, in any sense wliatevor. It was U>r (ho sin o( idohitry, or using images and false gods, that the ancient Jews suficred most severely, by the terrible judgments of God on tliat heaven daring sin !

4tli. The circumcision of the heart, or spiritual regeneration wa>j a peculiar doctrine

92 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

of the church. *' Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." This doctrine is unknown to pagans, and laughed to scorn by the pope, and his priesthood. They hold that no " internal grace" is needful in the members of the church, but only "external profession." And most gravely they assert that wicked men, and even reprobates, remaining in the public profession of the church, are true members of the body of Christ." See Bellarmine De Eccles. Lib. iii. cap 2 and 7. And the Rhem. Annot. on 1 Tim. 2. Sect. 10. And on John 15. Sect. 1. Willet, p. 51.

5th. The church always held that God only and exclusively, is the lord of the HUMAN CONSCIENCE ; and in no subordinate sense can any mortal claim power over the conscience. Almighty God will not share his throne with any miserable and arro- gant tyrant. All false religions lodge power with the priests to rule over, and dictate to, the conscience. This ever has been the characteristic of paganism, and Romanism. The evidence of this lies open to view on the page of scripture ; and in the historj^ of paganism, and the Roman church.

6th. Almighty God alone can, and does pardon sin. He gave the law, pre- scribed the penalty ; we are his moral subjects ; to him alone are we accountable in the matters of sin, spiritual duty, and pardon. As church members we are to confess our faults one to another ; and so ought the priest to confess his faults to the people, if this text be quoted by them as authority for his innovation. But auricular confes- sion has no waiTant from Almighty God. Upon the principles of pagans, and Roman catholics, God has transferred over into the hands of immoral and polluted men, the government of his emjjire. If a priest has a right to receive the confession of sins,. and pronounce absolution, for money ; then has he the right to claim the judgment seat of heaven ; judge the dead ; and displace Jesus Christ, in order to make gain !

7th. The spirit of true religion is the unsubduable spirit of liberty. Wherever the worship of the true and holy One has been established by the gospel, there liberty has reigned. And, just in proportion as the gospel is left unshackled by the traditions, and interested schemes of men, has liberty had her splendid triumphs ! The Jewish church exhibited liberty diffusing happiness over a free and blessed people. When religion languished, tyrants bore sway. Let the people cast their eyes over all Roman catholic nations, and contrast their degradation, tyranny, priestcraft, and outrageous oppression, — with the light, liberty and happiness of Protestant countries ! Contrast Spain and Italy, and Austria, with Holland, and Scotland, and England ! Contrast the turbulent Mexicans, and Southern priest-ridden republics, with oar own glorious republic, and read the truth, visibly written, as with a sunbeam from heaven ! I would draw the attention of every sound politician to this point. I know of no other portion of civil and ecclesiastical history, more fruitful of great practical lessons to the patriot, and to our country, than tliis is.

8th. The true and chaste spouse of Christ is not conjoined, in bondage, unto the state. *' My kingdom is not of this world," said Christ. And his servants are not allowed to usurp authority, or "be lords over God's heritage;" far less are they to be luxurious, proud, insolent princes, and truculent tyrants ! Tlie pagan and Roman religions; ajid those which are only half reformed have permitted the infidel princes of the earth, the " Lords spiritual and temporal," to tyrannise over the church : to make a tool of her, and her lordly revenues, to promote personal, and family ambition : until she is become, in many lands, a fallen and degraded thing ; vile, and impure ; and loathsome! The tyrants of the earth have converted her into '■'■The mother of

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 93

h'artots, and abominations of the earth.'''' This is her name among the nations of the earth, and all the host of God. This name the linger of the Lord has M-Titten on her brazen forehead ! And an Atlantic of priestly holy water can never wash her clean, nor wipe the brand from her forehead !

These peculiarities of a false religion, show that Romanism is not the pure and ancient church of Christ. But this is only my introduction. The grand peculiarities c^ Popery, — with your leave, I shall class under ten heads, — or, gentlemen, ten horns, if you please.

First. The pope's supremacy. I shall not stop here to refute these doctrines : 1 shall merely establish their origin and date, in order to show that popery proper, is a mere novelty in the christian world. Our refutation shall be offered when we reach these, in *' the dependency of our argument."

All papists admit the pope's supremacy. But among the sectaries in the bosom of '' Holy Mother," there has been great diversity of belief. There are four prominent kinds of faith, rending asunder holy Unity, on this essential point. One class vouch- safes him a mere presidency : a second votes him an unlimited sovereignty: a third, exalts the pope to an equality with God : the fourth, very modestly, makes the pope actually superior to God ! This I shall discuss again : I shall wait to see whether our learned priests wdll venture to deny this division. Ignorance of their own writers may very probably induce them to deny it.

Now, according to the doctrines of the pope's supremacy, Peter was made the first supreme. And having died in A. D. 67, he was succeeded by some obscure beings, upon whose names even the Romanists cannot agree. But the holy apostle John survived Peter at least forty years ; and so these obscure but absolute supremes, were placed over this holy and beloved apostle ! This was really outrageous in the Romish church ! And, moreover, this apostle John has not, in any of his inspired writings, had the grace of God, or the good sense, to acknowledge this supremacy ; nor deported himself as a dutiful son. On our priests' principles, Drs. Power and Levins must denounce the holy John as a rebelious son of "Holy Mother !" What ! Live 40 years, and write so much scripture, yet say not one word for his holiness, and his essential supremacy ! Padre Levins ought, forthwith to excommunicate his memory, with bell, book, and candle ! Gentlemen, by what strange and unheard of negligence in discipline, has this been omitted by " Holy Mother ?" Never did her thunders of the Vatican thus sleep when her vengeance burned against the pious and martyred saints of Europe !

The early councils resisted papal supremacy. In A. D. 418, the sixth council of Carthage resisted three popes, one after another. The council of Chalcedon, held about the year 450, resisted pope Leo, on the question of his supremacy. A mighty and harmonious opposition was directed against papal usurpation by the bishops and and clergy of" France and Germany. lUyricus, in Catal. Test. Verit. p. 41, gives their epistle, in which they "admonish the pope Anastasius and his acconi})Hces, to let them alone, and not exercise their tyranny over them."

The bishops of Belgia resisted the pope Nicholas, so late as 860, Illyricus records, in p. 80, their ei)istle to him, in which they say, — " We will not stand to tliy decrees ; nor hear thy voice ; nor fear thy thundering bulls! We assault thee with thine own weapon, who despisest the decree of our Lord God I"

So late as the seventh century the Anglian bishops resisted pc^prry in England, and refused even to own the pope, and his Austin monks as christians, fc?ce Burgess' Tracts, p. 125, Lond. Prot. Journ. May, 1832.

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In Scotland, as is evident from Dr. Jamieson's history of the Culdees, popery and Bupremacy were resisted with strong indignation to even a later period.

In Ireland the devout Irish resisted popery still longer. Dr. O'Halloran declares in his antiquarian researches, that " St. Patrick, beyond doubt, found in Ireland, when he arrived tliere, an estabhshed Christian Church." And he declares that "an un- compromising enmity existed in the minds of the Irish people against every thingcon- nected with Rome! "And we have the famous reply of the Irish divine, St. Ibar, on record, which he made to St. Patrick, who -vs-ished to exercise some jurisdiction: — " TFe never aclcnoivledge the supremacy of a fortigner /" Let every true hearted Irish- man record this reply of their famous native divine ; and remember the fact that Ireland never submitted to the pope's supremacy until overpowered by the conspiracy of th« pope, and I^ng Henry- II., in A. D. 1172. I refer to O'DriscoU's vit ws of Ireland, ii. p. 85.

In Spain, the radical elements of popery and papal supremacy- were detested, and successfulh^ resisted, so late as the beginning of the eighth centmy. See Dr. Geddes on Popery, \ol. ii. 11 — 60 ; and McCrie's History of the Reformation in Spain and Italy.

The emperor Lewis, son of Charlemagne, so late as the middle of the ninth century, with all his clergy and nobles, owned no supremacy in the pope; but on the con- trary sustained the power of the bishops and councils against him. Hence the devout exclamation of your own honest Platina: " O Ludovice, utinam iiunc viveres!'^ See Illyr. Catal. p. S6, Mom. Exer. p. 224.

The best and early fathers warmh' opposed the Pope's supremacy. St. Augustine was the fourth who signed the famous decree of the African Milevetan Council. This dacree was made against all appeals from the African Church, by bishops, or mem- hers, to the pope ; and it was made in opposition to Pope's Zosimus, Boniface, and Celestine. See Mansi Collect. Cone. Tom. iv. p. 507; Venet. edit. 1785.

Jerome, also opposed it : hear his words : " The Church of the Roman city is not to be deemed one thing, and the church of the whole world another. Gaul, Britain, Africa, Persia, India, and all the barbarous nations adore one Christ : and obser^-e one rule of faith. If you look for authority, the world is greater than a city, (Rome.) \Mieresoever a bishop is, whether at Rome, or Constantinople, or Alexandria, or Tanais, he is of the same worth, (or authoritv.) and the same priesthood." "But all are successors of the apostles. AMiy do you produce to me the ciistoms of one city?" To Evagr. Tom. ii. p. 512, Paris edit, of 1602.

The following from St. Jerome has a very particular claim on our attention:— "Bishops should remember that they are greater than elders, (presbyters,) rather by custom, than by truth of the Lord's appointment : and that they ought to rule tbo church in common." On Titus Lib. i. cap ] .

Hear Theodoret's memorable words : — "Christ alone is head of ail: the church is his body : and the saints are the members of his body : one is the neck : another the feet." "By bis legs understand St. Peter, the first of the apostles." On Sol. Song. Par. Lat. edit. 1608. So far from making Peter the head, he considered him the legs, which are supported by the feet, as you well know !

Then there is Tertullian's famous sentence, which your Romish writers have man- gled so scandalously — supposing that we, "ignorant heretics,," had not seen, nor read that honest witness against your supremacy. " Survey the apostohcal churches, in in which the verychairs of the apostles still preside over these stations ; in which their

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^wn epistles are recited, uttering the voice, and representing the presence of each of them. Is Achaia nearest to thee, thou hast Corinth. If thou art not far from Macedonia., thou hast the Philippians and the Thessalonians. If thou canst go to Asia, thou hast Ephesus. If thou art near Italy, thou hast Rome, whence to us, also, authority is near at hand." Praes. adv. Hser. Cap. 36, p. 215, Paris edit. 1675. Now, it is a notable circumstance, that the Romish writers, when they quote out of Tertullian, leave out all that is put here m italics; namely, all but the last sentence ; thereby perverting this father, and making him utter what no man in his days had even conceived, or thought of. Mr. Hughes of Philadelphia, lately quoted him in this garbled manner; and received a suitable scourging for so doing !

I shall gratify you, gentlemen, with one refreshing quotation more. And if you do not give up your pope's supremacy as universal bishop, then on your own principles, are you the most obstinate heretics alive. For I quote from your own infallible and holy pope, and one whom you have deified too, and do invoke wiih incense, prayers, and holy wrestlings ; I mean pope St. Gregory, — Padre Levins very gravely tells us that he loves antiquities and all old things — were it even like " Holy Mother," a very old sinner ! Well, you must know that a bishop of the Greek church first claimed supremacy, and the honor of universal bishop; until one of the fathers of Rome, some of them pretty honest men at that time, rebuked his iniquity, and shamed him out of it. Now hear the infallible pope and saint Gregory — who wrote this in the close of the sixth century, namely, 590. Having shown that Peter, and Paul, and John were all members under one head, he says: — " No one desired to call himself universalis, or universal bishop." See Regist. Epist. Lib. 5. p. 743, Tom. ii.

Again, for this is too good to be quitted so soon ; "I do confidently say that whoso- ever called himself universal Bishop ; or is desirous to be called so, in his pride, is the FORERUNNER OF ANTI-CHRIST; bccausc, in his pride, he prefers himself to the rest. And he is conducted to error, by a similar pride ; for as the wicked One wishes to appear a god above all men ; so whosoever he is, who desires to be called the only Bishop (solus sacerdos,) extols himself above all other Bishops." Tom. ii. Regist. Epist. In. 15. Epist. 33. edit, of Paris, 1705.

Once more, for this is delectable, coming as it does from your great saint: — In his eulogy to the bishop of Alexandria, he solemnly affirms that " the primacy of Peter descended to three Sees: namely, Antioch, Alexandria, and JRo??je." Tom. ii. 887. Paris edit.

Once more; for I am determined that Pope St. Gregory, if possible, shall save you from the mortal sin of holding the Roman pope's supremacy. Hear your holy saint : " If any one in that church assumes that name,''"' he was speaking of universal Bisho}i, '•'' which in the opinion of all good men he (his rival in the East,) has done; then the whole church ; {may it never happen) falls from its state, when he who is called univer- sal, falls. But let that name of blasphemy be absent from the hearts of Christians; which, when it is really assumed by one, the honor of all priests is taken away." — Regist. Epist. ; Lib. 5 ; Indie. 13 ; Epist. 20. also Lib. 7. p. 881. Paris edit. 1705.

Thus I have proved by arguments and testimony from your own clmrch, that tJie supremacy, and infamous usurpation of your pope, is a novelty in tlic chiistiaii world. It was not fully gained by the " Man of Sin" until the consuiiiniaiiou of truth's over- throw, in tlio darkest hour of the darkest ages.

Second. The invocation of saints, is a novelty introduced by the "Man of Sin" also. This originated in those bold and figurative cxi)rc8sion8, and fomis ot]

36 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

apostrophising of the departed martyrs, common among declamatory preacheis- Invocation of saints began to show itself sometime after the beginning of the third century. It was violently opjjosed by the truly faithful, until the seventh century ; and finally, it was established, in spite of all opposition, only in the ninth century, when the church was driven into the wilderness.

We have the testimony of St. Augustine against you on this point. "He is the High Priest who has entered within the veil; and who alo>e oi^ those icho have ap- peared in the Jl^sh, does intercede for us.'' On Psalms 64, vol, iv. p. G33. edit. Paris, 1635.

Theodoret, who wrote in A. D. 451, says, — "Send up thanks-giving to God the Father, through Christ ; and not through angels. The council of Laodicea also fol- lowing this rule, and desiring to heal that old disease, made a law that people should not prav to angels ; nor forsake our Lord Jesus Christ." On Colos. 3 chap. Paris edit. Lat. 1608.

St. Chrysostora declared [in the beginning of the fifth centun>-,] that "there was no need for minor intercessors with God." " With God it is not thus; for there is no need of intercessors for the peritioners ; neither is he so ready to give a gracious an- swer, when entreated by others ; as by ourselves praying to him." On Math, cited by Theod. Eclog. &c.

More full is this saint on that passage of " sending away the woman of Canaan." Mark the philosopy of the woman ; she entreats not James, nor John, nor comes she to Peter ; she breaks through the whole company of them ; and saying I have no need of a mediator ; but taking repentance as a spokes- woman, I come to the fountain itself. I have no need of a mediator; have thou mercy on me." See his Disc, on this part of Mat. ch. 15, Paris edit. 1621.

Gregor^^ Nyssen denounces creature invocation : " The word of God has ordained that none of those things which have their being b}- creation, shall be worshipped :" (T£.Jao-;j(Oj', that is venerated by prayers, or invoked in religious worship. " Moses, the tables, the law, the prophets, the gospel, the decrees of all the apostles forbid equally our looking to the creature." Orat. 4, in Eunom. Tom. ii. p. 144, Paris edit, of 'cioiccxv.

I shall onl}- add Epiphanius, of A. D. 336. He is a strong v\-itness against the atheism of saint worship or invocation. " Neither is EUas to be worsliipped, although he were ahve, nor is John to be worshipped Trpoc-Kitj-rjryf, i. e. bowed down before, and prayed to. Nor is Theela, or any of the saints to be worshipped, bowed down be- Ibre, or prayed to. For that ancient error shall not prevail over us, of forsaking the LIVING GoD, aud worshipping creatures. For they served and wors^npped the crea- ture more than the Creator, and became fools. For if an angel will not be worship- ped, how much more will not she, (the Virgin Mary) who was born of Anna?" See his book against tlie heretics. No. 79. p. 448.

-Now, will you permit me to refresh your consciences, gentlemen, ^Wth a contrast of Romanism ^^'ith tliis primitive Christianity of the fathers. In the face of the Bible, in which the Holy Ghost commands us not to pray to, or worship creatures : in the face of the testimony of Councils, by the sainted fathers, you thus pray ; — " O Holy Ma.ry I— obtain for us by intercession, light to know the great benefit which Christ has bestowed on us." " O Holy Virgin, obtain for us by thy intercession, that our hearts may be so visited by thy holy Son, &;c." " O most pure Mother of God !" — What revolting blasphemy ! God's Mother ! I Mother of God ! ! Paganism never breathed

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such Atheism, god has no mother! The infiiiite and invisible being, god, has NO mother! What a most brutish mind conceived this idea ! What a brutaUzing prayer this is, to teach men! Christ our mediator, as man had a mother; but as God^ he had no mother. — But 1 go on. — " O Mother of God, we beseech thee, obtain for us, by thy intercession, grace to lead pure and holy lives, &c." Again : — " O most bles- sed Virgin, graciously vouchsafe to help us to accomplish the work of our salvation, by thy powerful intercession ! — Amen." See Dr. John Power's Catholic Manual; Rosary of the B. Virgin : N. York edit.

The following 1 copy fro.m "the Roman Catholic prayer book, or devout christian's Vade Mecum.^^ It will be seen how Dr. Power, and the Philadelphia book differ in translating the same passage. Will the Bishops not take care, and look after such pope-daring innovations ! — " O most blessed Virgin, graciously vouchsafe to negotiate for, and with us, the work of our salvation, for, and with us, the work of our salvation, by thy powerful intercession ! Amen."

Again: — "Confiding in thy goodness and mercy, I cast m3?self at thy sacred feet, and do most humbly supplicate thee, O Mother of the eternal Word, to adopt me as thy child; and take upon thee, the care of my salvation." " O God, grant, w^e be- seech thee, by the Virgin Mary, his mother, that we may receive the joys of eternal life, by the same Christ our Lord."

I copy the following from the Litany of our Lady of Loretto. — The Litany means a solemn supplicatory prayer. "Holy Mother of God, pray for us! — Mother of our Creator, pray for us ! — Mother of our Redeemer, pray for us ! — Mirror of Justice ! pray for us ! — Seat of wisdom, pray for us! Ark of the covenant, pray for us ! — Gate of heaven, pray for us ! Refuge of sinners, pray for us ! &c. &c."

But this is not the worst : one thing I am prepared to show, that the various Roman works which appear in English, are designed to impose on Protestants, and to conceal the real doctrines of Rome. Only look into their Latin books, — there you behold their frightful idolatry, in its rank growth, and perfection. Here is a specimen : "Holy Mother, — Ora patrem, jube filio, — pray to the father for us, and command thy son, &c." Again: — O felix puerpera, nostra plans scelera, jure matris impera Redemp- tori ! O happy Mother, atoning for our crimes, lay thy commands on the Redeemer, in right of thy being his Mother." And to consummate what all heathenism never conceived, in their comparative piety, a Roman saint, namely, Bonaventura, whom the pious and faithful do worship on July 14, annually, — has gone over the Psalms of David ; has stricken out Lord, (jod, &c. and has inserted Holy Mother, our Lady, &c. Thus: "In thee, O Lady, do I put my trust, &c." — "Let our Lady arise : let her enemies be scattered, &c." " O come let us sing unto our Lady : and make a joyful noise unto the queen of our salvation ! !" Psalm 110. " The Lord said unto my Lady, sit thou on my right hand," &c. &c. ! ! ! See Bonav. psall, ofthe B. Virgin; his works, Tom. vii. Rom. edit, of 1588. And Hist. Sec. Cluu. August, de Comem. B. M. Virg. And Morn. Ex. p. 523.

And, lest these may be deemed too antiquated, I shall show that, in all that is idola- trous and wicked, the Romish church is immutable. The present Pope, Gregory XVI., in the Circular sent forth on entering his office, solemnly rendered adorations to the Holy Virgin ; and calls upon all the clergy to implore, — "that she who has been in every calamity, our Patron and Protectress nuiy watch ov(>r us, — and lead our minds, by h(!r heavenly influence, to those counsels which may ])Vovr most salutary to Christ's flock." " That all may luive a luipi)y and successful issue, let us raise

10

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our eyes to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary; tvho alone destroys heresies! Who is o^sf greatest hope ! Yea the entire ground of our hope .'" See Laity's Directory, 1833.

Third: — The use of Images in the churches is a novelty. Here I must be brief. The best of the fathers condemned the use of images : one Council in A. D* 300 con- demned the use of pictures in churches. In 700 the Council of Constantinople so- lemnly condemned them : and ordered their expulsion from the churches. In 754 the seventh Greek general council solemnly condemned image use and worship. About the nintli century this idolatry seems to have been established.

Fourth : — The doctrine of purgatory is a mere novelty. — I shall in due time, produce the best of the fathers against it with St. Augustine at their head. It is most manifestly borrowed from the pagan fire purification of souls. And it has been a ter- rific screw in sacerdotal hands to extract from trembling mortals a hundred fold more money, than all the African slave trade ever has accumulated ! These two evils, namely, slavery, and the priests' fiction of purgatory, have been permitted by the wrath of heaven to be let in upon a guilty world ! The one dealt in human bones and sinews and blood ! The other, as St. John saw in vision, traded in human souls ! ! The lust of gold is the object of both ! This golden doctrine of popery •is only some four hundred and four years old ! It was ultimately established in Rome by the council of Florence, A. D. 1420.

Fifth: — Priest's celibacy, that " old bachelor's joke" which vexes our holy fathers so much, is a novelty in the christian world. This usurpation of a freeman's rights, is unrecorded and unknown in all histories of common despotism ! No human tyrant ever was so atrocious as to enact it in any civil government. It is purely diabolical : none but the prince of darkness was capable to inspire the conception thereof into the mind of a papal despot. And none but the most slavish, trodden down, and heartless of all our species, — men, I may not call them, — can pretend submission to it !

Every priest and school boy knows that it is not only uncommanded in the holy scriptures, but set down as a predicted and prominent characteristic of Anti-christ. The "great apostacy" from Christianity was to be distinctly known by all men, as one "forbidding to marry !" 1 Tim. iv. 3.

And every one who has looked into history, knows that pope Gregory VII., a tyrant, who, in point of atheism and vice, threw the entire line of the pagan emperors, his predecessors on the Roman throne, completely into the shade, as saints, in comparison with him, — was the man who conceived this instigation of Satan, and took away the unalienable rights of man; — the right of marriage, from the priests. This he did in the year 1074. Hence the celibacy of the priests is only some 763 years old. Before that, every priest, like other honest men, had his own wife. Since that, they have been " holy fathers''^ without wives !

Sixth and seventh ; Transubstantiation and the Mass. This striking peculiarity of popery is a mere novelty also, in the religious world not onl^s but even in the rational world. A doctrine which represents the priest's creating his Creator ; and making a wafer to be really the human flesh of Christ ; and which, therefore, by their own con- fession, makes men cannihals! I am perfectly grave, gentlemen. I ask you, what is the wafer, when you put it, with awful solemnity, on the projected tongue of your kneeling votary? You reply, it is the flesh and blood, really and truly, of Christ's human nature." Then does not every one see that they eat and swallow down human jiesh! If that make them not cannibals, then words have lost their meaning; and men have lost their reason, tlieir judgment, and their senses !

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Against this monstrous and disgusting novelty of the mass, we can produce the testi- mony of seventeen of your earliest and best fathers, namely, from Irenaeus to ^t. Augustine. This papal invention was originated about the middle of the fifth century ; it ripened by degrees under sacerdotal ignorance and knavery, until the ninth century : and, finally, along with auricular confession, was established into a dogma and '^ sacrament of the Romish church, by the decree of pope Innocent III. in the fourth council of the Lateran, in the year 1215. Mosh. iii. ch. 3, part 2. Your own Scotus and Alphonsus give the same date of its age. Alph. De Castro, Adv. Hares. And although Bellarmine reproves these faithful statements, he, nevertheless, admits that the mass is no older than the year 1073 ; and he gives as the father of this innovation, pope Gregory VII., and his council at Rome. See Bell. De Euchar. lib. iii. cap. 23. So recent is this innovation of the mass by the confession of your stan- dard writers !

Eighth : The taking away of the wine, or holy cup, in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is a novelty. Pope Gelasius, in the year 492, pronounced this abstraction of the cup " an impious sacrilege." See Corp. Juris Can. Pars 2, Dist. 3.

Ninth: The adoration of relics was introduced about the same time, w^ith the invo* cation of saints ; and it arose from the perversion of mementos, or keepsakes left by martyrs, and those who were dear to the church. To adore relics, or venerate them religiously, is to adore dust and ashes! So says St. Augustine: " Timeo adorara terram, &c. I fear to adore earth lest God condemn me." The Council of Carth., 5, Can. 15, says : — " Placuit, &c. It has pleased us to request the most renowned em- peror, that relics may be taken away, not only such as are kept in shrines, and images, but in what place soever, woods, or trees." Willet Synop. Papismi, p. -391. So late as the year 730, the council summoned by the emperor Leo III., did, with only one dissenting voice, decree that "the worship of images and relics was mere idolatry!" This decree was fully enforced by Leo ; and the churches were purified of them. See Morn. Exer. p. 217; also Pezel, and Lampad. Mellif. Hist, part iii, p. 37, 41.

Tenth and last : — The keeping of the Bible in a dead language, and refusing the free and unlimited perusal of God^s holy word, is a novelty in the church. This usurpation, so characteristic of ghostly tyranny, is condemned by the uniform tenor of the scriptures. And I can produce at least twelve of the most eminent Greek and Latin fathers, who maintain the holy scriptures to be the only, and all sufficient rule of faith and morals : and who taught, what was, indeed, the universal sentiment of the whole primitive church, that it was the duty of all men to read and study them. I shall select a few. ^

St. Augustine was not in favor of keeping the Bible, and using prayers in an un- known tongue. He says — "They ought to be aware that no voice reaches God's ears that is unaccompanied with a feeling of the mind." — " These things ought doubtless to be corrected," — that is, the purest style and proper dialect of each people should be used in worship, — "that the people may say amen, to ivhat is clearly understood.''* Vol. I. p. 27, Bened. Edit. Paris 1685. Again, — " fVe ought to understand that wo may sing with human reason, not as it were with the voice of birds ! Thrushes and par- rots, crows and magpies are taught by men to pronounce what they do not know'' — just as your victims do your Latin prayers. — "But to sing with understanding is granted by the divine will to men." Vol. IV. p. 82.

Hear, next, the ro[)roof of St. Jerome. "The ])ooplc who were asleep under their »iafiier«, will arise and hasten to the mountains of the scri])turt's." "And whoa

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they shall be well skilled in reading them, if they shall not find any to teach thetn, their study shall be approved, because they have fled to the mountains ; and have reproved the indolence of their masters."' Tom. V. p. 415. Paris Edit. 1602.

St. Chrysostom says, — ''Ignorance of the Scriptures is the cause of all evils.'' Homil. 9, in ch. 3. Coloss. And addressing the poor, and laboring men he savs, — " Hear, I exhort you, all men engaged in the bustles of life, and obtain for yourselves books, the medicine of the soul. If you will have notliing else, get the New Testa- ment, the acts of the apostles, the gospels, as tour constant teachers." Horn. 9. in Col. 3. And in his 3d Serm. on Laz. he goes over all the objections of tradesmen and laborers, and then adds, — "What sayest thou, O man, is it not thy business to study the scriptures, because thou art distracted with a thousand cares ? Truly, indeed, it is thine, much more than it is theirs."

I shall quote one beautiful sentence more from this father: — " Whether you go to the Indies, or to the ocean, or to the British isles, or to the Black sea, or to the western regions, you tvill hear all persojis, every where, philosophizing from the scriptures : there is a difference of speech, but not of faith: they have a diiferent tongue, but one mind i" Serm. 53. On the usefulness of reading the Bible.

Finally; St. Basil says: — "It is right and necessary that evert one should learn that which is useful from the holy scriptures ; both for the purpose of furnishing the mind with greater piety; and also that they may «o^ he accustomed to human tradi- tions r Tom. II. 449. Paris Edit. 1722.

Hence it is most manifest that Popery, in its leading characteristics, is a mere novelty in the christian world !

The vulgar and illiterate question every one has heard reiterated, — "Where was your religion before Luther." This question maybe answered thus : — 1st. By a coun- rer question, — "Where was your face, this morning, before it was washed." 2d. "It is found, as a system, where your religion never can be found ; namely, in the holy Bible." 3d. "It has been found in profession, in thai unbroken line of faithful and holy men, descended from the Italick church ; and perpetuated in the line of the Wal- denses, Albigenses, Lollards, and Culdees ; together with the faithful in the Greek, the African, and the old Syriac churches.

I shall conclude with the words of the accurate writer Voetius, with which every man, well versed in the history of the first six centuries, will readily accord : — namely ; *' In the first six hundred years of our era, there was no church, no one doctor, no one ■martyr, no confession, no one family, no one member of the church : neither in the West, nor in any other part of the world, that was properly, and formally a Papist.'^

I am, gentlemen, yours trul}', &c.

W. C. B.

EXTRACTS FROM THE PRIESTS' LETTER VIII.

It opens with a discussion on false friendship, — Dr. B. has deserted and ruined the cause of his rule of faith. He aspired "to be the mighty erudite in the Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost :" had it not been for his rash " ambitioning theological renown," and his ventur- ing "to challenge the priests," his rule of faith might have rested in obscurity, and enjoyed the respect which obscurity secures." But, sad to tell : disregarding the limits which nature fixed to his faculties, he fell, — ^likc Satan, " a brighter star ia a purer firmament." The

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*" polemical athlete of Calvinism fell; and will the members of the M. D. Church

fill up the hiatus by way of epitaph!"

" We are aware, Rev. Gentleman, of the sorrows and afflctions of soul which now haunt you, — of your regrets for disregard of the monitions of your interior spirit, when you provo- ked your antagonists to engage in controversial conflict. We pity — for we have pity for you — the reputation you have lost by the contest."

" But if you rest on a bed of tortures, you made it for yourself."

" Could any thing else befall one who " had an inveterate selfishness for the bubble of dis- tinction ; a deranged or vitiated appetite for polemics; and the bravo of a few bigots and fanatics." They next hold up Dr. B. as duly punished by his fall, and perfect failure, for his daring to give " the challenge" to such men as the priests !

" Finding your letter VIII to contain no matter relevant to your rule of faith," — " but being a mere register, crude and false, of things, not bearing on the point in issue, it is consigned to the disregard it merits."

Then follows an eternal repetition of all that they had advanced again and again, in oppo- sition to the scripture rule of faith.

" It suits your purpose, because you cannot prove, on the principles of your protestant rule of faith, the Bible to be the word of God, to wander into irrelevant matter, and divert the attention of the members of the Middle Dutch Church from the real point under discus- Eion."

"We recur to your past letters to again exhibit your illogical references, proofless asser- tions, and recklessness of truth, to again ' insert the hook in your nose.' "

" Dr, B. writes, ' to charge the holy scriptures with obscurity, or deficiency, would be to bring a charge against the Holy Ghost.' Would not this contradiction be derided were it affirmed by a child; and yet, its author is preacher Brownlee, the ' writer and gentlemen' of the Middle Dutch Church, the erudite in the ' Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost,' the Sampson Agonistes of the ^virtuous ladies' who sanctioned the obscene fiction, Lorett3."

" How is 4e to compare parallel passages ?" He cannot prove the Bible to be the word of God ! You have not proved it."

" Over the good and discriminating sense of the enlightened portion of your flock your false charges have not prevailed ; they rest on the same level with your proofs of the Bible being the word of God."

" You call us 'deists and infidels !' We pity the degradation and malignancy of the will from which these terms emanate."

" Dr. B. writes, — 'you have renewed your crusade against the Holy Bible.' This ridicu- ious, but malicions charge wc repel. Our crusade is not directed against the Bible, it is di- rected against j/owr Protestant rule offaith,^ — That ii to say, the bible ! ' Our sincere respect is evinced for the Bible, since, by our creed, we will not submit it to the indiscriminate judg- ment of every ignorant and fanatical mind.' "

" To gull the ignorant among your flock, you aflect to designate us Deists, because we use your expression ' the Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghoj^t!' "

" We have proved that the scriptures cannot establish their own authenticity, integrity, and inspiration: and our conclusion is, that, since you admit these characters as articles of faith, and admit them without any scriptural authority, the scriptures are not your onhj ni\e of faith. Ag lin we say, since all christians are obligod to believe the canonicity and inspi- ration of the holy scriptures, and since the canonicity and inspiration of the scrijiturcs cannot be proved by the scriptures, the divine author of the cluistian religion never gave (ho holy scriptures as man's only rule of faith. We fartluM- assert, that as your only rule of faith, is the writtf'n Word of God, contained irfthe Old Testament and the New ; and, as the books of the Oi.l) TKSTAMF.NT or of the NEW cannot prove their own authenticity and inspi- ration,— you cannot, consistently, believe they are authentic and inspired."

"What! the creed of the christian, according to Preacher Brownlee, is to be derived from the scriptures alone, and those scriptures not able to prove their own inspiration,

10*

102 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

which is an article of faith every christian must hokl, in order to believe the religion divine, which he derives from the scriptures. 'If this be not absurdity or fatuity in its last stage, we know not the import of ideas.' "

'' The priests care but little for your approbation, or censure of the Latin Vulgate. Your vituperation is of no consequence when such profound scholars as Grotius, Walton, and Mills pronounce judgment ; and you know they have spoken of the Vulgate in terms of ex- alted praise."

Next thei-e follows a denunciation against translations of the Bible; — all is uncertain; all corrupt; we cannot have any confidence in one of tliem ; the translators were not infallible: vou cannot know this from the rule ! " Does the Bible tell you that the translators took no liberties with the Hebrew and Greek copies !" Hence all is utterly uncertain ; all doubtful : you have no rule ; no word of God ! " Hence no rational, no divine faith can he found with Protestantj-J'^

In this manner they run on through half a neAVspaper column, in impiety and deism not surpassed by Hume or Paine ! But their master piece of deception follows. Without inti- mating that at the Hampton Conference, the various defects of former translations of the English Bible, were pressed, in order to move the King to select the ablest men to make a new translation (which is the one now in use.) The priests collect all the objections made at this Conference, and hurl them forth, with dexterous Jesuitism, as the sentiments of the most learned Protestants, against all English translations without exceptions, as well those then in existence, as the one made afterwards ! !

"The Reformers," say they, after having declaimed against the horrifying heresies, and translations of Luther, Zuingle, Calvin, Beza, and the English translators, — "the Reformers have remorselessly polluted the pure fountain of eternal truth ; and have caused the people '■> drink of tliia poisoned source !" "Who then, can repose confidence in their translations?"

All this, be it remembered, comes from our "learned priests," who have not yet learned \hG primary elements of HebrcAv and Greek! Admirable critics! They enter the lists with he profoundest scholars who ever lived, — I mean the translators of the English, the Dutch, -nd the Gernian Bible !

*' To your high toned demand, 'tell us if there be one English version of the Bible autho- rised b}'^ either the pope or the church,' we return the very brief answer — Transeat. If" you know the meaning of this term, you know what use to make of it."

"We have advanced the most positive and convincing arguments to prove to you, that the Saviour of the world did not establish the holy scriptures as our only rule of faith, and these arguments you have not touched."

I quote the following as a specimen of deliberate misrepresentation. The reader knows that we always have said that the Holy Ghost speaking in the rule, is judge of controversy.

"You have undertaken to prove, that the holy scriptures alo^^e are the only rule of faith, and ONLY JUDGE OF CONTROVERSY established by Christ."

" Not a word have you said to prove that the scriptures have been given to us as OUR ONLY JUDGE OF CONTROVERSY."

"Now, Rev. Sir, we have many arguments to prove that the Scriptures were not es- tablished by Christ as the judge of all controversies in religion between christians. Our first argument is taken from the nature of the judicial office. The Judge between two in- dividuals at variance, is bound to express himself in such a manner as that both parties shall see what his sentence is. One party must see that it is for him, the other must see that it is against him. But the scriptures do not decide in this way. Therefore, the scriptures ai-e not the judge of controversies."

Here 1st. the priests take advantage of their own misrepresentation. We say the Holy Ghost is the judge. 2d. They renew the old error that the infallible rule makes those who use it, infallible.

To neutralize the above, let my reader put the words "Holy Ghost,'^ in the above sentence, (S the judge ; and he will at once perceive the blasphemy of the papal doctrine here expressed.

jlOMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 103

The error and sophism lie here : — although the Holy One does speak, himself, infallibly, — yet because each of these parties do not infallibly see and feel that he speaks/or the one, and against the other : therefore, the Holy Ghost and his rule cannot be the judge, and the only rule! But we go on : "Now we say that one of two things must be admitted, either the scriptures have not hitherto pronounced sentence, clearly, evidently, and sufficiently, or, if they have, that either the Lutherans or the Calvinists are very stubborn or obstinate for not having obeyed the sentence of the Holy Ghost. Dr. Brownlee may take his choice."

To neutralize this sophistry of deism, we need only apply the above argument to any con- ceivable rule, or revelation from God. Either man must be infallible, amid all his sins and miseries, before God ; and he must infallibly take up the rule in its true sense, and the Judge's decision; or, there is wo truth in it ; and no benefit derivable from it! Let the Ro- man Catholic only apply the above mode of argument to his own rule: and he must per- ceive that if it does not end all the divisions, and errors of Jesuits, and Jansenists ; Domini- cans and Franciscans; — nay, if it does not prevent, and heal all the errors and heresies of those uho have seceded from " Holy Mother,''^ — then is there no truth, no infallibility in it I And, hence^ this argument of the priests annihilates their own system !

It is amusing to see how Dr. B.'s denial of" God's Mother^' affects the priests. It is Nesto- rianism ' It is atrocious ! It is blasphemy ! What ! deny that a woman can be the mother of the eternal God ! Heaven daring man ! And they facetiously affect to fall into a fit of the hysterics ! But hear them.

" When we ourselves see Preacher Brownlee renewing the blasphemies of Nestorius, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, we shudder, and turn with affectionate reverence, to that Holy Mother, who has never sported with divine truth, and who stands like an Appe- nine, firm, and sublime in the light of Heaven."

But they shake off the fit, and with it, all their consistency, — and actually themselves fall into Dr. B.'s Nestorianism ! Hear them. "Yet when we call her " Mother of God." we do not say that she is the Mother of the Divinity, but of the WORD MADE FLESH; GOD AND MAN IN THE SAME PERSON. This is what Preacher Brownlee calls, "revolt- ing blasphemy !"

This is incorrect. We called that "revolting blasphemy" which the priests are pleased here, to assert, and to deny, with the same breath ? Every one must perceive that to call *ke Virgin Mary " the Mother of God," does make her the Mother of the Divinity. For there.J3 one God only, and that one God is the one Divinity. Either there is more than one God, or the priests' doctrine makes a Avoman "the mother of the Divinity." There is no way of eluding tliis.

It would be amusing and instructive to hear a Roman catholic priest explain, in an assem- bly of literary men, the text, in the Hebrews, relative to Mclchisedec, who was the type of our Lord, "/fe," that is our Lord, — "was without father, without mother." H,e was "witlwut father," that is, as to his human nature. He was " without mother;" and yet he had a mo- ther. As the son of man, he had a mother. In another sense, he had no mother. This is the point to be settled by the priests. It needs only the aid of common sense to say that only one possible conclusion remains, — he had " no mother" as God. — I ask only tiiis one item in the Romisli church's invocation, to convict lier of atheism, and anti-christianism ! She will never give it up ; for by the wise arrangeinent of divine providence, she will never cease to give, daily, infallible evidence that she is the anti-christ, and Babvi.on the Great ! If the Romish priests were to lay aside >this novel and invented title " MornER of God," — we should be deprived of one main evidence that she is the " wiioue ok Bauvlo.n,'* foretold by St. John !

104 IROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSt.

LETTER IX.

TO DOCTORS POWER, VARELA, AND MR. LEVINS. " There is nothing but roguery in villainous man." — Shakspeart.

Gentlemen : — Your last letter clearly reveals what the religious public had long Buspected, and what you have been all along, anxious to conceal ; namely, the deep conviction on the part of the Roman priests, that the pecuhar dogmas, and ceremonies of their church cannot sustain the bold inspection of the American community. And hence every thing is to be hazarded, everything, even truth itself sacrificed, to prevent your antagonist from going forward into " the chambers of her imagery" ! I did conjec- ture, gentlemen, that you would not dare to follow me in the investigation of your christiano-pagan system of popery. But, now, in your last letter, you have settled the question. You will not follow me; you will not leave the rule; it is more easy to retail the scandal of infidels and priests, against God's holy word, than to enter into the arena, and defend your edition of baptized Roman paganism ! You have not the moral courage to stand by, and assist at the stripping of the apocalyptic " Mother of harlots.^'' You dare not stand forward and defend her nameless abominations, before the enlightened American public ! For me, — I shall go forward : five hundred thou- eand American christians have condescended to cheer me on. And "so may God do to me and more also," if, by the grace of God, I do not tear that veil off' from her haggard face ; and show her abominations to the whole house of God, in this land !

Jn your last letter, you have played off with increasing malignity, and more fellness of purpose, than usual, your infidel opposition to the holy word of God. You repeat, for the eighth time, your malignant opposition to the word of the Most High, which is the Protestants onZ?/ rule of faith. You repeat that the Bible is not the rule, and tho Spirit of God is not the Judge, because the Bible, and the Spirit cannot prove them- selves ! And this you assert in the face of the full and manifest evidence to the con- trary, which w^e set before you; from external evidence, which establishes the authen- ticity and genuineness of the Bible ; and from internal evidence. Those who disbe- lieve this holy word of God are worse than devils. For saith St. James, " the devils also believe and tremhle.^' Ch. ii. 19. It is no enviable distinction, gentlemen, to be posted as worse than the worst of ftllen angels I

There is nothing new in your renev-ed crusade against the holy Bible, which requires me to pause in order to refute it. Your last idea of infidel vituperation has long ago been exhausted. The novelty is only in the manner: the virulence and vituperation are only put forth with new force. As if resolved that nothing on your part should be wanting to consummate the evidence set before the public, in proof of your unblush- ing" Deism, you are filling it up, even to overflowing ! And you seem now even to glory in wearing the name branded on your forehead, as the representatives of popery, — " this is the father and Prince of deism .'" It is true you profess sincerely to believe in the scriptures, even while you assail them fiercely. I do not doubt it : this is in- tended for effect. No one is so ignorant as not to know that even Hume always spoke respectfully of — to use his own words; — " Our holy Religion,'^ even while uttering his bitter hostility to it? And even Lord Herbert, the father of "the English deists," and also Lord Bolingbroke, always professed as sincerely as you, to reverence the scrip- tures ! Herbert even received a revelation from heaven to publish his book against

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 105

divine revelation ! Remarkable enemies of God's cause have been remarkably in- consistent. The reason is obvious, public opinion has always staggered them !

If you choose, gentlemen, to continue your iniidel vituperations against the holy scriptures, 1 shall beg leave through you, to inform the public, that they can find, with- outyour vulgarity, every thing you have been retailing, already printed in old Mum- ford, and Milner. And in reply, they can find a full refutation of all your deistical ob- jections in Hornets Introduction. He has collected the refutations of every objection that deism has yet conceived. And the intellects of our priests, who never leave the beaten path of old Murnfurd, and Milner, have not been adequate to the task of devis- ing any one thing new against the holy Bible I

Your defence of the uncouth blasphemy of calling Mary " the Mother of God," is unique, though in perfect keeping with the whole system of your sect. " The Mo- ther of the eternal God /" A creature made of dust and ashes the mother of the Al- mighty Creator ! A finite creature the mother of the infinite Creator! Then it was not the human nature of our Lord that was born ! It was the eternal and divine Es- sence of the Deity that was born ! Hence, previous to the birth of God, or 1800 years ago there was no God! ! If there was a God then, of course he was not born, then Mary is not the mother of God !

Besides, do j^ou not see that you confound the tioo natures in the one "person of Christ ? If God was born of Mary, then is the Deity a human nature ; and the hu- man nature of Christ is nothing else than the essence of the Deity ! You know what monstrous heresy this was !

I put it to the candor of any reasonable man, whether a match can be found equal to this revolting blasphemy, amid all the wildest vagaries of the human race, in their worst and most impious forms of pagan extravagance ! No, not one can be found : by one only is it matched : and we must go into popery to find it : that match is tran- substantiation ; in which a priest creates his Creator out of bread ; and then eats him up ! If such be Christianity, then I say, "May my soul be with the philosophers !" But no! It bears the deep branded stamp of its legitimate origin. Such doctrines, I speak it gravely, — could be invented only by the devil, as Richard Baxter said.

In my last Letter, I showed that Catholicity is younger than Christianity ; and that popery is a novelty in the christian world. We have, by historical documents, and quotations from the fathers, fixed the birthday of the existence of ten of the Roman catholic peculiarities. And we call on the priests, in the face of the American com- munity, to point out a single error in these dates ; and refute the quotations of the fa- thers, which we have given. Let them follow us, if they have courage to defend their sinking cause ; and no longer make themselves ridiculous in lingering on the rule.

It will be proper, in sustaining the unity of discussion, now to proceed to point out some of the fatal results of the Roman Catholics' apostacy from the only rule of faiih; and the only judge of controversy. And the point which I have selected for discus- sion in this Letter, is this : — The peculiar doctrines, rites, and monkish institutions of Romanism, were originated in sheer fanaticism, and sustained by imposture. My selections of specimens and evidence, shall be rather miscellaneous in this Letter.

Ist. Notwithstanding the command of the Deity to take good herd and make no manner of simiUtude, 'Mbr ye saw," says the Ahniglit}', — "no similitude in the day that die Lord spake unto you in lloreb," — the Roman church declares in her cate- rbism, p. 3«J0, that " to represent the persons of the H<jly Trinity, by certain forms.

106 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY*

under which, as we read in the old and new Testaments, they deigned to appear, i^ not to l)e deemed contrary to reh»"ion, or the law of God. Hence in the engravings found in certain editions of the Breviary ; and in pictures on the stained glass of Ca- thedrals, and in a painting seen by any one who has visited the Roman catholic bishop of this city, God the Father is actually figured forth as a venerable, old, white headed man ! In other pictures where the group is complete, there is a "pretty, youth- ful man ; this they call Christ; and he is placed on the old man's right. Above is seen a figure of a dove : this animal they call the Holy Ghost. Hard by, in gorgeous hu- man robes, stands "the Mother of God."' This marvellous group of an old man, and a young man, and a dove, and a icoman, constitute the popish conception of the family of their god !

2d. In the distribution of work and offices assigned to the vast host of saints, much fanaticism is displayed. They have at least two St. Anthonies. He of Padua delivers his votaries from water : — He v/ho is sirnamed the abbot, delivers from fire ! St. Nicholas is invoked by young persons who wished to be married. St. Ramon pro- tects women who are "in that condition in which all good ladies wish to be, who love their lords." And the saint Lazaro assists them in labor. St. Domingo cures fevers ; St. ApoUonia takes care of the teeth ; and she must be invoked with praj^er and in- cense, by those who have tooth ache. Then St. Lucia heals all diseasesof the eyes; St. Petronilla cures the ague : St. Liberius the stone : and St. Blass all the dis- eases of the throat. St. Barbara is invoked as the refuge in war, and in thunder storms : and St. Roqne shields the humble faithful against the plague. Each king- dom of Europe has its own saint : other saints are more menial : One saint ]:)reside3 over hogs: another over geese. See Cramp, p. 332 ; and Townsend's Trav. in Spain, vol. iii. p. 21.5.

3d. In the canonizing of saints, and adding to the objects of divine worship, and ve- neration, we perceive a fruitful exhibition of fanaticism. This, like the usual pecu- liarities of catholic Rome, is boiTowed from pagan Rome. The pagan priests to sus- tain their credit, now and then proclaimed that certain great characters, great in war, vice, and sensuality, had been honored in heaven and placed among the gods ; and the pagan canonization took place accordingly. Even the modest and virtuous Viigil deified Augustus; and gravely asked him, while yet alive, in what part of heaven, he chose after death, to reign and shine ! The case of king Romulus is an apt illustra- tion of modern Roman canonization. There must be a miracle, or a vision at least. Well, Proculns appeared before the Roman Senate, and declared that Romulus had revealed himself to him in a vision, and told him that he was received up among the gods. See Plutarch, Vit. Rom. HaUcar. Lib. 2. p. 124.

In modem Rome, miracles are required in evidence ofsaintship; and there is actu- ally an office in Rome, where the congregation of Rites sit, and gravely receive the transmitted accounts of fresh miracles ; and hear witnesses ; and judge as solemnly as they can, and decide, daily. Even Dr. Lingard is a simple and faithful believer in modern incredible miracles. Even the Goliah, Dr. Milner, while he rejects certain popish miracles by the wholesale, does, nevertheless, in letter 24, give in some very dainty and precious morsels of their blessed miracles. Well, on their miracles being duly vouchsafed to their impostures, and on their being duly estabhshed and registered, a new saint, and fresh object of worship is set up before the simple faithful. Almost every pope has added some. Benedict VII. added eight in one summer. Clement %ll., four more; others, one; others, four. But, hke all the other ''golden'" rites of

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 107

Holy Mother*, it costs an immense sum to get into the ghostly calendar, and be a god. This is one way by which St. Peter's purse is replenished when it gets low.

I shall adduce a specimen of a miracle confirming the ghostly honor. The idol of Pazzi, Italy, — namely, St. Mary Magdalene, received canonization for this among many other marvellous things. When the virgin body, after death, was exposed in church, a young man of profligate morals came among others to see it, touch it, and venerate it. On his approach, the dead body gravely and in disgust, turned round its head from him, as from "a horror of that dunghill !" This was witnessed and testified to, by no less than one Jesuit priest. Another evidence ef an infallible nature, and which is sure to gain the ghostly honor, is this : the bones and dust of saints, in their graves emit a sweet and delicious odor. This is " the odor of sanctity." I find in this same bull of the Pope which canonized this idol of Pazzi, that this is affirmed of this " Virgin Magdalene.'^ It begins, " not without good reason, with that incorruption, and good odor of her body, which continues to this day, &c." At Blois in France, when the chest of relics, kept in the parish of St. Victor, was opened, the monk of St. I.omer, cried out that he felt a very svjeet odor ; and others seized with the exemplary infection, said they felt the sweet swell of roses and the jessamine, from the dead saint's bones. See vol. i. p. 8, 10, Frauds of Roman Monks and priests: Prot. i. 373 Glasg. edit.

In the absence of these saints, — "Holy Mother" has carefully collected innume- rable specimens of their relics, which are venerated and bowed down to. Indeed a Roman chapel is not duly consecrated without relics. The following are a few of the holy and venerated relics of St. Peters, Rome, namely : The cross of the good thief; St. Joseph's axe and saw : and what is a rare thing, — St. Anthony's Mill stone, on which he sailed into Muscovy. In other churches in Europe, they have a little speci- men of the manna of the wilderness; a comb of the Virgin Mary ; an arm of St. Lazarus; a finger and arm of St. Ann, the Virgin's mother: St. Patrick's staff, by which he expelled the toads from Ireland : and, what is very appropriate, a piece of the rope with which Judas hanged himself! There is also a vial of the Virgin's milk; a vial of the breath of St. Joseph, caught by an angel, as he was blowing hard when cleaving wood ' ! This rare relic was long adored in France ; piously carried to Venice : and lastly deposited with awful solemnity, in Rome. And finally, the head of St. Dennis, which he caught up and carried two miles under his arm, after it had been cut off. See Phil. Lib. June, 1818, Prot. vol. 2. p. 12, Glasg. edit.

In furnishing the relics of saints' bones, whole church yards and cemetries have been ransacked; and sold to the simple faithful, for objects of adoration, and idols- Chips of the cross are in all monasteries, and chapels. Could these fragments be collected they would prove that the cross must have been large enough to build our United States' Navy. In many churches there is a head of John the Baptist- " How thankful I am," said a dignitary of the Roman church, on seeing a Baptist head: "this is the /owri/i head of John, which I have seen in France!" And Dr. M'Culloch tells us, that some years ago, five pilgrims arrived in Rome with relics from the Holy Land: and it was joyfully discovered that each of them had a foot of the ass which carried our Lord into Jerusalem.

4th. In the grave pretensions of the Romish church to miraculous powers, there is a singular exhibition of fanaticiiiiri. You arc aware, gentlemen, that you hiy unblush- ing claims to niiraclca. "The Catholic church," says Dr. Mihier, Lett. 23, "being always the chaste spouse of Christ, — continuing to bring forth ohiidrcn of heroical

108 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

sanctity, God fails not in this, anj^ more than in past ages, to illustrate her and them by unqaestionable miracles." And he proceeds to give rare specimens. A nun fore- told the catastrophe of Lous XVI. A certain benedict Labre prophesied, and wrought miracles, and converted no less than an American clergyman called Thayer. In 1814, a man who got his back bone actually broken, was made whole by making a pilgrimage to Garswood, near Wigan, England ; and there getting the sign of the cross made on his back, by the relics of some obscure priest's hand, named Arrow- smith, who was killed in the days of Charles I.

These, however, are small affairs when laid in the balance wdth the antiques ! For miracles, like the marvellous feats of travellers, are always great and marvellous, in proportion to their distance of time and place, from actual inspection. St. Patrick, they tell us, sailed overt© Ireland, and if there be no mistake, once also to England, on a millstone ! And thus he was not a whit behind St. Anthony. We are told that St. Dennis carried his own head under his ami two miles after it was cut off. " St. Francis of Sales," saj'^sBatler in his lives of the saints, vol. i. p. 168, " raised the dead ; cured the palsy, and the blind." St. Francis of Paula, raised from the dead a young man, and restored him to his mother. Butler i. 361. St. Francis, the founder of the Francisians, was favored with visions, and revelations of an apostolic grandeur. He predicted nothing less than his own death : and did many miracles by his intercession, after his death. Butler and St. Bonaventure affirm this, but give no evidence, and tell us not how they knew his miracles after his death. Moreover, he had a vision of a seraph with six wings: this presented to his view the visible crucified body of Christ. And the effect of this was, that the said seraph " caused the soul of St. Francis to be utterly inflamed with seraphic ardor ; and his body to have, and to retain the simi- lar wounds of Christ." "His hands and feet were pierced through; and the holes seemed to retain the round black headed nails of hard flesh in his palms and in his feet. And their long points on the other side, were turned back, as if clenched with a hammer. And in his left side there was a red wound, as if made by a lance. Pope Alexander IV. had the felicity of witnessing all these : and to give currency and stability to these miraculous and ingenious scratchings, his holines preached a sermon on the occasion. And the simple faithful believe this in prefer- ence to the only rule of faith: and worship St. Francis of Assissium, as another savior.

St. Wenefride was a noble lady of Wales. Being a nun, she could not yield to the suit of Caradoc, the young prince. Being enraged at this, he pursued her, and with a cruel blow cut off her head This originated three splendid miracles, which taken together, are greater than any recorded in the holy Bible. In the 1st place St. Beuno interfered, and settled the career of the young villain. He made the earth open under his feet, and, Korah like, he was sunk down into the bowels of the earth. Then 2d. On the spot where the dead nun's head fell, a well opened, and poured its salutary streams; and that " Holy Well" works miracles, it is said, until this day. The 3d. St. Beuno took up the nun's head, kissed it; placed it on the bleeding stump ; covered it with his mantle: said mass, prayed to the Virgin Mary: And behold St. Wene- fride jumped up, perfectly well ; her head being on exactly as usual : and the evidence of the cure was perpetuated by the appearance of a fine circle, like a thread, around her neck ; — that being the place where the head and neck were nicely cemented together. Apostles and prophets ! did ye ever any thing to match this ! See Butler's Lives, &c.

II

ROKAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 109

St. David, I presume the king of Scotland, who builded so many chapels and cathedrals, once ordered St. Kired to come to a Synod on weighty business. The saint excused himself on account of being lame and crooked. St. David immediately prayed him straight. But the ol(J saint still lingering, the choleric St. David forth- with prayed him crooked and lame again, to teach him better manners.

St. Patrick in the Romish legends, receives credit and saintly homage for raising a boy from the dead after he had been nearly devoured by hogs. And on an- other occasion he fed 14,000 people, with the flesh of one cow, two wild boars, and two stags. And to crown the miracle, the simple faithful assure us that the cow was seen alive next day, grazing in the pasture field as usual.

St. Xavier had a valuable crucifix. On a certain day, he dropped it overboard, into the sea. He was quite inconsolable. But, it came to pass, that as he was walk- ing on the shore in the land whither he had gone, to his astonishment and indescribable pj^ he saw the very crucifix he had lost moving towards him on the waves. As he hastened down to the water's edge, behold, it was very reverently and devoutly laid down at his feet, by a crab, who had borne it through the deep, miraculously, to the feet of the holy saint. Dr. Milner speaking of St. Xavier's miracles in general, says, that " they were verified soon after the saint's death, by virtue of a commission from John III. King of Portugal." See Letter 24, &c. But, as a writer has justly observ- ed, it was no miracle of St. Xavier: the crab has the whole merit: and he recom- mends him to his Holiness' notice to give him due honors, at his next canonization. Palmam qui meruit, ferat. It ought to be St. Crab.

The Roman saints were particularly successful in their wrestlings, and coups du main with the devil, and his demons. On one occasion St. Philip Nerius, in 1555, saw a person near the baths of Diocletian ; and as he seemed, at one moment, young, and the next moment, old, the saint suspected it to be Satan, at some of his tricks. Whereupon he summoned him "in the name of Christ to discover himself." x\nd instantly the devil fled in great precipitation, leaving a loathsome scent in the place ; the reverse of the bones of the saints. And hence he knew, says he, that it was Satan. Seethe Acta Sanct. Tom. 6. Antwerp edit, of 1688. Maii. 2G. This is a famous Roman work, full of similar legends !

St. Francis was once sorely tempted by a devil in the form of a lovely female — an appalling object, you know, to a holy Priest! But, one evening, as he again assailed the saint, "lie spit in the devil's face." The Roman historians gravely add, — being "confounded and disgracefully defeated, the devil fled !" Acta Sanct. Supra.

St. Andrew of Salus, was once assailed by the devil, armed v/itli an axe, and aided by several demons with clubs and lances. In their assault, the gallant saint invoked St. John the Apostle. Upon this, John instantly appeared, in tlie form of an old man, and putting his back to the door, to prevent all egress, he ordered the holy ones who accompanied him, to chain down each of the devils, and with the chain taken from St. Andrew's neck, to scourge them thoroughly. This was done to so elleclual a purpose that the devils cried out "Mercy! mercy! mercy!" And the holy St. An- drew, it is added, by our Roman historians, could not restrain himself from bursting into laughter, — "risu correptus est," — at the complete belnboring givc>n to tliose unruly fiends ; and at their wild screams. See Acta Sanct. Tom. (». Maii. 28.

St. Dominick, while sitting in his dormitory, wriling by cniidle liglit, was assailed by the devil in the form of a monkey, strutting, and making grimaces betijvo him. (>ii this, the saint ordered him to come forthwith, and hold his candle, whieh. wlihoai a

11

no AOMAN CATHOLIC C05TR0VERST.

candlestick, the crafty saint put into the demon's hand. Presently the candle bein^ burned out, the devil's fingers began to be scorched ; and he wailed and howled hugely. Nothing moved by this, the saint ordered him to hold on. And the devil was compelled to hold the burning flame, until his forefinger was actually consumed, unto the joint ; " usque ad juncluram raanus, totus crematus est." And to complete the victory, this holy founder of the Dominicans, gave the devil a smart blow with his walking cane, and said, "Depart thou wicked one." The blow sounded as if he had struck a dry bladder full of wind. " Upon this the devil fled, leaving a miglity stench behind, which plainly discovered who this creature was." See Acta Amplior. St. Dom. Augusti 14. Finch p. 410. This, you know, gentlemen, is a morsel of your own sober history, here detailed.

The fanaticism of the Roman writers, is further displayed in the object for which they hold up these monstrous figments, and diabolical rencounters. Hear their own words. " Truly this man (St. Dominick) is to be extolled among the angelical 2iowers, who so powerfully confounds and reproves diabolical wickedness."

Finally, not only have men, but even statues and images wrought miracles. So late as 1796 ^^ Official Memoirs," relative to "miraculous events," were published, and signed, and authenticated by Dr. Bray, archbishop of Cashel, and Dr. Troy, archbishop of Dublin, and twelve other dignitaries of the Romish church of Ireland. In these " Memoirs" it is stated that in May, 1796, at Toricello, a torrent of tears ran down from the eyes of a wooden Virgin Mary ! And such a perspiration flowed from her, as to wet the clothes ^^ applied by the faithful.^* Blem. p. 217.

On July 9, 1796, a picture called Delle MUrattCi w^as observed to move its eyes in a. miraculous manner. The circular movement of the eyes continued for many months. The result of this was the procuring of many gifts, and large sums of money, for the Virgin ; and a marvellous excitement took place ; and nothing but prayers and vows to holy 3Iary vras heard. Immense crowds of devotees were constantly before the painting; and altars were every where erected to the Virgin; and a prodigious im- pulse given by this lying wonder, to the Romish devotion. See Off. Memoirs, p. 35, and Finch p. 280, 281.

5th. Doctrinal sentiments and rites have been defined and settled by visions and revelations, in the Roman catholic church. The original followers of St. Francis were frightful fanatics. The holy mission of this saint being established by his mi- racles, by his five holy wounds, canonization, and the miracles achieved by him after death, and by his intercession, his followers were prepared to receive him, as a second Jesus. In a book called The flowers of St. Francis, it is written, "that those only were saved by the blood of Christ, who lived before St. Francis ; but all that followed, were redeemed by the blood of St. Francis P^ See Eymericus, and Wolfii. Lect. Memor. cent. 13. See also Bishop Stillingfleet, on the idolatry and fajiaticism of the Rom. church, p. 236. And the votaries of this man, the Franciscans, in the words of Petrus Johannes, made the rule of St. Francis equal, — nay to be the very same as the gospel of Christ, and that by which Christ was directed!

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, long distracted "Holy Mother." The Franciscans held that she was born as pure as an angel ; and I find that our vicar general, Dr. Power, holds this, and teaches it in his Manual. On the contrary, the Dominicans utterly denied it. Who was to settle this? "Deo dignus vindice nodus !" The holy Bible says nothing of her immaculate purity. Besides, " Holy Mother" denies that the word of God is her only rule. Anselm produces the

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. Ill

evidence of an apparition in a-storm (a very fit season !) to some Abbot; this vision announced the Virgin's immaculate purity, and admonished all good men to keep the feast of the Conception. One Nerbertus had another vision, — no less than the Holy Virgin herself enforcing the same thing. St. Gertrude also had revelations to the same purport ; then St. Bridget brings not a few, but many revelations to the same purport ; and lastly Johanna a Cruce. These were solemnly declared b}^ the Doc- tors to be such " that no man can reject them unless they intend to be as great heretics as Erasmus-l" The Roman catholic Erasmus ! Eheu !

But unfortunately, fanaticism stops not always on the right side: that is to say — your side, gentlemen, who believe in " the immaculate Conception." For while Baronius gives us the above details, Antonius and Cajetan assure us that St. Catha- rine had a holy vision and a holy revelation; and it was told her by a spirit of hea- ven, that the Virgin was conceived in original sin like all other people ? Great names condemned St. Bridget's visions. Cajetan, for instance, calls them "old wives' fables and dreams !" — Sit fas loqui ! JBut she was approved by doctors, and cardinals: and her visions and revelations declared to be divine, by pope Boniface IX., who accord- ingly, enrolled her among the saints, and other idols worshipped in your church. But after all, "Holy Mother" gives each of them fair play, as Bishop Stillingfleet justly observes. She approves the revelations of both: pronounces the authors of the con- tradictory revelations both equally inspired by God ! And in the Roman Breviary^ on the 8th of October, you worshipt^St. Bridget; and in your prayers to her, " confess these revelations to have come immediately from God to her.''"' And in one of the lessons for that day, you devoutly " magnify the multitude of her divine revelations.'" And in the Roman Breviary, April 30, you mg^nify the saintess wdio opposed the Immac- ulate Conception, as much as its heroine. St. Catharine's " holy testacies,'''' are glori- fied in the lesson of the day; and you adore piously "the five rays coming from the five wounds of Christ, making five miraculous marks on the correspondent parts of her sacred body, namely, hands feet, and side ! Dr. Power yields his solemn faith to St. Bridget. Pray, to whom do Mr. Levins, and Dr. Varela yield the simple faith of their pious souls ?

6th. The great monkish orders of your sect have been fomided by fanatics, in their raving fanaticism. First, the Carthusians were founded by St. Bruno ; he was guided to the spot where he founded his monastery, by a vision of seven stars vouchsafed to his coadjutor St Hugo. " Many miracles after his death," says Butler, — "attested his sanctity and favor with God." Lives of the Saints ii. 459, &c. The manner of St. Bruno's conversion as narrated by no less than sixty Roman catholic writers, indi- cates that he commenced his career in fanaticism. He was standing by when the funeral service was being said over a priest ; when the dead man started up, and said, *'By the just judgment of God I am damned!" Having said this, he instanlly died again. By this was St. Bruno converted ! — Launoy Dc causa Sue. Brun. c. v.

Second. The Benedictines were founded by St. Benedict. This Roman worthy was favored with an incredible variety of visions and revelations. He predicted mar- vellous events, and wrought many miracles. The thorns and brambles on wliich he i-olkd, in order to expel his raging lusts, grew up, and had the honor of having St. Francis to engraft roses on tlicni, which always bloomed in winter. When a boy fell into the river, he foresaw it while in his cave : sent his servant, who walked on the water some distance, and pulled the boy out. When some wickcnl ikmsous brought him poisoned drink, he made the sign of the cross over it, and the vessel burst into a tliou-

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sand pieces. He was so sharp-sighted that he could see spirits. He alone saw *• the little black devil which led away a monk from prayers." I am soberly quotin? vour writer's own words, gentlemen. He saw his sisters soul enter heaven in the shape of a dove; and that of the good bishop of Capua, in a fiery circle! And, finally, "he was rapt up into heaven, and saw God face to face." See Butler. BoUandi Acta Sanct. Fit. Bened. StilHng. p. 203, &c.

Third. The Dominicans were founded by St. Dominick, whose character, as an extravagant fanatic, we have already noiiced. He had his first meeting with St. Francis at Rome : and there he made known his modest and spiritual vision, namely, •' that Christ was just coming to destroy the wicked world ; but his mother, the Vir- gin, stopped him, and informed him that she had famous senants who were to reform the world; he himself vr as one whom the Lord approved as one who would do this work," &c. See Rainald, A. D. 121d. n. 48. StiUing, p. 273. Wolfiiis, in his Lect. Memor. cent. 13. p. 509, tells us of the statues set up in St. Mark's church at Venice; one of St. Paul, with this inscription: ''By him we go to Christ :" the other, a statue of St. Dominick, with this modest Roman inscription: "By him we go easier to Christ!" His order was, in all respects, worthy of such a founder; they were, as Stillingfleet says, *' the most blasphemous enthusiasts the world ever saw."

Fourth. The Franciscans were founded by the companion of the last named fana- tic, and was personally more of a fanatic than St. Dominick. St. Bonaventure declared on oath that Christ revealed it to him, that by "the angel ascending out of the east, having the seal of the hving God," St. John meant no other than Sr. Francis. And this is the audacious motto under his picture, and is appUed the same way, by pope Leo X. St. Francis " had no teacher but Christ ; and learned all by an immediate revelation." He also heard an instructive voice issuing from a crucifix. Even the pope had a revelation appro^^ng him, after he had been disposed to reject good St. Francis. Tliis revelation satisfied his holiness' mind ; and he approved of the order of the Franciscans. See Bonavent. Life of St. Francis, cap. iii. sec. 1,7. StillLng. p. 272. St. Bridget had solemn vision of him : namely, that the " Fran- ciscan rule was not comjwsedby the wisdom of men, but by God himself; nay that ever}" word in it was inspire! by the Holy Ghost." '• And this,"' says this Roman ])rophetess, " is the case with all the religious orders.*' Bridginae Revel. L. 7 cap. 20. p. 5.59, vol. 1. Still p. 273.

Fifth. The Carmelites. Launoy, in his book " De Vis. Sim. Stocki. cap. 1." declares that Simon Stockius had a heavenly vision of the Virgin Mar}-, in which she imparts to him what was befitting respecting the branch of Mendicants called Carmelites. And such was the marvellous condescension of the Virgin Mar\-, that upon Simon's devout prayers to her, she appeared to him with the very habit and fasion of dress which she would have them wear. And what crowns the whole with a peculiar glory, she gave, says Launoy, a promise greater than any that her son Christ had ever given : namely, " that trhosoever died in that habit, should not perish in hell f' Precious garment ! Precious Carmehtism!

Sixth. Even Jansenists had recourse to an attempt at the miraculous; but they only met with a prompt exposure, and a sad overthrow. See Mosheim V. 209 :

Seventh. Jesuitism was founded and organized by a fanatic not surpassed by Moham- med, or even St. Francis. This was lynatiiis Loyola. He had been a soldier, and ^^ lamed in battle. He was a most illiterate creature. But this did not stand in the

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 113

way of visions and revelations. I shall copy a few specimens from the Roman catholic authors Maffeius, Ribadeneira, and Orlandino. St. Peter, say these writers, "■ appeared unto him before he was so far recovered as to be able to read." In a fit of zeal he made a solemn vow of himself to be a knight of the Virgin. He made this vow on his knees before her image. At that moment the room shook ; the window glasses were broken ; and a dreadful noise took place. "An argument," says Orlan- dino, with solemnity, " that the devil then took leave of him." A point of very ques- tionable uncertainty. It is more likely that the said personage was making an ingress* rather than an egress at this moment ; if we may judge from the future horrid con- vulsions of all Europe, by his pious followers, the Jesuits. Some time after this, the Virgin appeared with great glory about her, and her babe in her lap. What Virgin — by the way, — could this be ? And what babe ? Could the man, absolutely insane as he was, mean the glorified Redeemer, Jesus Christ? Ignatius was now fully clothed, on a model given by a divine trance. This fanatic had a long coat of hair cloth ; a bag of water in one hand ; a crab tree staff in the other ; he was girded with an iron girdle, bare headed ; with a wicker shoe on one foot; the other bare. He had a vision of Jesus Christ, and certain most wonderful communications. At another time he had " a vision of the Blessed Trinity, under a corporeal representation." In one trance he continued eight days ; during which, — blessed vision for the benefit, peace, and happiness of mankind; he saw the frame and model of the Society of Jesus, — says Orlando L. i. 28. In another trance he saw God the father commending St. Ignatius, (that is himself) to his Son Jesus Christ; who very kindly received him and said with a smile, "i will he favorable to thee at RomeP'' Ribadeneira was present at Rome, when this was told in a domestic conference of the grave fathers of Rome ; and he records it with all becoming and suitable gravity. See Butler's Lives of the Saints, Art. St. Ignat. vol. ii. p. 262. Dubl. edit.

7th. The leading ceremonies and rites of Romanism are founded in sheer^ fanati- cism. That is to say, these gradually crept in by designing men, as we showed in Letter VIII ; but they were finally established, as articles of faith of the '* simple be- lievers," by visions and miraculous displays. For instance : —

Istly. The making of the sign of the Cross is a grand characteristic of Popery. Miracles have followed this making of the sign of the cross. We have seen already, that a saint discovered poisoned drink by making the mystic sign over the vessel; and the poisoned cup flew into a thousand fragments. "St. Walthen was haunted at prayers by the devil, first, in the shape of a wiot^se," — I am quoting gravely, gentlemen, from your Acta Sanct. 3 Aug, Tom. i. — "then in the form of a pig, a barking dog ; then a ivolf; and lastly of a roaring long horned lull!'" But upon his making the sign of the Cross, all comfortably vanished in a trice. See Finch p. 415. Acta Sanct. Aug. 3. Tom. i. 264.

2dly. Purgatory was a doctrine hard to be established; it cost many a vision, many a dream, many a fanatical revelation. Witness St. Gregory's revelation, deliver- ing the soul of Trajan from the fires thereof. St. Benedict saw the soul of Gcrmanws escape out of it, and reach heaven. St. Ignatius saw tlie soul of Ilosias, one of tho Jesuits, escape, and get to glory, a tough job! — MatF. Lib. 2. cap. 12. Slill. p. 323. St. Bridget had a revelation to the same {)arport with lliat of St. Gregory : as certified hy Salmer. Dis^^). 27. and Baron. Annal. 604. N. 59. St. Muihildis also was success- ful this way. See Bellarm. Dc INirgat. 1. 2. cap. 8. Stilling. 251.

3UIy. Bellarminc in a very gallant manner proves Auricular CoJifcssion, by a ccr-

11-1 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

tain vision of a tall and terribly fierce man, with a book in his hand, who blotted out instantly, all the sins which the humble thief confessed to the priest, upon his knees/' Bell. De Pocnit. 1. 3. cap. 12. Stilling, p. 252.

4thly. It will puzzle any of our priests to name one saint, or saintess, who has been beatified, and canonized, without the evidence of an apparition, a vision, a revelation, or a miracle, sufficient to satisfy his Holiness's conscience, in conferring the ghostly honor ! In proof of this, just let any one turn up Butlers Lives of the Saints ; and he will see on almost every page, the clearest evidence of what we now assert.

5thly. The feast of the apparition of the Archangel Michael, is constantly obsened at Rome with extraordinar}' Romish devotion. This was originated, and established to the "simple faithful" by a revelation vouchsafed to the Bishop of Sponto, and a vision seen at the same time by a few drovers on the mountain Garganus. See Legat. De concep. Y. 3Iar. sect. 3. p. 371. Stillingfleet, p. 2.53, 2.56. — Rom. Brev. May 8.

Cthly. The long and troublesome controversy touching Easter Day was conve- niently and quietl}^ settled, in the Roman church, bj^ a revelation kindly granted by some invisible agent, or other, to Hermes. See Legat. De concept. &c. ul upra.

7thl3% The festival of Corpus Christi was instituted by Pope Urban IV. in order to confound all gainsayers against Transuhstantiation arid the Mass. Tliis famous festival was originated hj a revelation granted by some being, or other, to Mother Juliana, of immortal memory- with you, gentlemen. This same Mother Juliana Wcis no common crone. I shall quote from your writer Bzo\'ius Annal. Tom. 13. Anno. 1230. N. 16 ; and Still, p. 254. " She had raptures, exstacies, and prophecies." She was so sharp at discerning things invisible, that she knew people's thoughts : " She wrestled with devils, discoursed with apostles, and \^TOught many miracles." In all her visions, she ever and anon saw the full moon, " trith a snip taken from her round- ness."^ For t^venty years she MTestled with the invisible powers, with all the charac- teristic curiositj'of a female, to discover what this same "s/2?/>" could possibly typify. This vision she revealed to De Lausanna,- who told it to De Trecis, who was after- wards Pope Urban IV. All could not discover what this same "57i?p" on the moon's circular edge indicated. It was something involving the interests of "Holy Mother Church." Of this mother Juliana was most sure : but stUl what that was, — she could not read from her mystic lore. But two prophetesses can make marvellous discave- ries. Mother Isabella came, apropos, to her aid. She too had a vision. And say Dies- temius, and Binius, — " This Isabella was so much intoxicated by her vision, that, out of the abundance of her spiritual drunkenness" (these are the Roman writer's own words.) "she declared that she would promote the Holy Feast, although the whole world should oppose her." This same feast of Corpus Christi, and solemn proces- sion of the "Bread made god," through the streets, with "devout ruffians" in front, with carbines, to knock down all who refused the new breaden god, — the Creator, created by the priest, in the Mass, — this same feast was mother Juliana's "snip" iu the edge of the moon. This holy festival being instituted, the moon ivas henceforth round as a perfect circle, and all is complete ! Such is the edifying origin of Corpus Christi! How much you owe to Mother Juliana, and the moon's snip; and the simple devotion of Urban IV. In addition to Bzovius, see Diestemius Blarus, Arnoldus Bostius, Petr. Pra^monstratensis, Vignier, and Molanus. Also Still, p. 25o, 257.

Lastly; indulge me in one instance more. Your sanctum sanctorum, and un- matched peculiarity of the Mass, was established by fanatical revelations. This

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 115

precious morsel of Romish fanaticism, shall claim our attention in due time. At present I allude to the wild fanaticism by which it was established, gradually as an article of faith of the " faithful." This corner stone of Popery had a prodigious variety of revelations and miracles to establish it. I shall select an instance or two.

BcHarmine De Sacr. Euchar. Lib. 3. cap. 8. narrates several miracles. In one instance, says he, iastead of bread, real flesh was seen; that is to say, the loaf, or wafers, were converted not invisibly, as now a days, by half a miracle with you; but visibly, and really, and truly, — iirto true flesh ! He does not say whether human or bestial flesh. In another instance, says he, instead of the wafer, Christ was seen, bona fide, "in the form of a child." But why a child, it is impossible for us heretics even to conjecture. They cannot mean our glorified Lord. Roman priests only can explain this mystery of popery.

But all these are comparatively trivial affairs to the devotion and faith of a heretic's horse ! Miserable heretics are all Protestants, when even a horse bows doAvn and adores "the breaden god." I quote this from no less a man than your own Bellar- mine, who solemnly relates it as sober history in hi^ book De Sac. Euchar. Lib. 3 caj). 8. St. Anthony of Padua, had once an encounter with a heretic, an Albigensian, touching the change of the wafer into Christ's flesh. "1 have a horse," says the heretic, — "to whom I shall give nothing for three daj^s. On the third day do you come with the Host; and I shall come with the horse. I shall pour out some corn to him ; but if he forsake his corn, and go and venerate the Host, then shall I believe." On the day appointed all the parties came. And St. Anthony in a truly saint like manner, addressed a suitable and eloquent word of exhortation to the horse.

" In the virtue, and in the name of thy Creator, whom I truly hold in my hand," says he,-— "I conimand and enjoin thee, O horse, to come, and with humilit}', revere him." " No sooner Avere the words uttered," says the grave Bellarmine, " than the horse unmindful of his corn hastens towards the Host, in the priest's hand ; inclining his head, and devoutly kneeling on his fore feet, he adored his Lord in the best manner he could, and confuted the heretic." See also Finch p. 343.

This really crowns the loftiest climax of all the specimens of fanaticism extant. A priest creating his Creator out of bread. A horse sensibly listening to an exhort- ation. A horse devoutly bowing down on his knees, and worshipping his maker, in a bit of wafer. And what is most amazmg of all,-^a priest, — a rational being believing all this. I am, gentlemen, yours, &c.

June 4, 1833. W. B. C.

EXTRACTS FROM THE PRIESTS' LETTER X.

It opens with a descant on the cares, troubles, and disasters of Hfe, with some sontinion- talism about one's risijig above them. " But in mental collisions, defeat is followed by the worm that never dies !"

It is, therefore, with the priest, a very serious matter to engage in polemics ; it is vic- tory,— or no less than perdition !

" Dr. B.'s defeat is obvious; it is admitted even by the most prejudiced among the ditc of his flock! Hence his acerbity of temper, and his recklessness of truth ! Our Victory over you excites no stirrings of vanity, for it has been too easily won ! This is not writ- ten in the way of boast ! Some concession must be made to the irritability of a niiud

116 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

writhing under the torturing vexation of defeat — so as to cause forgetfulness of your stai- tion, — as an interpreter of the Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost!''

'* Do you believe the tales of which your last letter is formed to be any portion of Catho- lic creed? Do you imagine Catholics will admit your malignant fictions, while they mock and reject the dreamy legends of the visionary among their own silly writers?"

" Your rule of faith, your " matter o£ infinite importance," is abandoned. Your theme now is farcical carricature of Catholic doctrine."

" We claim the protection of the great Dr. Johnson, who says : ' The diversion ofbaiting an author has the sanction of all ages and nations, and is more lawful than the sport of teas- ing other animals, because for the most part, he comes voluntary to the stake.' You came voluntary to the stake. '^

" ' The Bible alone,' the preacher says, ' is the rule of faith of every Protestant.' He believes, as an article of faith, the inspiration of the Bible, but this inspiration cannot be proved from the Bible, therefore, he admits an article of faith not derived from the Bible : therefore, the Bible alo7ie is not his only rule of faith ; therefore, he contradicts himself ; and, therefore, the Bible alone is not a sufficient guide to a future world. This has not been refuted."

Nota : — Every one must perceive that this often repeated objection against the only rule of faith, is founded in a play upon the double sense in which the word faith is taken in holy writ. Jude says : " earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints ; ver. 3. Here faith signifies the system of gospel doctrines. Again : "we are justfied by faith." Here it means the exercise of the soul, by which we receive Christ Jesus, and walk in him.

But the priests, by reason of their defective education, confound these two. We say, " the scriptures are the only and perfect rule of faith." That is, it contains in it every thing -necessary to be known and believed, for our salvation. But, then, that faith, by which we re- ceive these doctrines, and all the evidence of them, is not in the Bible ; it is in the mind of the believer, like every other mental act. Yet the priests, in the most ludicrous manner, insist that unless ''• mental faith'''' be found " in the Bible's system offaith,'^ the scriptures can- not be the only rule' of faith I

Next follows the endless repetitions about Luther ; and the rejected epistle of James ; and the loss of some twenty books of scripture; and about John Wesley ; and the tradi- tions; and the genuine copy of the fathers ; and the change of the Sabbath ; and the utter failure of Dr. B.'s proof of the rule; and his Nestorianism ; and his blasphemy in denying that the icoyyian Mary is the mother of God '.

" From the scriptures themselves it is not difficult to prove that they cannot be the Judge of controversy. Common sense tells us, we must distinguish between the letter of the scriptures, and the sense of the scriptures. St. Paul, 2 Cor. iii. 6, marks this distinction, ' the letter,' says the apostle, ''killeth, but the spirit quickeneth."

'• Rev. Sir, we say that the scriptures, if we regard the bare letter, cannot possibly be the judge of controversies. We also say, the scripture, even if we regard its meaning, cannot be the judge of controversy ; and we call on the christian public to mark our proofs of these assertions, and the delusion you labor under, in holding the scriptures to be " your only rule of faith and judge of controversy.' That the scriptures cannot be our judge of controversy, if we regard the bare letter is thus proved. That which leads men into heresy and error, cannot be the infallible judge of all controversies; but the scriptures, if we respect its bare letter, leads men into error and heresy, therefore, it cannot be the infallible judge of controversies. The major proposition of this syllogism is self evident. The minor is proved by the words of St. Paul, ' the letter killeth,' as much as to say it ieadeth us into error." " The letter killed" the Jews; and it " killed the heretics."

Notes : — 1. Here is another painful instance of our priests very defective education- By "the letter that killeth,'' they actually mean the scriptures taken literally ! Need I say that

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 117

" the letter that killetK'' is the law and broken covenant uttering its curse, including the bur- dens and curses of the legal dispensation of Moses, which is now done away? And it is contrasted with "the spirit that giveth life," that is, the gospel dispensation. Hence, in reasoning against the holy scriptures from this text of'' the letter,''^ the priests really leave out all the gospel of Christ from our rule!

2. They assort that " the scripture," — in other words, the Holy Ghost speaking in it, — • " leads into error and hevf sy !"

3. they charge upon the Bible, and upon the Holy Ghost, all the sin, perverseness, and heresy of the wicked children of men. That is, because the blind man cannot see, — there- fore, the clear shining sun is in fault ; because the mechanic, when intoxicated, cannot use with skill, the correct instruments of his craft, therefore, the error and consequent mischief are owing, entirely, to the instruments, and to him who made them perfect I

4. The sentence of God's law uttered on us is "iAe letter that killeth." See Rom. VH. 9. This sentence of God on guilty sinners, the priests say, is " as much as to say that it leads us into error" ! That is, when the law " kills" the murderer ; and the judge utters its sen- tence on him, it is as ranch as to say, thei/ lead him into error !

5. They maintain that " even if we regard its meaning," — that is, even if we take up its spirit, and hear correctly the Holy Ghost speaking unto us, — "it is still not our rule" !• This is the consummation of deism, and its necessary consequence, heaven-daring impiety* And it is not simply a mistake of our priests personally. It is originated necessarily by the essential doctrines of popery. But we go on

" The Scriptures are often obscure and hard to be understood. Out of this obscurity many controversies arise as to their true meaning. There must be some judge to deter- mine their true meaning."

*' But common sense tells us, this judge must be distinct from the Scriptures, for the Scripture itself, which is obscure, cannot determine its own meaning. To deny that the Scriptures are obscure and hard to be understood, would, Rev. Sir, ♦ argue a derangement in the moral faculty :' in truth, it would argue more, it would savor of infidelity. It would certainly be unscriptural, after Saint Peter telling us, that in the epistles of Saint Paul, there were ' many things hard to be understood.' Now, Rev. Doctor, we humbly submit, that whatever is ' hard to be understood is obseure.'"

Then they adduce instances of their obscurity : from their mayiner^ and from their matter : " they are full of figures, allegories, and parallels:" "there are prophetical passages : and many apparent contradictions." ' Hence the Bible is a very obscure book :' and common sense tells us, that a judge, whose decisions are so obscure as to leave room for controversy, is extremely unfit for his office. We are convinced that such a judge would never be appointed, or sanctioned by our Divine and All-wise Legislator."

" Finally, they arrived at this conclusion : — ' You have no Scripture for the canonicity of the Scriptures ; therefore, you cannot believe the Scriptures to be canonical: there- fore your Rule of Faith leads to downright Deism,' "

Notes : — 1. Here men's folly and guilt, " who refuse to be taught," are wholly palliated-; and the entire blame rolled over on the unoffending Bible. "The unlearned and unstables are those whom the apostle marks as " wresters," of the scriptures : and the originators of error. Yet, instead of bringing "the unlearned" into the correcting influence of the true learning ; instead of bringing "the unstable" under the hallowing restraints of sound mental, and christian discipline, they cry out against the Holy Bible, — ^'- Jirny with it .' Away with it ! Not this, hut Barabhas for our judge ! Crucify it ! Crucify it ! It originates all controversies, errors, and heresies !

2. They studiously keep out of view the doctrine which we have taken pains, distinctly and often, to state ; namely, that the Holy Ghost speaking in the Bible is the only JUDGE of controversy. And the Scriptures are as distinct from this judge, as a word from its speaker, Now, can ho bo a christi^in man ar^d hovo tho foar of liio Holy Ghost before

lis KOMA_N CATHOLIC CO'TROVERST.

his eyes, who ventures in the face of heaven, to say that the Holy One who " leads us into all truth," cannot determine his own meaning; cannot convey clearly his own mind and will, by his own inspired word?" If controversy arise, is it the fault of the Holy One, or the perverse will of impious men ? If men wander deliberately into error, is it not because the sons of darkness hate the holy light of heaven, and choose the guidance of corrupt reason ? If men do not see, and do not understand, is the Bible, is the Holy Ghost under any bond of obligation to furnish eyes, and brains to rebels perpetrating high treason against Heaven ?

No intelligent and candid Protestant or Roman catholic, has ever complained of the obscurity of the Bible's doctrines of salvation. And all the world knows that if the Uomish priests could find popery in the Bible, it would instantly become one of the plain- est and most luminous books in the world !

3. They are here chargeable with a characteristic imposition. Because St. Peter saya that in the epistles of St. Paul, there are some things hard to be understood, they forthwith convert the word some into many, and thence conclude that all the Scriptures are hard to be understood ! And, finally, they misrepresent the meaning of the whole passage. " Some things are hard, but, by no means ijiipossihle to be understood.

4. The priests bring '■'• a railing accusation" against heaven itself! " A judge, — that is the Holy Spirit speaking in the word of God, — "whose decisions are so obscure as to leave room for controversy is extremely unfit for his office I Such a judge," — that is the Holy One, — " would never be appointed, nor sanctioned by our Legislator! I!" — I leave it to the decision of the christian world, whether Ihi? master-spirit of infidelity ever displayed raore impiety ; or Judas more treachery T or Rabshakeh more blasphemy, than our priests have done in these extracts N And, 1 repeat it, — it is not their personal fault : they act perfectly in character: it proceeds from the natural genius, and essential doctrines of Popery !

There follows next a quotation from the popish catechism, steeped in deism. This exhibits what is administered lo the?e young immortals, instead of the pure waters of life. 3Iay Jesus Christ pres3rve these children from such soul-destroying doctrines, as are in- stilled into their minds by their ••' spiritual teachers," and infidel catechisms !

The Letter, next, details some of the protestant miracles: such as, a marvellous growth of hair on a person's head, during ni^ht, narrated by Dr. Adam Clark : next, the case of Mary Toft, whom our priests grave.y represent as "bringing forth rabbits:"' of Johanna Southcote, whom the priests endorse as the icoiild-he mother o? Messiah : and finally, of cer- tain Irish ghosts, who danced on the waters at Poriatown Bridge: and which, no doubt existed, — but only in the guilty and tortured consciences of their popish assassinators I

The Letter is closed with these words : — " Such things," namely, these Protestant mira- cles,— " as well as your rule of faith, have origin at ed,"-^th at is the holy scriptures, and the Holy One speaking to us in them, — ''^ have originated in sheer fanaticism, and hareheen sustained hy imposture !'^ This carries with it, its own refutation ; and proclaims in ever y one's ear, the origin, and nature of popery.

LETTER X.

TO DOCTORS rOWER, VAREI^\, AXD MR. LEVINS.

•' Tria faciunt bonum, &c. Three things make a good monk and nun; to speak well of the superior ; to read the Breviary as much and as often as they choose : and to let things go on just as they please." — " There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts." — St' Peter.

Gentlemen : — By the detail of extracts, in my last letter, I established the fact, that

ROMAN CAtHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 119

)^our peculiar ceremonies are based in fanaticism: and that your whole system was founded by some of the wildest fanatics, the world ever saw. These extracts I copied from your own standard works, such as Acta Sanctorum, Butler's Lives, &c. You have not denied the truth of one of these extracts ; and you cannot. I invite you to try your logic at a refutation of them. It was supremely silly, gentlemen, to pass the whole over, as you did, in your last letter, with this Jesuitical question: — "Do you imagine catholics will admit your malignant fictions, while they mock, and reject the dreamy legends of the visionary among their own silly writers .^"

Let your bishop look to this daring avowal. Popes have sent tens of thousands to the stake, and gibbet, for things of a great deal less consequence than this wicked taunt on the Pope, and Holy Mother. Why, gentlemen, you pronounce Acta Sancto- rum,— your achievements of your saints, their miracles, and holy tales, to be dreamy legends! You call your popes, and the various orders of your monks, "sz'ZZt/ and visionary writers P^ Nay, have we lived to hear the concessions ! The whole evidence on which your popes gravely proceed in the mysteries of canonization, to manufac- ture new saints, and new gods, for Roman worship, — you actually denounce as wild and " dreamy legends."

Permit me, gentlemen, to congratulate you on this approximation to the light. Even Mr. L. I shall not despair of: protestant light, and logic have wrought wonders on better men, in compelling them to speak the truth. If Balaam's ass spoke after being well cudgelled, why may not even he have his mouth opened, in the sei'vice of truth, by a logical flagellation?

You repeat your slanders of Luther, *'the Great and the Good." I have only room for tioo remarks here. Every scholar knows that Luther, when more illumined from monkish ignorance, did admit the epistle of St. James into the canon. It stands in Luther's German Bible, and if you will consult Woolfii Curas, Philol, vol. v. 6. and also Fabricius Biblioth. Grffic. Lib. iv. cap. 5. sec. 9. you can see your evidence of your slander of Luther. My other remark is this : — Gentlemen, look nearer home. The Roman church, in the 4th century denied the canonicity of the Eyistle to the Hebrews! St. Jerome tells you this. See his Treatise of illustrious men, cap. 59, and his Epistle 53 to Paulinus. The Roman church stood out long against " the He- brews:" but she was finally "cudgelled" by the Greek church into orthodoxy, on the canon, so far as it respects "the epistle to the Hebrews."

You say a good deal in your last, about "the stake ;" and "my coming volun- tarily up to YOUR STAKE." I know that your spirit always leads that way. And even to-morrow, had your charitable and liberal sect the ascendency, you would plant the stakes, and light up the Smithfield fires in our Park. I know it, and you know it : and even now anticipate it. But may God in his rich mercy, preserve the Lord's church ; and our happy Republic, from the conspiracy of the Jesuits.

I quoted a fair specimen of your miracles, behoved, and by your own Popes, duly registered at the " Office of Miracles at Rome,'^ by your knavish compeers. You reply to this proof of Romish fanaticism by a hull and frog story from " Adam Clark," about a natural phenomenon, a wonderful groivth of a looman's hair !

You quote the case of Toft, and Johanna Southcote. Is it not marvellous that you should not know that these fanatics borrowed their entire system from your own Taukrus, and Cressy ! But, here is a point we wish to notice. Wluni fanatics sprung up among Protestants, wc cast them out, and disown them. But when they a])pear in *' Holy Mother," she sings hosannas to them, and enrolls them among her saints !

120 ROMA-V CATHOLIC CONTROVERSt.

Now, gentlemen, I go on to other points. You are pleased to repeat in aluicat ever}' Letter, that I do not adhere to the subject of discussion — " the Rule."

Now, so far is your charge from being true, that I have, in fact, thus far, been fortu- nate enough in observing the strictest unity in my discussions. In your first note, you simply asked me " to state our rule of faith, and our judge of controversy." I complied with this, by stating that our rule of faith is the holy scriptures ; and that the judge of controversy is Almighty God, speaking plainly and clearly to us in them. I did not stop here, although this was all you demanded : — I next brought forward the proof, that the scriptures were the only and sufficient rule : I showed this from external evidence, and internal : I showed it from various passages, that God speaking to us, in the Bible, declared it to be his own word ; and pronounced it perfect and sufficient.

I next endeavored to draw you out in defence of your rule! You carefully guarded against this. You know you cannot prove your rule of faith by tlie present authority, and infallibility of your Church. And I give you the credit of a shrewd and well conceived retreat. But is not your silence ominous ? Are you not betraying a con- sciousness that 3^our clumsy Rule, contained in so many fohos, is utterly untenable, utterly indefensible ? You can never prove that Christ delivered to us, by di^^Ile in- spiration, the apocr}-pha, and unwritten tradition, and the unanimous consent of the Fathers. You can never create a paradise out of this continent of mud I In the midst of vour awkward flounderings in this matter, I succeed in drawing 3-0U into your " A-icious circle :" and I fully con%T.cted you of your Romish sophistr}', by which you impose on simple and uneducated partizans. You first proved " Holy 3Iother Church" from certain marks taken from the Bible : then you established the inspira- tion and autliority of the Bible, from your " Mother Church I" And the same sophis: tr\' and " vicious circle" appear also in your doctrine of tradition.

You found it necessary- to attempt the proof of two things here : namely, that these traditions did come from Christ's lips: and that the chain has been faithfully kept unbroken. But no man can, while in his senses, beUeve without evidence ; and no man has evidence unless he be well acquainted with all the dead, and with all the living, who had this chain of tradition, in their keeping. It is entirely different from that which is written down in ten thousand copies, every where received and read. Those traditions floated down on the tongue, by hearsay evidence. Unless we know the truth and fidelitA,- of all the dead, and of all the hving, who did and still do hand them down, it were an insult on common sense, to ask us to believe these traditions I

How do you get over this impossibility ? ^Vhy, by plunging still deeper into absurd- ities. For instance, first, \-ou resort to the unanimous consent of the fathers, and lay down this maxim, that what has this unanimous consent is true tradition ; what has it not, is to be rejected. Now, 3-ou load yourselves here ^ith a task which, as we showed, no uninspired man can achieve. To estabhsh this unanimous consent you must produce an authenticated copy of the fathers, free of all additions and alterations. And you must demonstrate the fact of this. You must, then, go over all their thirty-five enormous folios ; exhibit their 40,000 pages to the public, and ■prove infallibly^ that there is no error, and no contradiction, or one doubtful sentiment in one oftheiE.: but an unanimous consent to all vour peculiarities cf poperj^ How many miUions -of such men as Dr. Power, and Mr. Le\'ins, would it take, with the aid of Dr. Varela, to do this, think you? — No tongue can tell !

But, gentlemen, the settlement of this point, is simple and easy on our part. For

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while you are put upon proving a negative, we have the easy task of proving an affirm- ative. I have done it in my Letter VIII., I selected ten of your essential peculi- arities of popery ; and then adduced from six to seventeen of the best of the fathers, who are clearly against each of your peculiarities. It is of no consequence to us whether your fathers' volumes be authentic or not. And thus, by the simplest pro- cess, your unanimous consent to your system, has been utterly demolished. No man, in his senses, none but a Jesuit, which is the classic English word for a knave, will venture to affirm that there is any such thing as a unanimous consent of the Greek and Roman fathers. There is an universal contradiction on their part ; both among them- selves, and against all the essentials of popery.

But second^ you all saw this evil, and to remedy it you have invented the wild and extravagant fanaticism of infallibility. And you affirm, with solemn grimace, that "the Church," — meaning the Roman priests, — " know these traditions by her INFALLIBILITY." Now, mark your sophistry and vicious circle. Who has a right to decide on these traditions, and this infallibility ! "Why, the Church to be sure," say you: "that is to say, the Romish priests." You stand forward with no other power and authority than that which is derived from tradition and infallibility : and by virtue of this said power, from unproved tradition, and unproved infallibility, you decide formally that these traditions and this infallibility are from God our Sa- vior ! You borrow from these uninspired novelties, all your power and authority of office : and then by this official power, you prove tradition and infallibility divine ! I

These arguments of yours, are the entire corner stone of your ancient tottering edi- fice,— already tumbling about your ears, — for, blessed be God, the 1260 j^earsof "the Beast's" reign are now verging nearly toward their close. This is the only and entire idea which you have advanced, stript as it has been, of all your verbiage, coarse wit, and blasphemy ?

But, I did not stop here : your rule I next attacked, and logically demolished b}- TEN arguments. That was no great task : and there was no great honor in doing it, I frankly admit. But these ten arguments have not to this day been touched, far less refuted by you. Thus far, then, was there not perfect unity in my discussion ? T next devoted Letters VI. and VII. to the refutation of various objections which your zeal had collected, against the holy Bible, our rule of faith. And ^'"ou now stand con- victed of the deism of the Voltaire school ; in the estimation of every chris ian, and of every sensible deist in the community ? To accomplish this, and strip the vizor off your face before an indignant community, was, I repeat it, one main object of my lingering so long on the rule.

In Letter VIII, I showed that, in abandoning the word of God, as the onlv rule, you have apostatized from pure Christianity; and erected a perfectly novel svstem in its stead. In letter IX., I endeavored to follow out this argument. I exhibited a col- lection of historical documents, to demonstrate the appalling result of your apostacy from the only rule of faith. I proved, from your own authentic books, that your leading doctrines, rites, and monkish orders were established in fimati- oism ! Is there no unity in all this discussion ? Has not the Master told us that, "by their fruits ye shall know them?" Have we not conducted our readers to the pure word of God, which, like the tree of life, bears all manner ot fruit; yielding its fruit and leaves, for the spiritual food, and healing of the nations? And have I not, amid your unmanly vituperations, been solemnly warning all men against an approach to your fatal tree of death, — more deadly than the tree of the

12

122 ROMA.'T CATHOLIC COZ^TROVERST.

East, whose mortal influence poisons the air, and scatters on every hand wasting peSti^ ience and death !

I congratulate you on avowing, for once, the truth, namely, that there is no version of the scriptures in English, authorised by your pope, or Mother church. Your reply to my question on this subject was ^'TranseatP^ That is, " let that pass ;" meaning, thereby, to say, — " Our craft has failed, and betrayed us ; let us boldly make a virtue of necessity: every priest knows that " our Douay Bible,'^ is a sheer hoax on Protest- ants : our Irish superiors, indeed, once ventured by solemn testimony, to declare it '•' authorised by our superiors:'' but we all know their wise reasons for denying on oath, all this and even their own signatures, before the British parliament. Therefore '" transeat r ^^ — Gentlemen, I laud j'our candar. But, then, you have placed your Vicar general. Doctor Power, in a predicament in which no man of truth or honor can be found. You have '■'■pontiJicaUy,'' convicted him of a mean and scandalous impo- sition, and at the same time, of a shocking impiety. In Clinton Hall, in presence of the public, he lifted his hands towards heaven, and made a solemn appeal to Al- mighty God that he and his priestly associates, did zealously encourage the reading of the holy scriptures by the laity in their own vernacular ! And 3'et, there is, as you now admit, no authorised version of them in English ! I

This is the second extraordinary admission which has been extorted from you. I allude to the avowal in your Letter I. that your religion, and that of the Protestants are not modifications of the one thing : that they are essentially distinct. You say, *• If the Catholics are right, your Reformation was superfluous and a rebellion against heaven. If you hold the truth, the chief part of catholic worship is not only errone- ous, but idolatrous; an offence against heaven, &c." I thank you for this admission in the face of the American people, and I trust it will never be forgotten by the reading and reflecting community. AVe are as opposite as Christ and Belial ! And by this last admission, you have doomed your own rule ; in as much as it proves that this part of it, namely, the holy scriptures, and also the apocrypha, are utterly inaccessible to many of 3'our priests, and to the great body of the laity. And when we take into consideration the fact that the unanimous consent of the Fathers does not exist; and its proof by you will live and die in the land of promise ; most manifest is it, now, if any doubt did, heretofore, remain, that your rule is by your infatuated admission, de- fective, intangible, false, and utterly useless, and nullified! You have no rule of faith from heaven! ! And, hence, as in all usual processes of nature ; — for monsters beget monsters, — 3-ourrule, originated by the prince of darkness, naturally begets apostacies, the novel sect of Romanism with all its putrifying mass of fanaticism, and supersti- tions, and idolatries ; — unparalleled in the moral history of our fallen race !

In my last Letter, I drew the public attention to some of the proofs of this. I beg leave to devote another letter to it. Be pleased then, gentlemen, to follow me in the pleasing task !

" From the sublime to the ridiculous, there is only a single step," said Napoleon in his fatal fall. In the irrevocable fall of the Romish church, she has united the most lofty and daring in claims of power and homage, to the most fantastic, ludicrous, mean, and base in imposture, and degrading in action ! The illustration of this will leach us the appalling consequences of abandoning the only guide and rule, as the " Romish anomos, the lawless One'' has done.

t. This "Lawless One" has set up claims on the human conscience, which place iit defiance, all sober conceptions. The Romish priesthood grasp the reins of unbound-

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©d ghostly power over their votaries, the deluded people. Without a special written license from the priest, no man, or woman, dare read the holy Bible, — even admit- ting that there were an authorized version within their reach. That is to say, — God is not allowed, without sacerdotal permission, to speak to his own subjects ! And men, who have to account unto God, each for himself, and not by proxy, are not allowed with- out a polluted and usurping priest's permission, to hear God speaking unto them. The Romish church tells Almighty God, that he shall not be heard, but through a priest's lips ; and even as that priest shall choose ! The Romish church tells the Almighty, that the priest shall explain his divine will, just as the priest, — ignorant, incontinent, and vicious as he is, — shall be pleased ; that God is not the lord of the conscience ; that the priest has a right to dictate to man all that God only has a right to say : that the priest opens heaven ; that he opens, and shuts up in purgatory; and in hell; that though Christ commands " to come without money and without price,^^ the priest and Mother church tell the Almighty that, they shall pay their money, and give the priest his price of the mass ! that though Christ has "the keys of hell and death," and sets his people all free, the pope and his priestlings reply to the Most High, — "Now, thou shalt not wear the keys of hell and of death : I demand them of thee ; because certain popes dreamed a dream, and told us that St. Peter got them from thee, — thou shalt not have them? Besides, no man shall have freedom from the yoke of bondage, nor have their souls emancipated from purgatory until we shall obtain all the gold and silver from them which we can extract!" This is the mandate issued from your throne of Mammon ! !

Hence, Christ and his atonement are excluded : the idol is set up in its place ; human merit, gold and silver, occupy the place of his unspotted righteousness ; holy water, penance, and ghostly absolution occupy the place which the Holy Spirit occu- pies in his own church. The only object of divine worship is now lost sight of, in the confounding and bewildering multiplicity of created gods and goddesses ! The Vir- gin Mary is the queen of heaven: she is, O horrible ! " the mother of God P^ and her mother, Saint Anna, is of course " the grandmothef of God /"

The Virgin has more prayers offered up to her by your well educated devotees, than what Christ has ; as every one knows who is acquainted with female Roman catho- lics. And each new saint, added for money, and by some sublime catholic miracle, absorbs for, a season, all the worship. In the year 1171, for instance, there arose a new god. This was Thomas a Becket, an impious and haughty priest, the curse and scourge of his country; and a rebel against the laws of the land, and the authorit}'- of his lawful sovereign ; who also screened the vicious and criminal priests from the just visitation of outraged laws, and an insulted community. The haughty rebel was slain by some persons who felt indignant at his insults offered to the king and the laws.

The court of Rome has never failed to take advantage of these feuds and national disturbances. It has never failed to sustain rebels against their sovereigns, providing it could reap any possible advantages to ghostly power. And the pope has never failed to enrol in his holy calendar as right worshipful snints, those who fell in rebellion againstking and country, to help on popery. Accordingly this English rebel was duly canonized. In a short time a magnijicent altar was erected to him in his catliedral, near those of Christ, and " the holy mother of God !" One main use of altars in our priests' mass houses, is, by the way, to receive the needful, namely, the money! The holy priest must not handle it: he needs no money; holy man ! his whole soul is in h^aveja ! The altar receives the money ; it is given, — not to the priests, — O, no — it is

124 ROMAir CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

given to God and the saints! Well, the amount of gold and silver piled up on th^r altar is the clearest and best evidence which of the saints gets the most devotion ! During the young honors of the new god, the accounts stood thus: On Christ's altar £3, on that of the dead priest, £832! Next year — this priest eclipsed Christ and "the mother of God;" accounts stood at more fearful odds! On Christ's altar. £0 : — nothing! not one copper farthing, and hence no prayers to him ! On the altar of Mary were laid £4. 1. 8. On that of the wretched dead priest, £954. 6. 4. !

The Roman pontitTs are invested with different degrees of power by the four grand factions existing in the bosom of " undivided Mother Church," The first makes him merely a president: the second, an absolute monarch: the third makes him equal to God, and calls him "our God," "the Lord God, the pope :" "our God on earth:" "none," says St. Bernard, (1725) "but God is like unto the pope, either in heaven or in earth." Edgar's Variations of popery, p. 158. The fourth faction makes the pope superior to God. "He has the plenitude of power, and is above law." Gibert ii. 103. Bellarmine, De Pontif. IV. 5, declares tliat he can bind the church to believe that virtue is ^-ice : and \'ice is virtue. — " Possumus, &c. We can dispense with law." See the Decret. Gregor. III. 8, IV. "The pope (Leo X.) has power above all powers in heaven and in earth." See Labb. Concil. vol. 19. 924. Edgar, p. 161.

This is the grand practical doctrine exercised with such tremendous mischief at the confessional. Such power is lodged with the priest that he can make sin no sin ; and vice laudable, if committed to oblige and favor the priest. " If you sin with me, and comply with my will" sa^^s the holy man possessing a chip of the pope's infallible power, — " I -will absolve \^ou, after we are done I" " I will absolve you, for a trifle, — said a holy priest to a lady of my acquaintance of the North Dutch Church, when he was urging her to play cards and gamble, on a sabbath afternoon, on board of the })acket.

In virtue of this unlimited power, the pope and his Jesuits claim authority over the bodies and souls of all men : and over all their property-, — be they Romans or Protest- ants ! Does any man possess such feeble conceptions of the nature and spirit of the apocalyptic " Beast," as to imagine that the Protestants' apostacy and heresy have put them beyond the pope's power and claims? No: he claims dominion over every Protestant as much as ever.

He claims power, also over all governments, in all kingdoms, and in all republics, be they Protestant or Roman catholic. My credulous fellow citizens will not believe this. But tliey must allow me to say that this credulity proceeds from the success with which the crafty Jesuits have blinded our eyes, and palmed on us a system, as their system, which every priest knows to be ridiculous and false. I speak not of the enUghtened and truly patriotic Roman catholics, who have seen through the mask of ghostly hypocrisy. I speak of the Roman Jesuitical system, with the pope at the head of it. " It is a thing most manifest," says a Romish author, Tesora Politico, &c. 1602, p. 20. — "That his holiness has universal power over all: not only in his own states, but those of other princes, and in all the world, &c." And Bellai-mine De Pont. Lib. V. cap. 6, teaches that "the pope has the chief power of disposing of the temporal affairs of all christians, in order to their spiritual good." Yes, for their spirit- val good ! Riches and scripture doctrines corrupt men. And, therefore, for man's spiritual good, the priests take away the money and the Bible : and bum the body, for the soul's spiritual good ! And all the world has read the saying of pope Innocent IIL " The Church, my spouse, is not married to me without bringing me something : she

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bas given me a dowry of a price beyond all price, — the plenitude of spiritual things ; mnd the extent of temporal things !" " The pope," said a council with Gregory VII. at its heati, "ought to be called the universal bishop; he alone ought to wear the tokens of imperial dignity ; all princes ought to kiss his feet ; he has power to dethrone empires and kings; and is to be judged by none !" And Rome never amused herself with empty titles, as do the Persian and Chinese princes. They uttered their diabolical edicts in thunder ; and executed them with fire and blood ! They excommunicated kings ; deposed them from their thrones ; absolved subjects from their lawful alleg-i- ance ; moved nations to rebellion and blood shed ; abrogated national laws : put an end to commerce, and trade : turned once happy nations into fields of blood ! An endless succession of wars in Germany was originated by pontifical pride ; no tie was held sacred ; no oath was binding ; no law of God or man respected, if the Roman pontiff could only gratify his satanic passions; and extend his anti-christian power ! In a word, kings, and princes, and magistrates, were sacrificed to his ambition. And while the flames of war kindled by him, raged over many lands, and while oceans of human blood were shed by his infernal emissaries, the priesthood, — he was all the time busy in di awing in the wealth of the contending nations. He weakened, and divided, then conquered, and gained infinite wealth by national robbery ! All this was done in the name of Christ ; all this robbery was for man's spiritval good ; all this money went into holy Peter's purse for man's salvation !

Touching the nature and extent of the pope's supremacy there is a mistake gener- ally prevailing among our fellow citizens. Our political men, and very many of even our christian professors, conceive that it exists merely in name, among the Roman catholics in our country : and that it is not acknowledged now by the enlightened members of that sect. This is a great error. I am indebted to an estimable friend of mine for an important fact which goes to illustrate this matter. He states what took place in our State Legislature about 26 years ago. He was at that time a member of it. Francis Cooper, Esq. one of his associates elected, was a Roman catholic; he could not take the oath of office and allegiance because it bound him " to abjure all allegi- ance to king, prince, potentate and power, whether ecclesiastical or civil." He could not abjure the pope's supremacy : he could not renounce this foreign yoke. On his petition, and that of the Roman catholics, a bill was brought in to strike out the word " ecclesiastical." An animated debate took place, and, owing to the rage of politics, and the general want of knowledge of the true nature and tendency of the foreign yoke of popery, it was carried. And so the Roman catholics do not abjure foreign ecclesiastical allegiance ! This establishes the fact that the papal supremacy includes a ghostly despotism over his votaries, not equalled in any Turkish, or any pagan land.

Some, I dare sajs arc disposed to admit that the plea of the papists is plausible and right : that they own him merely as their " spiritual head." I have two reasons why I demur to this. First, it cannot be republican ; nor salutary to civil liberty to be under such foreign despotism, — that a man cannot think, nor write, nor act, or even read the holy scriptures, without being exclusively moved and dictated to by a foreign despot? A man who thus sells his soul, and his christian liberty, can never be a good and faithful lover of American liberty. It is utterly impossible. Rut, (his is not all, — this separation of the ecclesiastical from the civil and tem])oral })owtT of the Poi)e is not authorised, not even recognized, far less allowed by the Pope. It has never been yielded up by him : and it never can, and it never will. Why ? because a despu!

12*

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never yields, but for ever tries to acquire more power : and because, as every papis? pleads, the pope and church are infallible, and immutable. And it is most manifest that all papists who separate the spiritual from the temporal power, are in the very act of robbing the pope. They arc in the act of robbing the pope of the most brilliant gem in his crown,— his infollibiUty ! The sentiments of the popes quoted above, fully prove this. And the case of Mr. Farnan, of Brooklyn : and the late difficulties be- tween the highly respectable and intelligent trustees of St. Patrick's and the priests, must satisfy every one that the priests and Jesuits here have never given up this claim of temporal power; and they never will. It is true, they tell the Protestant public, (hat they admit only the spiritual power. But they know, and every intelligent man in the community does know, that the priests have sworn before Almighty God to up- hold the pope in all the extent of his power: they do own his civil power as much as liis spiritual ; or, as the alternative, they are, in the pope's eyes, daring rebels ; and before heaven, perjured knaves ! Let them choose the alternative of the dilemma.

The present Pope has exhibited all the intolerance and bigotry of the ninth century ; and let the American public look to it, — every one of you, gentlemen, and every bishop and priest believe and avow the same sentiments,. In his Circular Letter published in Europe and America, your supreme Head, lately jn-onounced from the Vatican, that '■'liberty of conscience is an absurd and dangerous maxim: or rather the ravings of delirium P^ And you, gentlemen, beheve and unblushingly advocate the same thing: and you have not the assurance to come out and deny it. Let the x-Vmeriean public, both political and religious, look at this ; let them watch the priests, if they will' dis- avow this bull of their present ghostly leader at Rome !

This is not all : the pope and his priests are avowed enemies to the liberty of the Press : to them it is a torturing nuisance. Hear the present Pope's own words in the above named Circular. The hberty of the Press is " that fatal licence, of which we cannot entertain too much horror!'^ And if ever they gain the ascendancy here, they will soon show this, by the Codex Expurgatorius ; by chains, dungeons, racks, and fires ! In admitting the Pope's supremacy, they are sworn, on pain of damnation, to admit and honor all this dictation of the pope, in temporal and spiritual matters.

11. In Rome's apostacy from the only rule of faith, she has irrecoverably lost the spirit of Christianity.

The genius of Christianity is love, pure, holy,, unsubduable love and benevolence. "^ God is love ; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." " He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love." "If a man say I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar !" " Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer ! and ye know that no murdefer hath eternal life abiding in him»" St. John's 1st epistle.

Now contemplate the spirit of the Roman catholic church, ever since her great apostacy ; — as displayed in her dogmas, and actions. — The maxim " that no faith is to be kept with heretics,'^'' has been a favorite doctrine with Rome, most firmly believed and rigidly acted upon. Pope Gregory VII. made a decree to this purpose, which lias not been revoked. Martin V. said in his letter to the Duke of Lithuania, — "Be assured that thou sinnest mortally, if thou keepest thy faith with heretics !" Gregory IX. made a decree, absolving all people from their vows, and obligations to those whO' had fallen into heresy. And the Bishop Simanca, sometime professor of law in the University of Salamanca, in his famous work "The Catholic Institutions," — says in his commentary on this law of Gregory IX., that "by this law, all governors are set free from the bond of theh oath." " A Catholic wife is set free from her obligations-

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 127

to perform her marriage contract with her heretical husband." And he adds, " Justly^ therefore, were some heretics [Huss and Jerome] burned by the council of Constance, although they had been promised security !" The general council of Constance did solemnly establish this characteristic, and sanguinary dogma of the Roman catholic church, that "no faith must be kept with heretics."

Carrying out this principle, Rome pronounces all who refuse to yield unlimited obedience to the pope's despotism in all things, to be heretics ; and heretics are trai- tors against heaven and Almighty God, because they are rebels against heaven's viCAK. And by that fact are their lives forfeited; and it is a duty to burn, kill, cut dov/n, and exterminate them from the face of the earth. "And the blood of here- tics,"— say your Rhemish annotators on Rev. xvii. 6, — "is no more the blood of saints, than the blood of thieves, man killers, and other malefactors, for the shedding of which, by order of justice, no commonwealth shall answer."

By this solemn dogma of the Romish church, all devoted Roman catholics are taught from their childhood, to believe that to kill a Protestant, or a heretic, is doing God a service, because it is the act of executing Holy Mother church's law. Hence that unshaken enmity, malice, wrath, and murderous hatred, Avhich bigoted Roman catholics feel against Protestants, Jews, and others ! They abhor them even as one abhors the prince of darkness ! They believe them all to be worse than thieves, robbers, and murderers. Their canons, and their priests daily teach that no man can possibly be saved who is not a Roman catholic. And besides these weekly and daily impressions made by the priests, and the diabolical spirit breathed throughout their books and conversations, " the faithful" are accustomed once every year, at least, — tliat is on the Thursday of Passion week, — to see the Pope's representative, in his flaming scarlet robes, (the emblem of their bloody purpose) pronouncing the curse of present and perpetual perdition on all Protestants. This is regularly done in our cities, and throughout the land.

This deeply malignant spirit, has often burst forth as a merciless demon from " the bottomless pit." Hence the murderous wars of the Crusades against the Turks, and the christian Waldenses ! Hence the wars of Germany, and all Europe, in the dark ages, and in the times of the Reformation. The Roman catholic princes of the bloody house of the Bourbons, and of Austria, went forth at the pope's nod, " doing God service," for "the spiritual good of man," perseci/ing, plundering, burning, and massacring Protestants ! Hence the horrid interdicts, and excommunications ol king-s, and whole nations; hence depositions, and the absolving of subjects from their allegiance and duty to the magistracy, and the laws; the suspension of trade and com- merce; the refusal to let the dead be buried; and all the innunierable evils which popish fury could devise and inflict on a people. Hence the cool and systematic- murders of Protestants and others; in a long and bloody train of executions, — not fo speak of the Inquisition. Uf wards of sixty -eight millions of human beings, as we shall afterwards show, have been oflfercd upon the altar of the bloody Roman catholic faith. St. John, in vision, saw Rome catholic " drunk with the blood of the saints." Now, he that hatcth his brother, is a murderer. What must Rome be, which lurs made the hatred of men, who diOer from her in religion, an article of her religious creed ? What must she be, who has slicd sucli oceans of human blood? Is it not a mockery of religion and reason to call her a church of Christ ? Is it not an outrage on reason, to call that — Christianity, which stinudatc's her to do such danuiabh; deeds .' Moloch

P 128 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTBOVERSt.

and Jugernaut are mere chilclren in murderous crimes, compared to this. Offer no apologies for her, because Protestants have persecuted. They have done so ; but then it is no part of their rehgion. Calvin and others acted under the unrepealed bloody civil laws, which had been passed by Roman catholics, when Servetus was burned. There is nothing in the canons, nothing in the creed of Protestants, stimulating to Hi persecution. On the contrary, every sentiment in their creeds and confessions, breathes

' ■ love and benevolence. The early Protestants were only acting out the infamous les-

sons which they had, when young, unhappily learned from the Roman catholics. But it is a part of the canons, and elemental part of the religion of Rome, as we have seen above, to persecute and kill heretics ! And as if all this were not enough, the pope claims the j)ower of persecuting even after death. He claims the power of dam- nation. He absolutely claims the keys to shut out of heaven, and shut up in hell. Let any look, for proof of this, into the Bulls. I take up, for instance, the Bull of excommunication against Queen Elizabeth, of England. Here is the title of it. "The damnation and excommunication of Elizabeth, and her adherents, &c." *'Pope Pius, servant of the servants of God," — (marvellously humble this knave was) — "in perpetuam rei memoriam, &c." — Here we see the result of the Roman apostacv, tirom the only rule. Can that rule adopted by the Romish church, which stimu- lates to such deeds these monsters in human form, be a rule given to us from infinite love and benevolence 1 It is impossible !

in. Can a rule of faith which generates the most deplorable ignorance and revolting profligacy, proceed from the fountain of all light and holiness ?

In every Roman catholic country, the priesthood, according to the letter of instruc- tion, and oath of office, direct their unmitigated hostility against these two things; namely, the promiscuous reading of the holy Bible : and the universal education of the people. " The Bible shall not be given to the people : the laity shall never be permitted to read the scriptures, when, and as they please;" "education shall not be given to the people universally : we are the fountain of knowledge : we the catholic priests have the keys ; — we have the keeping of God's will and secrets : and we let the light out, orally, as we please I Education and reading the Bible only make heretics ! The more intelligent the people are made by reading, the nearer are they to damnation!" This is on every priest's lips: it is the burden of their preaching; and of their every day conversa^^ion.

The pope, in his late Circular, denounced Bible Societies, as "the device of the devil." And his priests, as in dut}^ bound, by their oaths, re-echo this hostility to the Bible, and to education, every where. And in our own land, as well as in Italy, and Spain, the priesthood are laboriously employed in watching over their flocks: not in instructing them ; not in meliorating their condition; not in communicating education and industrious habits : but in checking the dangerous inroads of light; and the fatal consequences of universal education I And in those places where the influence of Protestants constrains them to open schools, what do they teach the youthful spirits of our land? To say ten thousand Ave Marys: to pray to innumerable idols: to hate and execrate the English version of the Bible ; to hate and abhor Protestants: to own the pope's and priest's unlimited despotism : to consider the pope's and priest's power above that of our President : and all our governors : and all the magistracy of the land : that our government and magistrates, being heretics are merely usurpers ; that the time is coming when they shall gain ascendency, and shall crush all hereti- cal rulers! And, yet, these men would wish to have money from our public funds,,

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONtROVERSr. 129

paid by the taxes levied on Protestants, to support these nunneries, and seminaries, where these principles are taught, subversive of all order in Europe, and America.

The people who are imbued with popery, are, generally speaking, more ignorant, and far more ferocious than those of ancient pagan Egypt, Greece, or Rome. And in point of idolatry, superstition and morals, the pagan Greeks and Romans were far purer, and more refined ! The proof of this meets the eye of every traveller in Swit- zerland, Italy, Spain, and in bleeding Ireland. Poverty is the child of Romish idola- try and superstition. In the Eastern despotism, the tyrant robs the subject of the fruits of industry ; and paralizes all his efforts. In popish communities, the priest jfleeces the obedient flocks; and paralyzes the arm of industry. Add to this, that there are many saint days, and lady days, and holy festival days, when no man truly Roman catholic, dare follow his lawful avocations. These do almost cut off the poor man's little income, and make him miserably poor. And, then, patron saints' days are closed with brutal revelry and debauchery ! They glorifx^ their saints and idols, by fighting, gambling, swearing, blasphemies, and brutish drunkenness. Look for proof of this, to Rome, Naples, Madrid, the South of Ireland, and that portion of father Levins' parish, in the vicinity of the Cathedral, and at the place called '■'■the Five Points,'^ in New York.

We foi-merly quoted the lives of the popes, and showed out of j'our own writers, Baronius and Guiciardini, that "He was usually deemed a good pope who did not excel in wickedness the worst of the human kind." And he being the great fountain head of impurity, — pollution naturally flowed, through his accredited priesthood, as a dead sea over all the land. The moral infamy of a church must be consummate^, when, by the decree of pope Paul III., houses which I cannot name, were openly licensed ; and 60,000 infamous beings yielded their immense revenue of wickedness to the pope's treasures. And it is so in Rome, unto this day. These licences aflford large revenues to " tJie holy father.''^ It is a truth notorious at Rome, that he receives the one third of the profits weekly, and annually, from these ZicensecZ haunts of infamy%.

And it has been a subject of amusement to those who are intimate with our priests, to hear their affectation and prudery about the admirable little narrative "Lorette, or the daughter of a Canadian Nun." They call it "an obscene fiction." What! A Roman catholicpriest affecting to have his modesty shocked at "iore^fe," a moral and instructive narrative of facts ! A priest shocked at imaginary " obscenity," — into whose ears and imagination, and heart, is daily poured,' at the confessional, as into a common sewer, all that is impure, polluting, and loathsome, in a whole parish. " Credat Judffius Apelles, non ego."

Let any one take up Paschal's Provincial letters, and that book sold in our book- stores, called " Secrtta Monita, — The secret instructions of the Jesuits ;" and let him read the extracts out of the 326 Jesuit writers, on morality, and he will oasil}'- discover that paganism, counting in even Sodam and Gomorrah, had nothing to equal Ro- mish doctrines, and Jesuit criminality.

I took up the two folio volumes of Ludovicus Molina, the other day, and read a passage to a friend of mine, out of the 1150 page, 2nd volume, ia Latin ; to give liim an idea of the moral instructions given to servants,^— as he had some Roman catholic servants in his family. I then turned to the extract out of Cardenas, Crisis Thcolog. Diss. 23, cap. 2, p. 474; and there read to him what is instilled into tlio ears of the " simple faithful," of the confessional, that he might know how lo trust tlicsc women who make confessions to expelled Jesuits. Here are the words. — "Servants may

130 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

secretly steal from their masters as much as they judge their labor is worth, more than the wages they receive." "In good earnest," exclaimed my friend, "one of my domestics, who is quite punctual in going to confession, has been reducing this literally into practice. I have detected this Roman catholic woman robbing me, to some con- siderable amount."

" She acted upon principle," said I, " and is an apt scholar : the priest shrieves her, and receives his boon."

I read him some more extracts. Here they are: "A man is not bound to restore what he has stolen in small sums, however large may be the total." See Tam- bur. Explic. Decal. Lib. 8, p. 205. Again : — " A woman may take the property of her husband to supply her spiritual wants, and to act as other women." That is, women, who are more punctual in confessing to the priest than men are, may rob to pay holy father confessor. See Gordonus, Theol. Mor. Univ. p. 826. Again ; — "After a son has robbed secretly his father, as a compensation, the confessor need not enforce restitution, if he has taken no more than the just reward of his labor." See Fran. Xavier Fegeli p. 158. And the following will sliow how a Jesuit feels toward magistrates: — "A priest cannot be forced to give his testimony before a secular judge." See Taberna vol. 2, p. 268. And Tamburinus, Lib. 3, p. 27. teaches that, — " the judge is not a competent lawful authority to receive the testimony of ecclesiastices." Emmanuel Sa teaches in Aphor. p. 41. That " the rebellion of Roman priests is not treason, because they are not subject to civil government." Airault Cens. p 319. teaches this doctrine of assassination, — "If a calumniator will not cease to publish calumnies, you may fitly kill him, not publicly, but secretly, to avoid scandal." And Escobar in his Theol. Moral, vol. iv. p. 274, taught that, — " it is lawful to kill an accuser whose testimony may jeopard your life and honor." And to consummate their vil- lainous doctrine, Busembaum and Lecroix in Theol. Moral, vol. i. p. 295, teach this doctrine of devils: " In all the above cases where a man has a right to kill any person, another may do it for him, if affection move the murderer !"

I beg leave to add here, what our unsuspecting fellow-citizens will scarcely believe ; but it can be fully proved from the standard writings of the Romish church ; — it is this, all Jesuits and papists (I mean priests and those bigots who obey them) believe that the property of all Protestants, being heretics, is forfeited, and belongs of right, to "Holy Mother Church," just as in monarchies where the man's property is confis- cated, who is guilty of high treason. Hear their words: — " Every christian govern- ment as soon as they openly abandon the Roman faiih instantly are degraded from all power and dignit}^ by human and divine right." Philop. Respons. ad Edict, p. 106. That is, the Roman catholics may seize on their power and means. Bellar- mine teaches, as we have already seen, in Lib. v. cap. 6, that the Pope has the chief power of disposing of the temporal affairs of all christians, &c." And Pope Innocent VIII. in his sanguinary bull, by v^'hich he sent a crusade of armed bandits, to extirpate the Waldenses, in the year 1487, "gave a full and entire license," to his Nuntio, " to grant to every one of the soldiers of the crusade, a permission to seize and freely possess the goods, moveable and immoveable : and to give them for a prey, whatever the heretics have brought to the lands of the papists." He then proceeds to say that all who are bound by contract, to assign and pay any thing to them (the Waldenses) are set entirely free from such bonds, to keep and possess what belongs to them.

I shall sum up the moral character of Jesuitism, which has been thirty-nine times abolished and expelled from the different governments of Europe : and iu doing this,

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSt. ^^451

I shall employ the high authority of the Arret of the Parliament of France in 1762, when it extirpated the Jesuits. " The consequences of their doctrines destroy the law of nature : break all the bonds of civil society : authorizing lying, theft, perjury, the utmost uncleanness, murder, and all sins ! Their doctrines root out all sentiments of humanity : excite rebellion : root out all religion : and substitute all sorts of supersti- tion, blasphemy, irreligion, and idolatry." Such is the declaration of the Parliament of Paris. See the Secret Instructions of the Jesuits, Appendix p. 111. &c.

Now, this order, the most daring and outrageous of all the Monkish orders, — which had turned the governments of Europe into fields of blood, and which has been ba- nished from every country of Europe, — was revived, and organized by Pope Pius VII., in 1814. And I earnestly beg all my fellow-citizens to be assured that it has been revived, and is now employed with all its accustomed diabolical cunning and power, to gain over the U. States under the papal yoJce ! And amid various facilities, they are availing themselves of the perfect religious liberty of our Republic, to carry on a deep conspiracy against the Protestant religion, and our civil liberty. It is a tremen- dous sword, the hilt of which is at Rome ! Every vessel that arrives brings in multi- tudes of Jesuit priests in disguise. And all of them conspire in aiming a tremendous blow, which, if God prevent not, and ward off from our slumbering fellow-citizenf?, will fall, one day, with the horror of a Skullabog, an Irish, and Parisian massacre !

Now, you have hitherto performed unmatched feats of vituperation : will you permit me, gentlemen, to beg you to meet my charges and arguments. I have copied my extracts from your own books. Disprove and refute them, if the thing can be done. It can be done only by abjuring your own books \ or detecitng false quotations ; meet them logically : or frankly tell us the truth that you cannot. Either alternative requires, I fear, more courage than what you possess.

I am, gentlemen, yours, &c. W. C. B.

Our priests had already given frequent indications of a desire to retreat. They only wanted, and they were earnestly seeking, a suitable pretext. We had stated their doctrines and ceremonies in strong language, it is true : but this, it is believed^ was fully sustained by quotations from their own books. " The greater the truth, the greater the libel." This quaint maxim is understood by every culprit. Each development of their true system was " slander." We were held up to R. C. execration by the priests, with a view to cover their meditated retreat. Hints of personal violence were often thi-own out , but no credit was given to the rumors. A remark in my Letter X. on the vile scenes of the Confessional, was called "slanderous," simply because it was too true for the public car, Tiiis brought a repetition of sacerdotal threats: and the following Editorial Notice appeared in the Roman Catholic paper, the ferocious design of which was too manifest. This, together Avith the Card, in reply, here follows.

"It is to bo regretted that Dr. Brownlee, a minister of religion, should so far forget his station as to insult the Irish Catholics of this city in his controversial Letter of to-day. This does not prove his rule of faith or judge of controversy. His allusions to Catholics at the Five Points arc gross and false. The Irish catholics of this city have feelings, and he should respect them. If the honor and dignity connected with his sacred station do not urge him to the expression of truth, they should suggest prudctirc. Such allusions as he makes to the Five Points are insults to Irish Catholics; and insults may excite a sjnrit which he cannot suppress ; — insults are not always endured by Irisiimcn."

132 nOMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

"The Doctor is informed that a foul allusion to the sacrament of confession, is left out, Its authorship would disgrace the keeper of a brothel."

A CARD.

To the Public. — My Reverend opponents, the priests, having exhausted their last idea ; and spent nearly all the fury of vituperation, seem now to have recourse to threats of personal violence. This appears from an extraordinary article which Mr. Denman has seen fit to admit under his editorial head; but which, however, bears the usual attributes of father Levins's style !

To effect their evil purpose they hold me up to their partizans, " the rabble," as guilty of outraging the feelings of" Irishmen." This I solemnly deny; and it is too ridiculous to need a serious refutation. It is enough for me to state that among my numerous personal friends I number many " Irishmen" whom I love and honor. I know the noble traits of a genuine Irishman's character: audit is impossible for me to insult their feelings. And I tell the Priests and their Englishman Editor that every sensible man in the Roman catholic commu- nity kno\Ts tliat I am incapable of insulting an Irishman's feelings ! It is "Priestcraft," and its unenviable attributes that I deem fair game ; because it is the greatest enemy to our free institutions, and our religious liberties I

But, is it possible that Irishmen do not see through this thin veil of hypocrisy ? Who does not see that Mr. Denman, and his priests have here offered tlie most outrageous insult to an Irish3Ian's feelings ! They have here, identified the character of Irishmen, with the charac- ter of the "Five Points." Who ever deemed any connection between the two, until Mr. D. and his ghostly advisers have declared that he who speaks against the "Five Points," does insult an Irishman's feelings ? In all the annals of vituperation there never was a greater insult offered to Irishmen than this, from Mr. Denman and his Priests !

But, it is impossible not to see the design of this article in the last " Truth Teller." There is, in it, a characteristic threat of personal violence ; it rouses to deeds of violence and blood! But we are not in Italy or Spain! We are in New York, where the laws reign ! For my part, these tlu-eats move not me ; the word fear, I do not know the meaning of. I shall follow, in my humble course, the immortal Luther. I shall go with him even to the city of " Worms ;" and with Huss and Jerome of Prague; even to " Constance ;" and I shall go. as Luther said' — " were there as many devils in my way, as there are tiles on the houses !" And let them venture on the execution of their sanguinary threats ! I do solemnly warn them in the face of the New York community, that the first Protestant blood that is shed liex-e, will raise a flame which all the waters of the Hudson will not quench !

I ought to add that the priests ordered Mr. Denman to strike out a sentence in Letter X. ; and it is presented in a garbled form to the public in the Catholic paper; and, moreover, he assigns a reason for doing this, in impure language, such as none but an expelled Jesuit could employ. The banished sentence is restored to its place: and the public can judge of its truth and relevancy.

But, after all, what is " the head and front of my offending," which has called forth this threat of violence, from the priests and their editor ? Simply this : In the following Letter I only ventured to compare the state of morals at Rome, Naples, Madrid, and the South of Ireland, with those of the " Five Points" in our city! Now had Mr. Levins been capable of duly appreciating the morals of all ultra Roman catholic countries; and had he been pos- sessed of the common sentiments of courtly gratitude, he would, instead of" bloody t)ireats," have made me one of his best bows ; and heartily thanked me for putting him, cfnd this holy portion of his parish, into such good company ! '

J am respectfully,

W. C. BROWNLEE.

1 I

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EXTRACTS FROM THE PRIESTS' LETTER X.

TThis letter occupies nearly five columns of a common newspaper size. It contains the following subjects : —

1. Personal invectives without O'ConneVs eloquence, or Collet's elegant polish! We pre- sent a specimen.

"In your last, you, the intimate with the ''Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost," have out-Brownleed Brownlee. The merit is great, and only a Brownlee could hav& achieved it."

"The liberty of conscience conferred by your "ever blessed Reformation" must not be checked, or controled."

" The consciousness of defeat is evident, in every paragraph of your last. There are the ascerbity of mind, the sourness of temper, the sullenness of disposition, the recklessness of truth, the indifference to character, the unblushing assertion, the faithlessness in citing au- thority, the wilfulness that would inflict injury and the suggestion that would affix a stain to character, which ever have been the last resources of ungenerous minds, when writhing under disgrace, defeat and overthrow, — when tortured by the worm that never dies."

There is in " your notorious tenth, the deep toned growl of Calvinistic peace and love, uttered by the religious minister, who vaunts familiarity with an interior spirit, intimacy with the ' Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost,' and fellowship with ' highly intelligent and ' virtuous ladies.' For shift and subterfuge, contradiction and falsehood, joined to un- gentlemanlike language, bold calumnies, and rancorous malice, it stands unrivalled. So much of these bitter and damning elements we never expected to meet with in any human being, much less in a predestined clergyman treating of the concerns of religion."

Such is our priests' gratitude for our painful inquiry into the origin and tendency of their novel system ! This personality occupies upwards of a column and a half.

2. There follows Luther again with the rejected epistle of St. James: and the German Bible, in one fourth of a column.

3. Their vindication of the authorised Douay : —

" Dr. B. says the ' Douay Bible is unauthorised by the pope and church:' and this is the inference you deduce from ^y our ignorance of the scholastic term proposed to you! The Douay Bible printed by Mr. John Doyle, in this city has been approved hy the catholic bishop of New York, and by the bishop of Sotith Carolina. It was printed from a copy of the Douay Bible approved by the catholic bishop of Dublin. The Bible printed in Philadelphia tecs approved by the bishop of that city. The Douay Bible in England is approved and sanctioned by the catholic bishops in England, and what they and other bishops approve and sanction is authorised by the Pope, for they, immediately under the pope, are the guardians of the catho- lic religion. Will you again repeat to the members of the Middle Dutch Churcli and your ' christian public' this slander and falsehood ?"

4. The rest of the letter, about two closely printed columns, contains a renewed attack, if possible, more virulent than ever, on the perfection of the holy scriptures: tliov are declared to be utterly inadequate, as a rule: they cannot settle the meaning of certain expressions, as " this is my body,'''' — " born of water and the spirit," <fec. : they cannot settle one of the great points of controversy between the Roman catholic church and Protestants: they c;uniot throw lighten certain points by reason of their obscurity : they cannot even remove the ap- parent contradictions in them. Finally, after repeating the three questions, so often an- swered, " Horn do you know the Bible to be the tcord of God,''^ &c. they close in this lansruagc :

" But the scripture cainiot prove cither the canonicity, or the authenticity, or the inspira- tion of its own books; — therefore, our consistent tlicologian cannot believe in tlie canoni- city, authenticity, divinity, or inspiration of scriptures ; therefore, his rulk makes him a Deist!"

" Sufficient proof has been given in our letters, that Preacher Brownlco's Protestant rule

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134 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY

^

of faith, cannot be asa/e guide to a future world ; — it establishes no basis for divine faith ;— if followed, it MUST guide to deism and infidelity."

" What shall be the next subject of discussion between us, and preacher Brownleel" '' Having disposed of his rule of faith, or, in other words, the foundation of his religion^ the next topic evidently is, What are the articles of creed determined by his rule of faith, wliich must be believed in order to secure salvation ? Will the Preacher refuse to enter on this matter? If he do he will act irrationally. We wish to be illumined."

Th\s is, di xn^re ruse du guerre. The priests are meditating a retreat from the arena, and they are planning a pretext to cover their retreat. Hence they say in the close of their let- ter:— " Should the Preacher in the Middle Dutch Church, decline discussion on this subject ,. our direct controversy with him is terminated.''

LETTER XL

TO DOCTORS POWER, AND VARELA, AND MR. LEVINS.

" Gia Roma, hor Babilonia falsa, e ria, &c. — "Formerly Rome, now Babylon, falsa and guilty — Hell of the living ! It will be a great miracle, If Christ is not angry with thee at last!"

Petrarch, lorn. 4. p. 149

Gentlemen: — In your last Letter you have exhibited a paralysis : and have almost given up the ghost. I have gone over your epistle twice ; and I deliberately affirm, that no man, Protestant or Catholic, can discover one new idea : or an approach to a reply to any one of my arguments, against your rule, and the fanaticism of your sect. In the close, you repeat, in a condensed form, the one all pervading, and one only ■solitary idea, which has ever yet appeared in your ten Letters : it is this : — " Preacher Brownlee's Protestant rule," — that is to say, God's inspired Word, and the Almighty speaking to us in it, — "cannot be a safe guide to the future world: his Protestant rule," — that is, the inspired scripture, and tlie Almighty speaking in them to us, — "if followed, must guide to deism and infidelity !" Thus then, you deliberately affirm, for the tenth time, tliat God speaking to man in his own Word, " must guide to deism ^ aod infidelity!"

W'ill the force of public opinon have no influence in checking this infidelity, and blasphemy ? Let any one read the speech of the blasphemous Assyrian, Rabshakeh, and then say, if he can there discover any thing worse than this mockery of God's holy Word, and the name of the Holy Ghost !

I have drawn you into the net, at last, in the affair of the Douay Bible. You affirm that your " bishop's" permission is "pontifical" authority! — With men thus reckless of truth, no measured terms can be observed ! Do you, then, venture to affirm that "a bishop's" authority is "the Pope's" authority? You know that no bishop can give pontifical authority to any book. And your leading men in Britain have pronounced that to be a falsehood which you have asserted. I now give you the names. Dr. Poynter, titular bishop of London, declared on his solemn oath, before the committee of the British House of Commons, that, "there is no English version of the Bible, at all, autliorised by the See of Rome." And Dr. Troy", your Archbishop of Dublin published under his proper signature, — and Dr. Doyle, on his solemn oath, that " the notes of the Douay Bible are of no authority whatever !" Thus your lead- ing men in Britain,, give you the lie ! And thus, there is most satisfactory evidence

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 135

that the "Douay Bible" is a mere hoax, and an imposture, pahned on the simplicity of Protestants ! I am reduced to the alternative of either insulting your intellectual power, or of affirming that each of you knows this to be the most certain truth.

And how can you reconcile your young and unfledged zeal for the use of the Bible, in the hands of your people, in their vernacular; and for "the authorised yersion. of the Douay," with your sworn allegiance to the pope and Tridentine fathers ? You have the fourth " rule of the congregation of the Index" lying before your eyes. By the jmntifical authority, the highest with all Romish priests, be it in heaven or earth, it is thus declar- ed,— "It is manifest from experience that if the sacred Bible, translated into the vulgar tongue, be indiscriminately allowed to every one, the temerity of men will cause more evil than good to arise from it."

Now, with the example of these priests in England and Ireland before you, and this notorious canon of the council of Trent, it unquestionably required no small degree of assurance to tell the American public what you did, relative to " the authorised Douay Bible !" Yes, the Bible, in English, is a prohibited book, by the pope and a council. And, yet, your very bishops, who have sworn the solemn oath of allegiance to the spiritual autocrat of Rome, and recorded their pledge, on pain of damnation, to execute, even to the letter, every one of his laws, — have publicly declared that they do permit, and even recommend this prohibited English version ! And our priests, for reasons best known to themselves, if not for popular effect, are not ashamed to pro- claim the treacherous knavery. Were similar conduct exhibited publicly as this is, — in any common monied transaction, it would cover our bishops, and our priests, in every virtuous circle of American society, with perpetual infamy.

I shall now go on with the subject of your church's Superstition and Imposture.

Charles Butler, Esq. the author of "The Book of the R. catholic church," says: — • " May I not ask if it be either just or generous to harass the present catholics, with the weakness of the ancient writers of their communion; and to attempt to render their religion and themselves odious, by these unceasing and offensive repetitions I" This has been also said by our priests in their Letter IX.

Werethesesuperstitions, and miracles, and this fanaticism, publicly disowned, and condemned by your church, you should never hear of them from us. But all these false miracles and endless superstitions are printed in your "Breviar}'-," used weekly m your worship : they are read in Latin weekly ; applauded, defended, prayed over, and believed by you, and owned by C. Butler himself; even while he wrote the above sentence ! Your popes applaud them, and on the faith of these miracles they canon- ized the saints which you worship. Your bishops own and applaud them, and pro- nounce their anathema on all those who disbelieve any one part, or parcel of all the fanaticism which I quoted. Only, — they are all in Latin ! Locked up are they, from common view and public execration, in Latin! Every Saint's day, Drs. Power, and Varela and Mr. Levins, pray over these very superstitions, and fanaticism, and miracles: — even while they publicly call them "silJy, dreamy legends!" You canjiot deny your "Breviary !" You cannot disown your book, — tlie "Acta Sancto- rum."

Lot the honesty, therefore, of Mr. Butler, in the above appeal, and that of our priestJs, ])ass for what it is worth.

In addition to my former observations, I have now to state : — 4th. That the Super- stition of the Romish church confirms the melancholy evidence of her utter apostacy from the^only rule of faith. " Sui)erslition," says Bishop UiUU — " is godless religion ;

136 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST,

devout impiety : the superstitious is foud in observation : servile in fear : he worships God, but as he Usts : he oHers to God what he asks not; and all but what he should give ; and makes more sin than do the ten commandments !" In your church, gen- tlemen, there is every gradation of this vice, from the sober burlesque, even to the deep tragic flagellation, and penance. It is, as we shall prove, one mass of superstition.

For instance, it is a part of your religion, to baptize bells, before they are set up. 1 have before me some instructive instances of this : particularly those that took place of the latest dales, in Canada and Naples. A gaudy procession comes into the church, with a priestly attire of motley colors; like some equipped buffoons for the stage : a god father, and a god mother stand up by the Bell, and take the vows ! The dumb thing is wetted in the form of a cross; then crossed with "holy chrism," while the lips of the priest taking the awful name of the Trinity in vain, baptizes it in the most holy name ! The priest tlien gives three strokes with the clapper: the god parents do the same; and then solemnly pronounce the Bell's name. This farce, the disgrace of our enlightened day, is made, moreover, to subserve the cause of a more degrading feiiperstition. The sound of these baptized Bells, as you priests, gravely teach your ])eople, fails not to disperse devils lurking in the air ; and make them scamper off with incredible celerity. It also, you as gravely teach, brings souls out of purgatory. All Saints^ day is, in Canada, and in all Roman catholic lands, a great day of ringing thcso "baptized bells," and thereby bringing souls out of purgatorial pains, and purg- ing the air of devils.

The priest's dresses also teem with superstition. Two things go to secure the divine efficacy of your rites and ceremonies. One is the priest's intention of soul to do " what the church" intends ; the other is his consecrated dress. AVere the priest to officiate without the appropriate garb: and did that want the "holy shape," and "the appro- priate holy color," for the day and occasion, the ])riest and laity would be in a mortal sin. Without the orthodox shape, and color, they cannot be accepted by the Almighty : but it is of no consequence whether the}-- have religion, or even the common decency of morals. All your religion is in the outer man ; and in ceremony, and in the color, aiid shape of sacerdotal dress.

The divine efficacy of prayers uttered in the Latin tongue, which none of the laity understand, is another part of your superstition. You deem it not at all necessary that any one of your people offer up, in his soul, one vow, or prayer, with the understand- inw. Indeed how can he ? He understands not one idea which you utter. The people are thus made a mere tool of: they act without heart and understanding. They do iiot know one prayer. You mutter barbarous Latin words over them. These are viev/ed merely as a charm ; a hocus pocus from the lips of the sacerdotal legerdemain. This nurses the ignorance of an mimovable superstition. The piiest "negotiates" the whole work of salvation for sinners, who go on in a course of impious morals ; and, at the last, the priestly embassy, they are told, is honored in heaven : and the souls are saved by the virtue of outward mummery; — and, provided all the church's dues are paid, their debts in heaven are cancelled.

Farther, the whole aj)pendages of the mass are one train of superstition. I allude, mainly at present, to your prayers offered up by your pious priests and flocks, to saint sacrament. For be it known, that the sacrament is converted into an idol: and to St. Sacrament devout prayers are offered. The Litany of this saint is too long to be quoted: yet I cannot resist the desire of presenting a specimen of these prayers. "Bread corn of the elect, have mercy onus! Wine budding

I

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 137

from Virgins, have mercy on us ! Fat bread, and the dehght of kings, have mercy on us! Cup of blessing, have mercy on us!" And so on. All these prayers are offered, while you bow down to the bread and chalice. That is, they are offered up to the bread and cup ! This I venture to say, throws into the shade, and fairly eclipses all pagan superstition ! " For who ever heard," — says Cicero, — '* of a people making a god of that which they eat, and then praying to it?" But you do make a god of bread, and then pray to it, and then eat it !

The use of incense is a fragment of pagan superstition. This characteristic of popery strikes all who enter a chapel ; it is poured forth from the altar, and the whimsical play of swinging the censor. In old catholic lands the images of the Romish saints, are as black as the pagan saints in their day, by this incessant smoke. Now, your use of incense is not originated by the custom of the abrogated ceremonial law of Moses. Your custom is purely pagan. And had you lived in the times of pagan Rome, none of you, verily, would have been martyrs, and none of you even deemed christians ! For our ancestors of the pure primitive christians, deemed it strictly pagan : and it was even a test resorted toby the heathen, to entrap a christian. If any one consented to burn incense, he avowed thereby his relinquishment of Christ- ianity ; and he was let go as a traitor to Christ, with the applause of the heathen !

The use of holy water is another prominent superstition. At the door of the chapel, each one helps himself from the "holy" reservoir. This is notoriously bor- rowed from the pagan worship. " The Amula," says Montfaucon, " was the vase of water which stood at the door of the heathen temple for the same purpose. La Cer- 6as, in his notes on the well known passage of Virgil respecting sprinkling, saj^s, "Hence is derived the custom of Holy Mother, to provide holy water at the entrance of the chapel, &c." Even the mixture is pagan; it was that of salt and water! And here I remark again, that had you lived in apostolical and early limes, your present superstition would have saved you from martyrdom ; and spared you even the charge of being christians. Dr. Middleton has shown that this was made a test of christian discipleship : if they refused sprinkling they suffered. And Julian Apostate caused the food of christians to besprinkled with "holy pagan water;" and they behoved either to eat it, or starve. Middleton p. 136 — 140.

Your superstition has also engendered many charms and incantations. You are noted for this. No thoroughly devout Roman catholic will stir abroad until he has crossed his shoulders and face : nor converse with heretics, nor read their books, until he has crossed himself, and invoked his guardian saint. The whole of your doctrine of saint's relics, is based on this superstition. They are charms to keep devils and "bad luck," away from the simple faithful. You maintain a brisk trafic in the arti- cle of the " agnus dei,^'' — which is made of wax, balsam and chrism, with the image of "the lamb of God," on it. These Agni Dei are consecrated by the pope, usu- ally in the first year of his ghostly reign. And it is no trifle that will keep the iaithful from having them, or a chip ol' them. Whoever is fortunate enough to wear them, as you teach your flocks, is "safe from all si)iritual and temporal foes; from all p(?rils from fire and water : and from sudden and unshrivcd death. They drive away all devils, and succour women in child birth : nay, they wash away old sins, and give now grace." In evidence of this "See Franc. Cost. Christ. Instit. Lib. 4. cap. 12. And " Devotion and office of the sacred heart of Christ," p. 375. — Crain]>. 304.

In the French service for " St. SacrauKuit," I sec a copy of "two prayers which were found in Christ's sepulchre ut Jerusalem." And whoever wears copies of these

13*

138 BOHAV CATHOLIC CO^T&OTH&ST.

aboat his body, is perfectly safe against all the wiles of the devil : against afl slKBiy thunder, and lightning, and stxiden death! Gl. Proc. No. 60.

Xow, I quote not private superstitions, such as the making a sovereign cure for diseases, as is done in Ireland, out a€ a inece ci clay taken from a priest's grave, and steeped in water ; nor the famous "• Italian soup,*' so late as 1S17, made with a bit of the shirt of Cardinal Gtmsalvi, bculed in it, to remedy all pains and evils, — made and gravely beheved in, at head quaners, — namely at Rome. See Gallifico's Letters, pubUshed in Londcna, 1612, by John Murray: and Glasg. Prot- No. 14^. The super- sdtLons which I have quoted, are solemnly authorised in yomr books, as part of joor belief, and anciem religion.

Another peculiarity of your superstition is the use of lamps and irrzr camdles^ in open day, and as a pan of holy rites. The origin of this must strike every cme, well read in the classics. The Pagans had their procesaons with lamps ; and tapers were kept burning, day and night, befine the i(k>ls. The primitive chri^ians, yon know, ridicu- led this custom oi the idolatroos pagans. Lactantins' words I re(x>ininend to yon, gen- tlemen, and to all your people. "^'The heathen light ap candles to God,** — said this primitive christian with keen ridicole, — ^^^as if hi: lived in die dark ! And dodiey n«y. deserve to pa^ for madmen wiio ofier lamps to die Author and Giver of light ?** See Middleton p. 140—155. Yon cannot answer dns christian father in the negadve. Do you, then, and the laity, take good heed, and see to it : for yon have no commn- niori in this thing with the ancient priinidve christians ? Your gt>iis and aotaU live in the dark:" and •' yon li^t np lamps to give them light.'*

Abstainii^ from meats in Lent, and other seasons, is another Angular attribute of 2/oar snpersdiic». Yonr religion being one avowedly made to consist only in exter- nals, and one avowedly setting a^e all piety, pfurity, and spirituality in the heart : — It tbilows, with you, of course, contrary to our Saviour's words, that "it is vox. that which Cometh out of the heart, diat defil^h a man;" but Aat meat which *' enters into the mouth!'' This, you gravely at"Tin"i; does defile the man! Hence ''Toor disciples, on their ack beds," as Bishop HaU ^id; — " are troubled by oo sin so much a& by this, that they did once eat wteat on a Friday : no repentance can expiate that : the rest of their sios need none!" p. 171, works folio. But can your people not see through the imst c^" fanaticism, — that meat, which God has blessed and made good for our use, can no more defile the soid, than it can spoil a fine thought, or cormpt a pore idea! True, you reply, as you lull them adeep— this would iiold good if religion were in the heart.' But our reiigicm being ezfema/, altogether omtward, andin the acts of the body, the use of meats defiles our religions feelings, and qwils our devotion !

The discipu^e a^d pes^jlvce of your church are strongly marked with supersti- tion. In o|^>L>sidi>n to divine authority you insist on it, that bo^Iy extrtise is profita- ble to all things, even to salvation! Hence your cruel fastimgs, — ^pardiHi me, I mean in olden times. No charge can be brought against mod^n priests that they do not know how to lict uxU! The broad shouldered and farawiry priest, with the vermiDion countenance, was never " fed^or: dry pease and cold water," as Sir Walter Scott says.

It is on the laity that your church lays the healthful blessing of fosting, and season- able lacerations, ajid flagelladons, with the whip ! This mania has occasaonally Ino- keo out in the overfiowings <^ superstidon ; and has drawn bishops and cardinals, and even kings into its vortex. A king of France, and the cardinal Lorrain, have been known to join the ^gdlation, clothed in sackclodi, and armed with " the holy ani saacdiying whip '." And historians tell us, that at a certain seascm of this disci«

ROMAN CATTHOLIC CONfROVERST. 139

pline, the lights in the Church are at the tinkhng of a bell, extinguished : then each devotee seizing the inspiring moment, — strips bare the shoulders; and for an hour no- thing is heard but' the noise of the well applied whip, either on their shoulders, or —it may be, — as profitably, on the benches within their reach ! And if any thing far- ther were necessary, I would point to St. Patrick's recorded macerations of the flesh, as a striking instance of this superstition. Lying on the cold stones, under the open air; repeating daily 150 psalms : making 300 genuflections, his right hand performing 8Q0 motions in the sign of the cross daily ! and dividing the night into three parts : ona third on his knees : one third sleeping ; and one third standing immersed in cold wa- ter ! ! See the Rom. Brev. March 17. Thus St. Patrick spent his edifying days ! ! *

But, by what name shall I call your worship paid to the wood of the Cross? In the holy scripture, the word cross is used to express, 1st., the cruel and ignominious death of crucifiction : and in this sense ''the tree" is " the accursed tree ;" and the person dying on it is, in law, '* cursed :" — thus " cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree !" And thus our Savior "v/as made a curse for us," to redeem us from all sin. 2d. It is taken for the real and perfect atonement of Christ, because this was fully accomplished on the cross. But contrary to the sentiments and faith of the whole christian world, the Romish church, makes the "cursed tree," not only " a blessed tree ;" but the wood tliereof is a real object of worship, with latria ; " Quia Debetur ei latria." See Pontif. Rom. Clem. 8. Roman edit. 1595: folio. Finch, p. 289.

Here, I shall subjoin a specimen of your prayers offered up to the wood of the CROSS. " O Crux, unica spes, &c. O Cross, only hope; hail! in this glory of thy triumph, give an increase of grace to the pious, and blot out the crimes of the guilty !" Festa Sept. 14. " O bona Crux, &c. O good Cross, who hast obtained comeliness and beauty from the Lord's limbs, receive me &c." — Nov. 30th. And many of the good citizens 6f New York have witnessed this idolatrous superstition in the elevation af tlie Cross ; and its being waved about by a little roguish boy ; as he presented it to the prostrate votaries, worshipping a bit of blackened wood! "Behold the wood of the Cross!" cries the priest. " Venite, adoremus! Come, let us adore it !" And all are on their knees : and happy is that favorite one who can only get near enough to kiss it, as he adores it ! ! See Rom. Brev. Sat. of Passion week. There is not a more brutish superstition in the annals of paganism ! I challenge any scholar to produce its match out of all ancient, or modern heathenism !

And the Roman superstition is not confined to priests and old women. The'following is tlie prayer of the priest-ridden ex-king, Charles X. of France, at the baptism of the Due de Bordeaux in 1821. " Let us invoke for him the protection of the mother of God ! the queen of angels ! Let us implore her to watch over his days ; and remove far from his cradle, the misfortunes which it has pleased Providence to atllict his rela- tives; and to conduct him by a less rugged path to eternal felicity!" Shall I call this superstition, or sheer atheism ! It is a fair specimen of the revived Jesuitism of Franco !

The next case is that of Ulric, Duke of Brunswick, who in his dotage, took it into his head to be — not converted, for the Romish church holds no such doctrine, — but " reconciled to the Romish church." Never having known the nature of true religion, he was easily seduced by the Jesuits. He wrote a tract called "Fifiy reasons of tlic

* Tliat is, as papists stale. Wc deny that the venerable Patrick was any such fanatic. In fact, ho lived and taii<^ht in Ireland, before popery overran that country. Wo rank him amonj!; the pious and orthodox servants of Christ. Jf'e puhllcly deny thit St. Patrlcli mis a papist ! The popish "Life" of this holy num, is a disgusting tissue ofnionkisli lictions and talschoods.

140 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

Dake of Brunswick, for preferring the Roman Catholic rehgion to all other sects.'* The following is his last and crowning reason, which I copy literally. It exhibits a new specimen of life Insurance! " The catholics, to whom I spoke concerning my conversion (to Romanism) assured me" says he, " that if I were to be damned for embracing the catholic faith, they were ready to answer for me at the day of judg- ment; and to take my damnation to themselves; an assurance I could never extort," — adds the Duke very gravely, — " from the ministers of any other sect, in case I should live and die in their religion!" See this book recommended by your champion, Dr. Milner, Manch. edit. 1802.

Again : Your doctrine of supererogation is abase, but profitable superstition. Your saints can not only keep all the law of God perfectly you say : but even do quite a great deal over, and above, what infinite perfection requires. This is "the merits of all saints !" It is put, as j^ou gravely teach your disciples, into one grand treasury : arwi the pope keeps the key of it : and he deals it out by way of indulgences, absolutions : — and for the help of all who have no merit ; but on the contrary, much guilt. No man is refused his full share, even to an escape from purgatory, and even from hell : — and triumphant entrance into heaven, — on one small condition, namely, that he pay the full price fixed by the holy chancery book of the pope ; and the dictation of the priest, ill gold and silver ! ! ! Shall I call this superstition ? Or knavery ? Or both ? The pope collects All Saints' merit into a fund : and makes sale of it! I gravely ask the public if they can name a more barefaced system of knavery, practiced on a poor and deluded people, to abstract their money from them, under false pretences ? And espe- cially so, when Dr. Varela, uncontradicted by the bishop, and his associates, has pub- lished the fact, in a newspaper, "that it is a doctrine of the Romish church, that the priests do not know who, or what of their deceased parishioners, are in purgatory!" I therefore, respectfully appeal through you, gentlemen, to our fellow citizens, of the Roman catholic faith, whether these can be good men, or possessing common honesty who avow, that they do not knowivho are in 'purgatory ; and yet take your money in large sums for masses to free your deceased relatives from that place ! What do you call the men around you, who extort money by false pretences? Look to it. I am not your enemy, who put you on your guard ; and tell you, that God Almighty asks no money for masses, and for pardoning your sins. Will you believe the priests ratlier than God? Go to him alone, through the Lord Jesus Christ, — He offers to do it " without money, and without price." See your own Douay Bible, Isaiah 55, 1.

Finally : — I shall oblige you and my readers, with only one instance more, of the incurable superstition of yowc church. I allude to " the feast of asses," — so fa- mous in your churches, until the light of "the heretics' " religion drove this relic of l^rietsly barbarism, I believe, into oblivion ; — at least I have not heard of your celebra- ting it in St. Patrick's, or St. Peter's.

This festival commemorated the flight of Joseph and Mary into Egypt; but the Ass, on which Mary rode, is the most conspicuous personage in the group. Your sacerdotal ancestors selected the prettiest young lady in the town w^here the festival was held ; she represented Mary : she rode on an Ass in splendid attire ; and superb asinine trappings. She rode the Ass into the church, and up to the altar ; high mass was then begun : the Ass, as he was taught by his devout compeers, and fellow wor- shippers, kneeled down at the altar. After mass, an ode w^^s sung by the priests in full chorus TO THE ASS ! ! I shall present a specimen of the original, in Latin and French, and then add four stanzas of " the sacred ode" in the Miltonian stvle, in English: —

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

141

Orientis partibus, Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus, Sarcinis aptissimus,

CHORUS.

Hez ! Sire Asnes, car chantez, Belle bouche rechignez, Vous aurez du foin assez, Et de r avoine a phanlez. Lentus erat pedibus, Nisi foret baculus Et eum in clunibus Pun^eret acuieus.

CHORUS.

Hez ! Sire Asnes, car chantez, &c. Ecce magnis auribus, Subjugalis filius Asinus egregius Asinorum dominus.

CHORUS.

Hez ! Sire Asnes, car chantez, &c.

Saltu vincit hinnulos,

Damas et capriolos,

Super dromedaries,

Velox Medianeos. Hez ! Sn-e Asnes, car chantez, &.c.

THE TRANSLATION.

" The Ass did come from Eastern climes !

Heigh-ho ! my Assy ! He's fair and fit for the pack at all times ! Sing, father Ass ! and you shall have grass. And hay, and straw too in plenty !

" The Ass is slow and lazy too ;

Heigh-ho, my Assy, But the whip and spur will make him go, Sing, father Ass, and you shall get grass, And straw, and hay too, in plenty.

*' The Ass was born and bred with long ears ;

Heigh-ho, my Assy, And now the Lord of Asses appears, Grin, father Ass, and you shall get grass, And straw, and hay too, in plenty.

'' The Ass excells the hind at a leap,

Heigh-ho, my Assy, And faster than hound or hare can trot, Bray, father Ass, and you shall have grass, And straw, and hay too, in plenty."

Here arc beauty, elegance, taste, and devotion combined. I have only to add that the jinxiU was exquisite. The service was always closed with a braying match be- tween the holy and venerable ])riests in full uniform, around the altar, and the laity, ill honor of the ass. The stubborn animal would not regularW unite in their rational service, therefore they condescended to his estate. The priests appropriately " repre- senting the ass," braj^ed in a fine treble voice, three times. This was replied to by tlie devout crowd, who, in full chorus, brayed three times. Then the solemn and as- tonished ass, with his devout cortege Avas led away home to his hay and straw.

No lover of anti((uity, nor modern traveller has yet discovered a parallel to this exquisite piece of Roman devotion!

It is probable, gentlemen, that you may deny the honor of this festival, as you havo my other quotations, with your books lying open before the public. But you are per- fectly aware that this asinine festival is as real and genuine, as is your mass !

I refer you to Du Cange Gloss. Paris Edit, of 1733: vol. iii. 4iiJG. Velly's Hist

142 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

Du France. Paris Edit, of 1561 ; vol iii. 537. And Edgar's Variations of ^oiperiff Dublin Edit. p. 46. See also Recreat. 3Iagaz. Lond. and Bost. Edit. p. 160.

Lastly : — The Roman catholic system has been sustained by Imposture and Frauds. Here I have materials for volumes. I can give only a specimen of gleanings from your Roman cathoUc ^vorks. In former ages of your dark system, you studiousI\' kept the people in profound ignorance : and thus you carried on the imposture with every facility. Hence your sweating images: your weeping images, — tears ran down from their eyes in floods! Hence your images which rolled the ej^es and shook the head ! At the Reformation when sad havoc was made with these miracle makers, several rare specimens were pubhcly exhibited. Instead of brains, these Romish idols had springs and complicated machinerv'- to give motion to the eyes and to the head, and excite the piety of " the simple faithful."

In lands purely catholic, the people, when paying for their masses, wish, very naturally, to know if the soul has received benefit, and is dehvered : — although father Varela has let out a dangerous secret, nemael}- , " that their church teaches that no on€ crt" their priests knows what soul is in purgatory." Well, the priest tells "the simple faithful," that as long as the soul is not dehvered, — by looking into a httle door in the Sacrario, or tabernacle, they can see it, — that is to say, the departed soul, in the farm of a mouse ! "VMien it is set free from the purgatorial pains : that is, when all the money that can be exacted for masses, is obtained, then the mouse disappears! See Master Key, vol, i. p. 168, 170. Contemptible as this may seem to men of taste, yet it is what I should call one of the fraternity's more respectable impostmres, in " the mystery of iniqtiit}'."

It is a matter perfectly evident from the records of your Breviary, — and Butler's Lives, and the Acta Sanctorum, that your whole system has been carried on in the cells of monks and nuns, by one continuous tissue of visions, revelations, and mira- cles. The "Religious," as they all misname themselves, spend their time in manu- facturing this godly sort of ware, for the common benefit of Holy Mother, and " the simple faithful." Miracles are recorded on the pages of Butler's lives, (3 vols. Dub- lin Edit.) "as plenty as blackberries." Saints walk like St. Dennis, ^^dthout their heads. Devils are discomfited by legions. The dead are raised. The wafer is not only converted into Christ's flesh — but is often seen transformed into a Httle babe. I invite my Roman cathoHc and Protestant friends to examine Butler's Lives, the most accessible of books. I offer it for their inspection : and the Dublin copy of the Car- melite scapular. See also the book called " The Frauds of the Monks."

Again : — Your characteristic talent at cursing and excommunicating, in pontifical form, with all its dire effects, has not been confined, in its game, to men and women ! For the common benefit of the faithful, it has been successfully fulminated against four legged beasts, and creeping things. That is to say, your pontifical wrath has been expended not against heretics only ; but against vermine ! WTiat a valuable thing a priest is ! ^Vhenever rats, locusts, mice, have overrun fields, the priest in his consecrated robes, with the grace of intention, to render the rite all efficient, walks over the fields, and sprinkles them, in the form of a cross, with holy water : and so- lemnly curses and excommunicates these vermine. In Provence, in France, the locust were thus cursed sacerdotally ; but, as my author states, they heeded not the holy man, or Holy Mother's fulmination. The pope was informed of their heretical obstinacy! His holiness being infalhble, gave a salutary advice to the faithful. He ordered the obstinate locust to be again solemnly ctursed — in November. It -wsas

1

ftOMAN CATHOLIC CONf ROVERSr. 143

-punctually done. And lo ! all of them perished in one night, — by tlie frost ! See the account of this in Kurd's Hist. p. 229.

The famous Jesuit Toussain Bridoul, and after him, the well known writer Gavin, in his " Master Key of Popery," gives numerous instances of beasts, birds, and bees, pausing miraculously, in their gambols, and graver pursuits, " to bow to, and adore the Holy Mass ! " Petrus Cluniac, Lib. 1. cap. 1. — with whom, of course, you, gen- tlemen, are well acquainted, — gives us some edifying instances of bees adoring, and even dying before the Mass ! One instance is this :•— The wafer being conveyed, some how or other into the hive, — the bees were found dead, — and in the midst of them, the wafer had become an infant Christ!!! I am gravely quoting from your own approved author ;— and you know it, if you know any thing of your own minute history ! And Cantiprat, Lib. 3. Sec. 1. cap. 40, relates that a hive of bees being heard to hymn most harmoniously, — on inspection, the consecrated wafer of the mass was found among them, while they were devoutly humming its glory ! Now this may seem incredible to many! But 1 have only to say that I copy it out of the Roman books. And for my part, I am not surprised that bees should adore the mass ! To me it is far more miraculous that a two legged animal, — a man, with a rational and immortal spirit should sing its glory ! To me it is far more miraculous that rational beings should be able to believe that a priest can create his Creator out of a little wafer, — and then — eat up his Creator ! This is matched only by the every day prayers of our Eutychian heretics, the priests, who make Mary "the mother of God!" And St. Anna "the grand-mother of Almighty God! !" If there be impostures equal tf» this in any part of God's dominions, I should be glad to be made acquainted with them. What is the reason why I cannot get any one of you, gentlemen, to come out, and touch this part of my argument ? The reason is obvious ; you know that what I speak is nothing but truth : and you dare not — and you cannot defend these dis- gusting—but publicly avowed and believed catholic absurdities ! !

You are, of course, gentlemen, well acquainted with the annual miracle of St. Januarius at Naples. The blood of this saint is kept in a bottle ; it is usually a crust ; but on his day, at the invocation of the faithful, it becomes something dijBTerent in the bottle ; — the token of his presence and protection. By the way, he is, you know, the guardian against the eruptions of Mount Vesuvius. Well, on a certain day, after innumerable ceremonies, of which all pagans of all heathen lands, are innocent, — this saint's blood, — if he condescends to be propitious, becomes a bubbling red hquid in the priest's hand. Dr. Moore, the father of General Sir John Moore, and the tutor of the late Duke of Hamilton — in his "Tour," gives a true and full account of this annual ceremony, from ocular inspection. Sometimes the holy saint is rather obsti- nate : he will not soften and dilute his own blood, while it is daylight. Towards th<; evening, the mob becomes very obstreperous ; and chide the saint in no set phrase ; "You sooty, yellow faced old fellow! why will you not yield, and melt at the pious invocation of our priests ?" These words Dr. Moore heard uttered. When it begins to be conveniently dark^ the blood in the bottle becomes liquid, — the priest proclaims it : — then is the boisterous cry of praise heard, in favor of "the beautiful, and fair St- Januarius." So much for the saint who takes care of Naples ; and has the charge of Mount Vesuvius. It is a pretty, and profitable imposture withal. For money flows in plentifully, when the saint yields — that is, melts his crusted blood in the priest's bottle, — and the priest's coffers overflow with silver.

I shall present you another instance of imposture. About seventeen years ago.

144 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

says an eminent writer in 1820, a lady now living in Edinburgh, was on a visit to her Dublin relatives. Through the influence of a Scotch gentleman, she was introduced to a popish chapel, on an occasion when a number of souls was to be translated out of purgatory. The chapel was brilliantly lighted. The priest who sat in a lofty place with a table before him, took care that there should be no exhibition until he was. paid. Several of the relatives of the deceased persons, whose souls were to be released, rose up, and passing before the priest, each laid down a well filled purse on the table. The money being stowed away with a nod of satisfaction, he stated to the audience, now on the tip-toe of expectation, that the souls were actually translated, and in evi- dence of this, they would soon make their appearance. Instantly a moveable part of the floor, a kind of trap-door, communicating, as it were, with the infernal regions of purgatory, slowly opened, and there appeared black, burned, brandered, and seared, little creatures, crawling heavily and awkwardly out over the slanting board. As they began to move about, amid shouts of a miracle, a miracle, the lights were, in order to prevent detection, extinguished as if by magic ! The lady who had eyed these suffer- ing representatives of troubled souls, being within reach of one of them, slyly picked it up in the dark, and conveyed it to her pocket, — for ladies wore pockets in those days, — and canied it home : and pulling it out, to the utter astonishment of all, it turn- ed out to be A CRAB, in a newly fitted on dress of black velvet! This was communi- cated by an eminent clergyman, who had it from the lips of the lady's daughter, who carried off* the emancipated spirit! See McGavin's Glasgow Prot. ch. 78.

I cannot resist telling another, wliich I had from my friend the Rev. W. Wilson, residing near Pittsburg, Pa. He had it from an eminent counsellor, who was an eye- witness of the scene. In their neighborhood, in Ireland, the heretics had been mak- ing dangerous inroads. To check this evil, a miracle was proclaimed ; and it was to be no less than the casting the devil out of a maniac ! A stage was erected in a field, near a morass ; there sat the bishop and his priests in their robes. Our coun- sellor being a Roman catholic, was admitted on the stage. The maniac was brought up, in heavy chains, foaming, and screaming, and gnashing his teeth. The form of exorcism was duly gone through : all was in painful suspense : the priest officiating, then, raising his arms, the right one over the head of the maniac, he cried " Come out of him thou devil P^ That moment a black bird, like a raven, issued from the man- iac's head ; the chains fell off" as by a charm, and the maniac leaped up full of joy, and perfectly restored. The roar of a miracle, a miracle, shouted by the crowd as their eyes followed the black devil flying away into the morass, was deafening.— " But," — said the sly counsellor, "I saw with my own eyes, the crow come out of the priesfs wide sleeve : and every one could see that the chains were so contrived that, by touching a spring, they could fall off* instantly." The knave, in a word, acted the maniac well ; and was well paid for his pains by the priests.

I shall conclude with the imposture of St. Peter's chair. "At the extremity of the great nave of St. Peter's, Rome, and behind the altar, stands, — or rather once stood — a sort of throne," says a late traveller. " This throne enshrines the real, plain, worm- eaten wooden chair, in which St. Peter commonly sat, when he was pope." When the French under Napoleon visited Rome, not being much disposed towards the faith of the simple faithful, they seized this holy relic. Upon a close examination of its decorations, certain letters and figures were traced. It was carefully washed from its cobwebs and dust; and the sentence copied from the back of " St. Peter's identical chair." It was in Arabic character. Alas, for Saint Peter's pontifical'chair. Alas,

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 145

for tlie pope's infallible succession in this chair. The sentence was translated, papists unfortunately for infallibility, — are no scholars in the Oriental languages. — Here is the translation, — " There is one God, and Mohammed is his Prophet! .'" It had been a sad mistake. Instead of Peter's stool from the older churches ; or his seat at Antioch, the ignorant Romanists had plundered a Mohammedan priest of his chair, and thus robbed the mosque to decorate Saint Peter's at Rome. Thus, the pope had been sit- ting from time immemorial, not in St. Peter's chair, but in a Mufti's chair. And hence, as they count their succession by " a chair," the pope has upset his infallibility, and derives his legitimate succession from Mohammed.

I am, gentlemen, yours truly, &c.

W. C, B.

On the same day in which the above Letter appeared, the following Notice was issued in the same Roman catholic paper, which contained my Letter XL, July 13, 1833.

TO DOCTOR BROWNLEE, A PREACHER IN THE MIDDLE DUTCH CHURCH.

Dear Sir — We must again iterate the question proposed to you in the " Truth Teller" of last Saturday.

A proposition was proposed to Preacher Brownlee in our last letter, — " What articles of faith, found in the scripture in express terms, must be believed in order to be saved?" We expect a direct answer from Preacher Brownlee. No subterfuge. The continuation of our controversy with him, personally, will depend on his answer.

John Power,

July 5th, 1833. Thos. C. Levins.

TO DOCTORS POWER, AND LEVINS.

Gentlemen : — You have honored me with a Card, containing a fresh challenge : and in last Saturday's paper, you reiterate it. You could not but be aware when you wrote these cards, that your editor had no less than two letters on hand, from me ; namely, one to Dr. Varel a; and one to you, in the regular order of discussion. Had I been two letters or even one in arrears, you might have had some plausible reason for this zeal and impatience. As it is, — I leave the public to judge with what kind of grace you make this new and bullying challenge. Your editor keeps up my letters, and ludicrously enough offers his columns to you to reiterate fresh calls on me to come out! And yet, he gave me his assurance that he would deal fairly.

Your new challenge is contained in this ungrammatical and blundering card. " A proposition is proposed to Preacher Brownlee ; What articles of faith found in the scriptures in express terms must be believed in order to be saved? The continuation of our controversy with him personally will depend on his answer!"

One aim you have ever kept in view from the first, in all this discussion; — it i;^ this, — to prevent me, by all possible means, from exhibiting in their native doti)rniiiy, the dogmas, and rites of your church. For this purpose you adh(Mvd to " the rt//(\" and would hear of nothing but " the rule ;" even after its evidence was full, explicit, and complete : and after you had exhausted even the last of your borrowed ideas ; and spent the last expletive of ferocious vituperation. It is true, you tlioughl you liad

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146 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

caught me in your trap, when I changed my purpose, and agreed to discuss the Hvle* But, you were not aware until it was too late, that I had laid a trap for you. You were 2iot aware that we were, all the while, drawing you out: and setting you before the American public, in all the unenviable character of convicted Deists ; more vulgar than Paine; and more blasphemous than Voltaire ! I thus succeeded in a double object, — namely, the exposure of your corrupt church, and your personal deism !

And, now, not yet having found an excuse palpable enough to cover your retreat ; you assume an inquisitorial air; and not only dictate to me a subject, which will draw me entirely away from that which the public expect and demand from me : but you take it on you to declare, that unless my answer shall be precisely according to your views, and wishes, you will then retreat, and leave the ground !

But 1 call on you to keep strictly to the point under discussion. Upwards of twenty- Jive arguments I have had the honor of presenting to your consideration, and that of tht3 public; refuting your rule of faith; and exposing the divisions; and novelty of your church; her superstitions, fanaticism, and impostures ! None of these have been answered. If you do retreat, — I here enter m}'' solemn protest against it, before the public, that it can be for no other reason than this, — namely, that you cannot vin- dicate your church from one of all these charges ! If you do retreat, I protest that it shall be pronounced a public acknowledgment, that popery is indefensible before the enlightened American people !

In reply, — the articles of faith put forth in express terais in the scriptures, and necessary to be believed by us, in order to our salvation, are these : — "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." — "There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are or<rE." " God sent his Son into the world to save us." "Thou art the So7i of God ;" " I and my father are ONE." "The son of man came to seek and to save them that are lost." "Jesus the (Son, — is the true God, and eternal life." "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God." "Jesus proceeded forth and came from God." The Holy Ghost is God ; "Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God I" " The spirit proceedeth from the Father :" " and He is also the Spirit of his Son Jesus Christ." Gal. iv. 6.

" Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved : he that believeth not shall be damned," " Shew ye forth the Lord's death, until he come : " Do this, (celebrate the eucharist,) in remem- brance of me." " This is life eternal to know thee the only true God, and Jesusj Christ whom thou hast sent." "If thou shalt believe in thine heart, and confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, thou shalt be saved." " Except a man be born of the water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." "Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish." " AValking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless," — " thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy strength, and thy neighbor, as thyself." " We are justified by the faith of Jesus Christ; and not by the works of the law." "By the works of the law shall no flesh hving be justified;" that is, before God, our Heavenly Father. "By works," the fruits of holiness "is a man justified, and not by faith only," says St. James : — that is, before men, we give evidence of justification by our piety and holiness. By fauh in " Christ's imputed righteousness alone without works, are we justified at the bar of God, in our justification before God. Thus Paul and James are •reconciled, and plainly too, even to an infant scholar !

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 147

Here is a specimen of the articles in express terms of scripture. I omit, for want of room, those about Christ the only king and head of the church ; about " the Man of 5'm:" and about " the mark of the beast on the forehead, and in the hands" which will doom a man to perdition. Now, if we believe these in the heart by the true faith of God, the Holy Spirit's operation, and "if we confess them with the mouth we shall be saved." And I give them in the express words of God, in his scriptures. And who will venture to gainsay the express words of God ? Which of you dare impugn the counsels, decrees, and doctrines of the Almighty ?

And now, having, I hope, fully met your challenge, I demand it, as my right, to go on with the main point in hand, namely, the exposure of the old " Harlot, Mother of Babylon.''^ And, in courtesy, you will allow me in my turn, to challenge you to fol- low me, and my arguments. By the grace of God I shall not retreat.

I am, gentlemen, yours, &c.

July 20, 1833. W. C. Brownlee.

EXTRACTS FROM THE PRIESTS' LETTER XI.

It opens with a grave discussion on " the gentleman" and " the writer." They admit Dr. B. to be " a writer/' but very strongly deny that he is " a gentleman." And they call him

" A LIAR !"

"From your gasconade ' challenge^ to the catholic bishop and priests of New York, to the 1 ast paragraphs, the 'purgatorial crabs' and the 'Mufti's chair,' in your letter No. XI,, there are not ten consecutive lines in your eleven letters, that do contain either a deliberate false- hood, or a. proofless assertion. This will be amply proved ere the present controversy be closed."

" When wilful falsehood is used by a preacher in the most sacred cause that can be un- dertaken by man — Religion : when it is used to subvert the creed of his neighbor, and uphold his own, then the strict and honest appellation for this preacher, though he may be a Ches- terfield among ^virtuous ladies,' — a liar ; no other word can designate the real character of the man!"

Note : — It is much easier to employ this characteristic vulgarity, than to prove one of our arguments a failure, or one of our quotations from Romish books false.

The following exhibits a specimen of the ludicrous, with a little spice of Jesuitical rancor and the repetition of their everlasting '^TUlitudlum.^^ Having mentioned my twenty-five argu- ments, they add, — " but there are two of those ' twenty-five arguments' to which the 'chris- tian public' should especially attend, as truths of a more eminent order. The first is your gross, unchristian, and false charge against the poor catholic servants of this city ; — the other, your sanction of the obscene tale, Lorette. But our catholic rule rests as solid in its eternal strength, and the walls of St. Patrick's cathedral are as free from fissure as if they had not been pelted by the preacher's ' parallel passages' from his ' Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost.'"

Note : — I brought no false charges against " catholic servants." I stated facts whioli can be established in a court of justice. It was protestant compassion that prevented my friend from sending the Ronuin catholic culprit, to Bridewell. And I stated it as a native result of the infamous priestcraft tluit wluspcrs the atrocious doctrine of " legal theft," at the con- fes.sional. I call the attention, once more, of priests and laymen to L. Mulina, vol. ii. 1150, and the extracts from the Jesuit Cardenas : — " Servants may steal secretly from thair masters, as much as tJw.y jud<rcJLlieir labor is iporth, more than the xcages which ihcy receive." It would secure the public safety, and preserve the purity of morals, if the " holy priests," who instil this immoral and dangerous doctrinC; into the minds of " silly women, laden with iniquity," ut

148 ROMAN CATHOLIC CO>'TROV£RSr.

the confessional, were they committed to Bridewell, instead of their less guilty victims. — To these charges I have thus presented facts, and unquestionable extracts from their own books.

I ought not to omit, that it is ludicrous to enrol "this charge against the poor servants. " and my " sanction of Lorette" among the twenty- arguments against the priests' rule I

Having run over their endless repetitions against the holy Bible, our only rule of faith they arrive in their second column, at their old quarters, thus : —

•• Therefore, your rule of faith leads directly and necessarily to Deism and Infidelity Thus. Rev. Preacher and erudite in the '-Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost," is the '■hook in your nose.''

Having spent a quarter of a column in defending their ungrammatical and blundering card, they notice the feast of asses, evidently no novelty to them: and they invite Dr. B. " a^ possessing eminent qualifications to join in the procession of the next feast of asses around St. Patrick's cathedral. '^ But they do not specify whether he is 'to bray, in treble, with the holy priests : or in solemn bass, to bray with the priest-ridden laity !"

There next follows an expression of amazement at our creed, expressed, in substance, in scripture language, in our card. Why, exclaim they, the Arians believe as much ! The Nestorians believe as much, the Pelagians, the Eut^'cians, who confound Christ's ticonatwrcs nto one, and make a female the mother of the Deity, — why they all believe as much '. " In he name of common sense can this be your creed ?"'

Note. They should have added, — and they all professed to believe the same Bible, thei-efore we should throw it away. They all used human clothing and human food; there- fore, to be utterl}- at antipodes v.ith them, and to have no communion with them, we ought to reject both the one, and the other 1

Tiiey close the Letter ■v\'ith anew demand, — too simple to attain their object, which they never lose sight of, namely, to turn us aside from our purpo-e. — ••What article of catholic faith is contradicted by the express texts of scripture, inserted in your new creed ? Let tliis be noted by your christian public."

Sole. I reply, — all the peculiar tenets of popery, saint and image worship, the neic mediators, and mediatrices, the mass, which takes the place of our Lords atonement; holy uatcr, 3ind purgatory, which take the plaee of the Holy Spirit, and his influences; covftssion. and absolution, in which a wretched priest thrusts himself into the place of Him, even " God who, alone, can pardon sins ;" the ghostly supremacy of the pope, who usurps the throne of Him who ""lias all poicer in heaven, and in earth;" infallibility assumed by a vicious and pol- luted priestliood, — from the pope, down to the uneducated priest, who knows not mumpsimus from sumpsimus,"^ in his own Vulgate, — as it thrust itself into the judgment seat of God Almiifhty, — are all opposed to, and contradicted by, these texts. The sword of the Spirit aims a decisive blow at the head, and the heart of the Apocalyptic B-^ast ! And with these, every limb, to the remotest extremity, must die ; and die to live no more I

• A certain zealous Roman catholic priest in the days of the immortal Reformer, Luther, was ab.«olutely so rude and illiterate, that he had, for thirty years, read mumpsimcs, for the Latin word si mpsimus. When the Reformer reproved the barbarism, and offered to put him right, he eave this truly orthodox answer, according to the standard of the unreformable court of RomCj and popery, — " It may be so 1 But I shal not give up 5Jy old MUMPSIMUS, for vour new soipsimvs '.''

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST. 149

LETTER XII.

TO DRS. POWER, AND VARELA, AND MR. LEVINS.

'" Sic et Babylon apud Johannen, &c. Thus also Babylon is, in our John, a figure of the ■eity of Rome ; which is great and proud in empire ; and a subduer of the saints."

Tertullan.

Gentlemen : — ^We have shown that the Roman catholic religion is not found in the Bible ; that, in fact, the whole system is irreconcileable with the word of God. We have also finished our discussion on the superstition, fanaticism, and impostures of the Romish church, and clergy. The subject which now claims our attention in the natural order of logical dependence, is that of the notes, or marks of the Roman catho- lic church.

It is well known to those who are familiar with Romish books, or have intercourse with Roman catholic priests, and laity, that " Holy Mother church" is the main object of their faith. That sect has so completely apostatized from the truth, that it seems actually to have no idea of saving " faith in God, and in Christ." Justification by faith in Christ, and the renovation of the heart by the Holy Spirit, are. doctrines which form no part of their system. They "believe in Holy Mother church." They receive, by faith, all that she teaches : they only aim at dying in her bosom ; this is all the justification, and all the sanctification they look for. " The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord, are these!" This is as often and as sincerely repeated by the Romish sect, as it ever was by the Jews of antiquity. They have, in fact, publicly assumed the very ground, which the apostate Jews took, against our Lord and his kingdom. They not only crucify him afresh in every repetition of the Mass ; but they say we are the children of " Holy Mother Church ;" we are of "her who is the immutable church;" we are of her to whom the Lord gave the promise that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against her." This promise which our Lord gave to his pure, holy, and only church, they insultingly and arrogantly appropriate to them- selves; even as did the persecuting and murderous Jews. The latter said "We be Abraham's children !" and they gravely inferred that the Almighty was bound, in virtue of that, to save them, vicious and apostate as they were. The former, tiie Ro- mish sect, say — " We are of Holy Mother !" And let their character be what it may : though they are at war with God's law, and are rebels against all our Lord's offices, rejecting him as a prophet, by their traditions and infidel rule of faith ! rejecting him as a priest in each renewed rebel act of the mass, which they call a sacrifice for the quick and the dead ! rejecting him as the only king in Zion, by the blasphemous supremacy of the pope! though they practice all vices, and sell even publicly, as at vendue, the pardon of sins, past, present, and future; yet because they are of "Holy Mother," and are in her bosom, they shall all be saved ! And no human being out of her pale, are, or can be saved !

Hence we hear tlic Roman catholic priests and laity pronouncing the solemn dotjui of perdition on all men, — themselves only excepted, who are the exclusive favorites of heaven. To their partizans in iniquity, they say, as men who have taken the keys of the kingdom out of the hands of him who alone can bear ihcm and ^ield them, — "If you die in Holy Mother's" bosom at last, it is no matter what you have been, or have done, or wliat you now are: you arc safe ! Wo are the onli/ church: and the gold and silver, paid for "absolution" and "extreme unctiou,"

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150 R0MA5 CATHOLIC COI^TRO VERST.

wash away siiis ! And as a tokeu of this, tlie priest, counterfeiting as much gravity as possible, wraps up his deluded votary in a rag of old " Holy Mother's" tattered gar- ment : then he dictates a certificate to God the judge, that this said rag of the Roman '•Harlot," is the very robe of the Redeemer's righteousness: and all the church dues being paid, he must, of course, acquit him, at the priest's bidding! And why ? Be- cause God had given an assurance to his true church — not at all to the Roman apos- tacy, — that what she "bound on earth" by way of wholesome discipline, "he should bind in heaven."

From all tliis it must be obvious, whh what anxiety the Roman cathoUc priests endeavor to establish the truth of their church, by certain marks. The most promi- nent of these are antiquity, catholicity, succession, iiniiy. &c. These we are now to discuss.

First: — antiquity. — There are few points by which the public have been more imposed on, than by this claim : " The church of Rome is of the ancient religion." In tlie ears of the superficial and weak, this claim of "the old rehgion," sotmds as a resistless charm. "It is the oZJ religion." And from this they draw an inference befitting men who neither think, nor reason. Instead of listening to evidence and argu- ment as proof of the utter apostacy of Romanism : and, thence, justly inferring that the " age and antiquity" of a rotten carcass only make it infinitely more rotten •, they profoundly and very logically conclude that the antiquity of corruption makes it sweet and good ! "It is the old religion," say they, without stopping to listen to the proof that " Old Mother" has been dead and buried; though pagan-like, she has been set up in her grave clothes, to receive the worsiiip of her children. iVnd because they deem her the " old religion," therefore she is the only true religion. And the name " Protestant," being a new name — some two or three hundred 3'ears old, — there- fore the religion presented under that new name, is new, and a false religion. The public mind must be disabused on this point. And for this purpose I beg your atten- tion to a two-fold sophism in this universal cant of papists about their antiquity.

1st. Antiquity is no evidence when taken alone, of the truth of a theory. Sin and error are as old as Adam. Does that ripen and mellow them into God's truth ? The kingdom of Satan is considerably older than even that of Rome, and the popery there- of. If popery be true from its antiquity, much more so is the kingdom of Satan, the reign of the truth. The Ptolemaic system of astronomy, which placed the earth in the centre, and made the sun and worlds move, as it were, round a grain of sand, is far more ancient than the Copemican : and therefore, by Romish dialectics, conse- crated to the defence of" Holy 3Iother," the former system is true, and the Newtonian system is false ! Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy is new ; it is only some hundred years old. Therefore the systems of Egypt, and the dark ages, are the true philoso- phy ; and Sir Isaac is an impostor like Lutlier ; and his system, like the Reformation is falsehood !

'2. Another portion of your sophistry lies here: the Roman priests designedly con- found the name of " Protestants,'' with the system of religion, which they maintain. And, thence, in true Romish logic, they conclude that because the name ^^Protest- ant,'" bestowed on the Reformers, in consequence oftheir solemn Prof e^f and appeal to a general council, against the decree of Charles V., and the Diet of Spires, in A. D. 1.529, — is a new and recent name, therefore their religion is no older than the name ! Now let us try the force of this delectable Romish logic. '^'Ireland'" is a name of modern date : only some few centuries old. Before this, it was called Hibernia. But

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because the name is a few centuries old, it follows by the certainty of our Romish logic, that the thing itself, — even the Emerald Isle is a mere novelty, and had only a recent existence! "Great Britain" is a new name; it used to be called "Albion;" — in short, England, Scotland, France, America itself, are all new and modern names : and as, by the Romish dialectics, the name and the thing designated by it, are of equal date in duration ; therefore, these countries only began to exist when they got these modern names ! !

In my letter VIII. I examined the maniac logic of the priests. We showed that the Romish church wants the essential marks of the true church. I then offered ten proofs in evidence of the historical fact, that the Romish church and her characteristic sj^stem are a mere novelty ; invented chiefly after the sixth century, by wicked men and despots ; and the very master piece of satan and priestcraft! These we sustained by appeals to historical documents. And if silence be consent, then have the priests given me their unlimited assent to each and all of these ten arguments ! On this mark of their church, I need not long insist. I shall only observe, in brief, that the great fundamental tenet of Romanism, — namely, the supremacy of the Pope, or of the church, is a mere novelty in the history of the church. Pope Zozimus in A. D. 420 seems to have been the first who attempted to set up certain claims of supremacy for the Roman See, over all other churches in the West. And this he tried to esta- blish by an impudent forgery of some decrees, purporting to be the decrees of the council of Nice ; in which he had caused it to be written "that it was lawful to ap- peal to Rome, from other churches." The famous Milevitan council in Africa, of whom your own St. Augustine was a leading and faithful member, opposed and con- demned these impious claims of the Pope. They even sent a special embassy into the East, to obtain from the Greek church attested copies of the acts of the council of Nice.

And by these copies they publicly convicted the popes of Rome, even "the infalli- ble" Zozimus and his "infallible" successors, of falsehood, fraud, and forgery! I shall give you the words of this council, which solemnly denied and repelled the pope's claims of supremacy, so late as the fifth century : — " Q,uod si ab eis, &c. But if they, (the clergy) think it necessary to appeal from them, they shall appeal only to African, Councils, or to the primates of their provinces. If any one shall appeal be- yond the seas, let him be received into communion by none in Africa." The signa- ture of St. Augustine is the fourth to this solemn decree. Sec Mansi Council. Col- lect. Tom. 4. p. 507. Venet Edit. 1785. Finch, p. 15G.

And so late as A. D. 590, Pope Gregory I. declares the apostle Peter " not to be the head, but only a member of the church." See Regist. Lett. Tom. 2, p. 743. And again, "I confidently say that whosoever calls himself universal bishop, or de- sires to be called so, is, in his })ride, the forerunner of Antichrist,''^ &c. See Lib. 7. Indie. 15. Ei)isf. 33. Bedict. Edit. Paris, 1705. In anotlier place, he affirms that the " three bishoprics of Alexandria, and Antioch, and Rome," are from the same Peter, " which is of one, but in three places, — i\ux in tribus locis unius est." Tom. ii. p. 887.

It was not until the days of Boniface IIL A. D. 600, that the pope was raised to the supremacy o( universal bishop. And this was done, not by the will of God, but by ihc civil i)owcrof the ferocious tyrant Phocas, who murdered the king his master, and by murder and treason, usurped tlie imi)erial throne. And even this supremac}', ob- tained by the most atrocious means, extended to the /rc^/rrn churches only. Tho Eastern, and the Greek churches stood out against papal usurj)aiion, and do resist you

152 ROMAZf CATHOLIC CONTROVERSt.

unto this da}\ Now, this supremacy, partial and sectarian as it was, being the device of the poUtical Judas, called Phocas, at the instigation of Western schismatics, in the geventh centun,% where is the boasted antiquity of the Roman catholic sect ? I venture to say that no well read Jesuit can refrain from laughter, without an unusual eflfoit, even while he is putting forth this kna^ish claim of antiquity !

The MASS, the grand arcanum of Roman craftiness, the subUme creature of priest- craft, which lays golden eggs, can boast of no great antiquity. This fiction was, after many a struggle, established in the bosom of Holy Mother, in A. D. 1215; and con- sequently it is now only six hundred and nineteen years old. And I incite any priest, well versed in the history- of the church, to prove any thing to the contrar}'.

Auricular co>"rESSio:y, one of the main springs of ghostly power; the copious source of wealth ; and of all possible wickedness, was finally established b}' Pope Innocent III., in the beginning of the thirteenth century-, and is no older than the Mass.

PuRGATORT, notwithstanding the golden har^'ests which it was foreseen to afford *'Holy Mother," is of a quite recent date. It required all the darkness of the dark ages to brutalize sufficiently the human mind, in Europe, for its faith and reception. The priests had long labored by pious frauds, and miracles, and visions, it is true, to establish the lucrative fiction. But maugre all their influence, it was really not elevated into a proud article of faith among the simple faithful, until A. D. 14-30. This was done by the notorious council of Florence. It is, therefore only 404 years old!

The creation and invocation of saints have long been another profitable affair in your church. In order to make the maniifactor}- of this ware profitable, there must he invocation. Pope Clement XI. created four saints in one day, namely, Pius V ; Andrew of Aveline ; Felix of Cantalice ; and Catharine of Bologna, for each of which he received 100,000 crowns I Here the spiritual job brought him 400,000 crowns, in a couple of hours ! Yet notwithstanding the Romish eflTorts in behalf of this lucrative dogma, the invocation of saints was not fixed, as an anicle of faith, until the ninth centur}- 1

But we must cut short our details. The use and worship of images were condemn- ed so late as A. D. 700, by the council of Constantinople. In the ninth century, the darkest hour of the darkest ages, they were finally set up by impiety and imposture, as objects of worship in your church. Telesphorus invented and brought in the Len- ten feasts. CalLxtus instituted, by arbitrary power, the four ember fasts of the year, Hyginus exerted his genius in inventing the "sacred chrism or oil.'' The marriage of priests was finally prohibited b^-Pope Gregory' YJI. near the close of the eleventh centur}-, say A. D. 1070. And the abstraction of the cup from the eueharist, or the communion ^-ithout tcine, after it had been forged, and invented by impostors ; and opposed by Pope Gelasius, was finally decreed by the council of Constance, which met in A. D. 1414. And it is therefore, an imposition only 420 years old I

And it is due to truth, to observe here, that all these papal innovations, now alluded to, and more fully narrated in my Letter A'lIL, were not quietly permitted to usur]3 the throne of Christ our Lord, and displace his doctrines. On each one of them there was a struggle before the arch-deceiver prevailed. I ana prepared to produce fromjive to seventeen of the best of the fathers against each one of these innovations of Rome. The want of room only, prevents me from quotingthem. St. Augustine with Jerome,, who called Rome " the great Babylon," and St. Ambrose, take the lead. Every Ro- man priest has read of the two " thunderbolts of war" against Romish impositioiLs>—

Roman catholic coNTfioVERst. 153

iaameiy, Bertram, and Berringer, who, in the days of Gregory VII. called also by the more emphatic and appropriate name of " Hellbrand," impugned the idolatrous fiction o£ the mass. Who has not read the immortal Robert Grosthead, the Roman cathoHc bishop of Lincoln, sirnamed the pounding Hammer of the Romish beast ? Who ha& not heard of Gallus, and Petrarch, and a host of others : and in later times of Claude, and Nicholas Clemangis?

On the contrary, every peculiar doctrine, and rite of ancient Christianity, as our Lord revealed it in the holy scriptures, have been religiously believed, and professed by the Protestant church of the Reformation. Call us by any name you elect : call us Protestants ; or the children of the old Italick church, or Waldenses, or Albigenses ; or Bohemian brethren ; or Lollards; or Huguenots; or the associates of Luther ; or Cal- vin; or Zuingle; or Knox. We hold up to public view " The syntagmata Confts- sionum,^^^ '* the collection of the Confessions" of the Reformed Church. On every doctrine, and sacrament of the pure primitive and apostolical Christianity, all the " Reformed churches," are entirely at one. Not so in Rome ; every essential doctrine, and the two sacraments are buried, and utterly lost in the rubbish of " Babylon the Great!"

And were we even to outrage truth and historical evidence, by admitting the Romish church to be a true church of Christ, can any man be so stupid as not to know thait the church at Jerusalem, the Syriac church, which Dr. Buchanan found existing in the interior of India, are far more ancient than that of Rome? Can any man be so ignorant of historical truth as not to know that the churches of Egypt, particu- larly that of Alexandria; and the church of Antioch, and the whole Greek church, are more ancient than that of Rome. Nay, every sensible man knows that the old Italick church was before the church of Rome, as she now is, being the same in doc- trme and rites as the "apostolic church g,f-Rome." The arguments, therefore, of the Roman writers on this point, arc not oply vicious sophistry, but false in fact.

S5d, Catholicity, — The term Catholic, a Greek -vvord, signifies general or univer-^. gal. And the Roman church claims the exclusive use, and honor of this title. They are the catholic, the universal church.

When applied to the church of Christ, "which he bought with his own blood;" as it is appropriately used in the creed, " I believe in the holy catholic church," the Protest- ants understand it thus : — It takes in all those who are, or shall be in the kingdom of God above. "The church," says St. Jerome, "does not consist of walls, but of true doctrine. W^herever the true faith is, there the church is." Oper. vol. vii. p. 388. " The church of Christ," says St. Augustine, — "is in the saints : the church of Christ is in those who are written in heaven: — the church of Christ is in those who do not yield to the temptations of the world." Oper. Tom, iv. Expos, of the 47th Psalm. Again, says he, on the 62 Psalm, — " Christ's whole (catholic) church, which is spread every where, is his body, of which he is the Head." In the same sense do all Protestants correctly use the term. The church catholic includes all who are now in glory out of our ransomed family: all who are noiv in Christ by faith; ami all wlu) shall be in him, the Head of us all.

But the Romish sectarians arc about as modest as some of the EnsUMii princes, who gravely claim dominion over sun and moon ; and derive titles from those cxtcn-. eive and "catholic" dominions, in the heavens! They are the " cathi)lic," the ^'universal" church! They have fiyo arguments to sustain this romanJic claim.— 1st. The apostles gave thcni the exchisive name of catholics. I shall (juotc their owa

154 ilOMAN CAtHOLiC CONTROVERStT.

words; for it explains the singular reason why neither in Rome, nor in New York/ tiie priests ever call themselves christians. " When heresies sprang up, — the name christian was too common to sever the heretics from the true faithful men : hence the apostles by the Holy Ghost, imposed the name catholic on those who are obedient to the (Roman) church's doctrines." See Rhem. Annot. on Acts xi. 26, and 1 John ii. 2. and Bell. De Eccles. iv. 4. That is to say, — for this Romish mysticism needs a translation, — the apostles who wrote the scriptures in Greek, and who, themselves, belonged principally, and especially to the Syriac and Greek churches, without any command from heaven, gave to an obscure Jewish assembly of christian converts at Rome, consisting probably, at that time, of a few hundred, the title of" The univer- sal church of Christ /"

You may gravely ask where any one can find the command, if any ever was giv- en; or where any statement is made in civil history, authorizing the belief, that the apostles of our Lord, in the midst of the great and flourishing churclies of the East, such as those of Syria, and Egypt, and Greece, took it solemnly into their heads to bestow the title of " church universal or catholic," on a few obscure christians in Rome ! I answer no one has been yet bold enough to risk his character in asserting, with proofs out of ancient documents, that the apostles did so. The simple word of llie interested " infallible," is all that has been pleaded. But if there be no weight in the estimation of all who do not believe by proxy — there is a second argument resort- ed to by the romantic advocates of popery. '* They are the catholic or universal church,''^ say they — "because in respect of time, place, and person, the Roman church has always been in the world ; in all countries in the world : and has flourished in all nations!" That is to say — for this needs a friendly exposition : " The Romish church has always been in the world," — except Vvhen the Jewish church existed; — which was before the Romish church had a being! " The Roman church has aluxtys been in the world :" That means for a few centuries ! " The Unman church has been in all countries, in all the world," That is, except in Asia, and Africa, and the greater part of America, and some of the most extensive empires of Europe. " The Roman church has flourished in all nations. Except England, Scotland, Holland, Ireland, Denmark, Russia, Prussia, all Asia, all Africa. " The 1\ man church takes in all people." Yes, except about eight hundred millions out of 7??,.2 hundred millions of the human family. "The Romish church will o/tyai/s be in i lie world," except from the close of the 1260 years, and the whole period of millenium, when she will be annihilated by a catholic overthrow.

Such are the ludicrous and maniac claims of this sect of schisn-r^iics, to catholicity, or universality ! The person who does not see the absurdity of ihis, most assuredly merits our pity and compas.-5ion. The claim of " catholicity" in fact, sets all sober reason utterly at defiance. The pope, prelate, or priest, who sol ^d}^ claims ihe title of "catholic" for his sect, must either be forsaken of reason ann - <.mmon sense, and thence be a maniac : or which we believe to be the truth of the t :i^e, he acts the im- postor and knave. And, conscious of the ridiculous nature of his claims, like the char- latan, he advances them with an unblushing* impudence to ehrat his votaries into compliance, by his lofty and swelling words of vanity, merely to advance his own interests, in his pretensions to ghostly and temporal power. "A f*. man catholic!" That is to say, in plain Enghsh, " a particular general!" "A Ron. m catholic." Thai is to say, — the little affair called " Rome," is all Syria, all Greece, all Asia, all Europe, all America! "A Roman catholic!" That is to say, the little comer

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONtiEiOVfiRSir. 155

a^d nook of ^^Rome,^* is catholic, — is all the world, all the universe! And the few bigotted dogmas, invented by the most worthless of men, for the most infamous of ends, namely the extinction of religion and civil liberty, form the whole religion of the whole world !

" Oh ! judgment, thou hast fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason." The church catholic and universal is — we repeat it, — a glorious assembly. It embraces all those who are now in heaven ; or on the earth, walking in the unity of tlie spirit, in the beauty of holiness, and the bond of peace : or who shall yet, in due time, be united to Christ; and shall ere long, reach "the general assembly, and church of the first born." But what man, in the sober exercise of his reason, did ever apply this title of the "church universal" to a sect of ajpostates from Christ ; con- temptible even in point of numbers, compared with the great mass of the human family, who composed the true church of the Jews : and the true church of the New Testament. A sect, moreover, which has filled the ears of all good men with direful rumors ! A sect which has made the very heavens re-echo with the horrid cries of treason, rebellion, and crime ! A sect which has drenched the earth with the blood of sixty-eight millions of human heings, whom it has sacrificed on the altar of its bloody and horrid superstition.

It deserves to be noticed here that various sectaries, besides the Roman church, have affected to call themselves " catholic ;" and to boast of their numbers. For instance, the Donatists did so, in the days of St. Augustine. See Aug*. Epist. 48- The Pelagians also set up claims to this inordinate title ; as appears from St. Jerome, Lib. 3. Advers, Pelag. " Quid si te alius catholicum dixerit, &c." Wliat if another call thee catholic ? Shall I give consent?"

But it is remarkable that neither they, nor, as I have just observed, the Roman catholics, have ever adopted the holy and honourable name of Christian! It can be shown from respectable authors, and it is an extraordinary fact — that the Romish priests, from time immemorial, have despised this venerable and divinely appointed name. "It is notoriously known, that in Italy, and at Rome, the most honourable name of Christian, is actually a name of reproach; and usually it is abused to signify a fool, or a dolt! see Christ. Franch. coll. Jesuit, near the end ; and Fulk's Refuta- tion of the Rhem. Annotators. Acts xi. 26. And in our day, if any humble soul should happen to stumble into Rome, the See and country of the Antichrist, and should venture to call himself a Christian, in what may be termed the second rate society, of archbishops and bishops, — he would be received with peals of laughter and merriment, as some antideluvean creature ! But if he avowed himself, in the simplicity of his soul, to be a Christian in the Pope's presence, before his godly court of cardinals, he might deem himself fortunate if he escaped a dungeon, or assassination.

I cannot close without observing another material evidence against your claims to " catholicity." These claims are not only illegal, absurd, and contrary to historical evidence; but actually contrary to the doctrine of Christ and the sentiments of your best fathers. " Fear not little flock," said our Lord : " Many are called, few are cho- sen." And St. Jerome writing against the clabns to catholicity, set up by the Pelagians, says in his third book against llicm; "The multitude of your feUows doth not, therefore, prove you a catholic ; but rather a heretic." See also S(. Auguslinr, De Pastaribus. And one of the more sensible of your Popes, namely, Niohohis I. in his Letter to the Emperor Michael, says, — " A small company hinders not, wliere

156 R0MA5 CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

piety aboundeth: neither does a great company further, where impiety abounds: glory not for the multitude, for not the multitude, but the cwse justifeth, or condemneth:''

Finally ; — From the sixth centur}-, no one of your advocates can establish any true claim of coanection, on your part, as a church, with the church of Jesus Christ. The Eastern churches indisrnantly cast off yr)ur infamous usurpations, over them : so also did the African church, widi your own St. Augustine at their head. You have been continually diverging from the good old church of God at Rome : and the good old Italick church, from whom our pure and holy forefathers, the Waldenses and Albi- genses proceeded. You, like Islimael, are against ever}' section of the church of Christ : and ever\' church against you. You are no longer the pure river of God wa- tering the earth ; but the sluggish and muddy bayou, bursting forth from the majestic and chrystal river of God ; and threading 3-our way, amid the putrid exhalations and swamps of a Dead Sea ; sending forth, to an immeasurable extent, moral pestilence, and death, over the nations.

On the whole, the Protestant faith is not only the most ancient, but the most true cath- olic faith. With the church of God in all ages; with them on earth: and with them in heaven, we are perfectly at one, on every doctrine, and on each of the sacraments, which have characterized the church, the chaste spouse of Christ. We, therefore are, of the true catholic church of Christ, — you are the Roman cathohc church of Anti- christ. We move forward under the pure white flag of the Redeemers standard; the' true, cross of our Blessed Redeemer: you move on in darkness and in blood, under the standard of your prince, Abaddon, "your king, the angel of the bottomless pit."' But I must nause. I am, srentlemen, yours, &c.

W. C. B.

CARD.

It is necessary to remind my readers that the priests, in their second challenge chose to make it a condition of their continuing the controversy, that I should aban- don the attack on their system, and defend the Protestant system. I promptly declined obedience to this unreasonable dictation, being determined to force my way into their verj' citadel, and into the interior of the "chambers of imagery." They declined publishing any reph'- to me, last Saturday. Having prepared the preceeding letter, I sent a card on Monday morning to Mr. Denman, editor of the Roman catholic print, requesting him to say whether I was correct in understanding, the information conveyed to me from his office, through my friend Mr. T. ; namely that no more was to be pubhshed by him on either side. In reply to this Card, I received a letter, abusive and insulting; while the \sTiter took care to answer me neither negatively nor affirmatively. I replied by again soliciting a definite answer, whether he would allow me to go on as usual, in his Columns. I waited two hours and a half for his reply ; none came. I then entered into arrangements to have my letters published simultaneously, in the three papers which have hitherto copied them from the Roman catholic print ; and, at the time, sent a copy of uiy letter XII. to the office of the Roman catholic paper. And it is proposed, by the grace of God to follow up the retreat of the priests, by a letter ever}^ second week, until the end of August : and then by a short letter weekly, until the ^^ctory shall be complete.

W. C. B.

HOMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST. 157

In The Truth Teller of August 3, appeared this Editorial Notice.

'"' Dr. Brownlee has sent us the following communication as his answer to Drs, Power and Levins' Letter No. 12, published in our last. We consent as a matter of courtesy to its appearance — and also to gratify Dr. Brownlee whose private communications to the editor for publication, are of th« most urgent nature. In complying with Dr. Brownlee's solicit- ations we must here state, that unless he will confine himself to the topics under discussion we must close this controversy."

This " communication" was nothing more than the introduction to my Letter XIL, which, by a. private message, I had begged the editor of the R. catholic print, to place at the head of the manuscript Letter, which had been some time in his hands. It follows : —

TO DRS. POWER, AND VARELA, AND MR. LEVINS.

Gentlemen : — I have carefully read your 12th letter on the 27th of July. You are heartily welcome back again after your temporary retreat. Stand to your post, I exhort you, as good Romans ; we are only beginning the tug of war. But seriously, I thank you for your letter. It helps on my cause marvellously. What a miserable cause must yours be, when Bishop Dubois's THREE sclcct champions can venture out, before an American public, with such a production as this ! Hence I thank you for it ; it establishes with fresh evidence, all I have advanced relative to your deism. The evidence is now full and running over.

I agree with you, also very cordially, in believing that no small degree of degradation attaches itself to the labor of detailing out of your books, the accounts respecting " the Duke of Brunswick ;" " and St. Patrick's miracle," and " St. Dennis carrying his own head, after he was beheaded," — " and your Du Cangis' account of your feast of the Asses," and the true "accoimt of the purgatorial crabs, with their velvet coats," and "St. Peter's chair plundered from a Mufti's mosque." I admit that it is degrading in your historians to detail them. And one really feels himself lowered to be compelled to quote such trash ! But then what must be the infinitude of the degradation of the "infallible pope," and the "infallible church," and of the " infallible priests of Rome," who have gravely recorded ail this impo- sition, in their devotional books, — ay, in their Breviary ; and do solemnly command their votaries to believe it all, on pain of damnation ! Yes, hypocrisy will affect to deny all these ! You even affect, in matchless assurance, to treat them as fictions! This is pure homage to our enlightened American public; and an item of that Jesuitism, by which all Roman priests are sworn to conceal their real tenets and rites, from the eyes of protcstants and republicans. You and your bishop know that if you were in Italy, or in Spain, and ventured on the disbelief of these miracles ; or even the affectation of ridiculing them be- fore enlightened men: — yes, if you were heretic enough, in Spain, to smile at the headless St. Dennis carrying his head under his arm; or at the edifying tales of other saints sailing over the sea, on their cloaks, with their companions for ballast, — you would forthwith be the inmates of dungeons ; and escape burning only by a well timed recantation on your knees !

Your ultra " zealotry," is "ambitioning" too much, to use your classic style, when you find fault with my scriptural creed ; or indeed any christian creed. The religious public can- not but smile at three men, publicly convicted of open and avowed deisin, affecting to sit in j udgment on a christian creed !

In fine, as there is not a new idea in all your letter; and as I have proposed (o niysclf to go forward into " Holy Mother's" chambers of inuigery, oven wore its oiitranco giuuHlod by Cerberus, with its three lioads. I shall go on with the regular discussion.

This letter was published in the Christian Intelligencer of last Saturday : to which we refer the readers of the Trutli Teller.

W. C. Brownlee.'" 15

153 ROMAN CATHOLIC COXTROVEllST.

A CARD.— To THE Public.

The editor of the Roman catholic print called "the Truth Teller," lias now in his handf^ TWO letters from me, which he has refused to publish : namely, one addressed to Dr. Varela, designed to expose the impiety and blasphemy of the title '' the Mother of God,'^ which the Romish sect has invented, and long used in its idolatrous worship of the Virgin Mary: the other, is my twelfth letter to the Rev. Drs. Power, Varela, and Levins. He has assigned ik) reason why he refuses to publish the^rst. He seems to offer two reasons for refusing Ici publish the last. First, he aftects to refuse its admission into his columns, because it appeared in other papers. Now, this is extraordinary : for this twelfth letter was put in manuscript, into Mr. Denman's hands, by my friend, actually two or three entire days before any paper pub- lished it ! Nay, he had actually refused its admission, and had put the Priests' letter in its place, before he knew that other papers icould publish it on the same day. So much for Roman truth ! The second reason is this: "It does not come to the point; it is no reply to the Rev Priests." And he is pleased to repeat this, in his last Saturday's paper, in these words, — '• Unless Dr. B. icill confine himself to the topics under discussion, ue must close this cvntro- r-ersy.'" Now, I Avill not gravely offer to refute what the asscrter himself never has believed. He and his readers know well that I have stuck ''terribly'' close to the topic under discus- sion : and the excoriations of the retreating priests make them feel it. No one, it is true, can claim any merit in doing this: one only sees what a plain, and simple exposition of gos- pel truth and historical facts can do on the bare nerves of a culprit's guilty conscience ! Does any man think so meanly of the intellects of Drs. Power, Levins and Varela, as to im- eigine for a moment, that tliey seiiously believe in all that impious nonsense which consti- tutes the doctrines and rites of the Romish sect? No, they laugh it to scorn, while they teach it. What Cicero spoke of the old Roman Augurs, I apply as a scourge of scorpions to these priests. After they return from the exhibition of this buffoonery, trumpery, mira- cles, and mummery in the chapel, " they cannot help laughing in each other's faces, as ther pull off their motley robes, and charlatan dress!"

But even admitting that these men did think my letters wide of the point, and that "I never confine myself to the topics in discussion," who constituted JViUiam Denman and the Priests, the judge, counsel, and jury, to pronounce on me ? I tell these men that I am the only and sole judge of what I deem fit to saj^ : and the christian public is the only umpire between us. But, after all. if the editor and his holy council of priests deemed my letters " so silly, so extravagant, and so wide of the point," do they not see that this teas the very reason why they should publish them ? Yes, publish them, and cover the heretic with confusion ! It is proper here to state, that the editor of the R. catholic paper, took it upon himself not only to withhold my Letter from his readers , but to convert my short introduction, into a formal Letter, and even to forge and append my signature, as above, to these introductory sentences. And he has, moreover, had the audacity to insert a sentence which I did not ■write, in order to serve tlie purpose of making me convey the idea that I meant to give my Roman catholic readers no other answer whatever, to the last Letter of the priests, than the above.

As it now is, I deem it disreputable to any man of honor, to have any further intercourse with him, in the premises.

I siiall, therefore, offer no more of my letters to his columns, until he publish the two letters which he now has on hand : and also make the amende honorable before the christian public for these crimes which he has committed against good taste, honor, and sound morals.

I am respectfully, August 5, 1833. " W. C. B.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSr. 159

LETTER XIII.

TO DRS. POWER AND VARELA, AND MR. LEVINS.

"Ante Nicaenum concilium sibi quisque vivebat: Et ad Romanam Ecclesiam parvus liabebatur respectus." iEneas Sylvius, Pope Pius II. Epis. 288.

Gentlemen :— We noticed in our last Letter, your idle claims to antiquity and catholicity. I have now to observe, —

3d. That succession is another mark claimed by the exclusive Roman catholic sect. By this their writers mean to convey the idea, that their sect alone is that church to which Christ gave the promise "I am with you:" and the assurance "that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." They alone, say they, have the direct lineal succession from Christ by St. Peter, and the other popes : all the other claim- ants in the Greek church, the Syriac, the African, the Old Itahck, the Waldensian, and Protestant church, are all, to a man ""damnable heretics, for which there is no sal- vation ; it being impossible that God can save any except Roman catholics.'" This is the genuine and immutable doctrine of the Roman sect I And your books contain- ing this insane doctrine lie open before the American public I

I will not discuss here, the question of ordination. I simply observe that we advo- cate it on gospel principles ; and reject with abhorrence, the superstitious and fanatical rite which Romish priests are pleased facetiously to call ordination, and consecration ! It has no more authority from Christ the only head of the church, than has any rite of Mohammed, or the living idol of Thibet. This we noticed formerly. There must be a call of God's providence (Heb. 5. 4.) and a call of a church given to a pastor,- — " Come over and help us." The man who wants these, has no right before God, or the church, to ordination. He who wants these, " climbs up another way," and has the seal of reprobation branded on his forehead, "as a thief and a robber !" Such is the appointment and destination of the Roman priest by his bishop : no call, no con- sent of " the church," is asked for : they are ipso facto, usurpers, put " into livings," by ghostly tyranny, and usurped power. The whole system is a conspiracy against Christ's crown and authority, and an outrage on the consciences, and rights of freemen.

In their claims of succession, the Roman sect ludicrously assert that they have an unbroken line of descent from "Christ the first pope," through " St. Peter the second pope," down to this day. This is ingeniously figured forth, and proved, by a painting to be seen in Roman catholic families, and which wa? described to me, the other day, by a friend of mine, to whom it was shown in Philadelphia. In this portion of their " genuine tradition," strong as proofs of holy writ, Christ is represented as ascending: and a stream of his blood is issuing in an arched line from his veins ; and is entering into the veins of St. Peter; and through him into the veins of the popes, in regular succession. Hence they are the genuine successors " by blood relationshiif.'''' And this morsel of tradition, ingeniously committed to paper, is more firmly bclit'ved by "the simple faithful," than is any passage in all the New Testament. Such is the force of invincible but culi)ablc ignorance.

Now, to reap any benefit from ''the succession,'^ one wouhi unturally sujiposo tlutt the "universal particular church of Rome," should first, prove their succession ; an(i then prove their exclusive succession. For ho who cUiiins all the iulicritaiice, and

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leaves none to any other, must, of course, prove that no one but himself is heir. But unfortunately for these exclusive claims of the Roman bigots, the Greek church has genuine apostolical descent. The church at Alexandria, in Egypt, had it ; the most ancient and famous churcii at Antioch has it, and has its Patriarch sitting in St. Peter's chair to this day ; also the church of Africa, once so famous ; and through the genu- ine Old Italick church, from which your sect apostatized, the Waldenses had their true, apostolical succession. Then hear the words of your own Pope Gregory I. of whose writings you and your bishops are so scandalously ignorant. That "saint," and pope has declared, and you ought to know it, that " St. Peter's primacy descend- ed to three bishopricks, namely, that of Antioch, of Alexandria, and of Rome." See his EjtIs. 40. Lib. 7. Tom. ii. p. 887. Paris Edit, of 1705. iVnd, moreover, he pro- nounces the title and claims of " Supreme and universal bishop,''^ to be the invention of antichrist, who was already in the world." — Even a priest's ignorance cannot deny that St. Gregory the pope wrote this. Now, if you believe him, you must renounce your exclusive succession : if you do not believe him, then do you pronounce him a lying heretic : and therefore " the infallible" " Holy Mother and pope," who canonized him, and "the infallible and immutable Holy Mother church," who worships him on his saintly day, is no more infallible and immutable ! Choose ye with which horn of this dilemma, you shall be pierced, and ecclesiastically slain.

You are perfectly aware that no satisfactory historical evidence has ever been pro- duced by your writers that Peter ever was at Rome. Every intelligent Roman ca- tholic is aware that it rests solely on the fictions of interested priests. Several writers have, on our side of the question, entered into accurate chronological arguments to show that Peter never was there, as a presiding teacher. I beg to refer to Willet's Synoysis Papismi, p. 141. There is no evidence in the Bible that Peter was at Rome; far less that he was a pope. If he was pope, how utterly inexcusable, un- dmiful, and wicked, must St. Paul have been. ; who resided there so long; and never had the grace or good manners to salute him, or send his due pontijical salutations, or even to mention the name of " the lord your god jjoye Peter /" Nay, if " lord Peter" had been pope, he must have been a most unprincipled man. For Paul, when brought before Nero, at least two years before Peter's death, says, "At my first answer, no man stood by me : but all men forsook me : I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge." Now, you must admit, either that " lord Peter," was not pope, and not even present in Rome ; or that he was a foul traitor to Christ, and the cause for which Paul was nobly suffering. You insist on it that he M'as present; that he was pope. Therefore you compel us to believe that you and "the Holy Mother church" are no- torious slanderers of 3' our own pope Peter.

Besides it is singular that your writers should betray such ignorance of your own canons. I beg you to look into i>ecref. pars. I. Cap. 2 Anacletus, &c. These canons make your ridiculous fictions about Peter's headship, stand out in bold relief. I shall quote the canon, — " Ambo Ecclesiam, &c. Both Paul and Peter did consecrate the Roman church." Irenasus says the same. Lib. iii. cap. 3. And, as St. Paul was "not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles;" and did even administer a severe apostolical, and therefore a super-pontifical rebuke to " lord Peter, the pope," — you must, to make your succession and exclusive claims good, show the evidence of your succession from "lord Paul," the pope, also. Or, as a necessary alternative, you must abjure the Bible evidence ; and what is more with you, you must abjure and deny your own canons. Or, finally, if you choose for once to be honest men, renounce

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your absurd succession. " Quid faciam Romse, — mentiri nescio," — "What can I do at Rome, I cannot fabricate lies," said a true prophet.

But, gentlemen, even admitting that the apostles had successors as apostles, which, we have already proved, they had not ; and even admitting it possible that you can get over the infinity of historical and chronological difficulties, which every body sees lying in your way, — your succession has failed, and is lost in inextricable ruin! This I took the liberty of proving in my Letter IV. and you made no reply: you durst not touch the subject: your silence was ample evidence that you cannot disen- tangle the question of succession from its labyrinth of confusion, and contradictions. There is not one sensible man among you that, for one moment, believes it. I should insult your intellectual powers did I even insinuate that you, gentlemen priests, do yourselves believe this " fundamental tenet." And as for "the simple faithful priests" who know no better, and "the simple faithful laymen," who believe infinitely more than they know any thing about, — why, they believe in the succession and the de scent of the " holy prastes,'^ just as strongly, and on just as good evidence, as do the intelligent pagaus of the East, that " the world is a large flat body, resting on the back of a huge land turtle!"

I shall only add here that your line of succession from the apostolic church is bro- ken off, by the total and utter loss of the bond of holiness. You are " The man of »in," trafficking "in sin," and in "the souls of men," as I shall show, when I come to indulgences, and the pope's chancery book containing the registered price of every sin, and the fixed price of men's souls! The succession of doctrine also is utterly and incurably destroyed. This I showed in Letter VIII. You have renounced every grand peculiar doctrine of the gospel : even your recognition of the Trinity, is merely nominal : the main object of your worship is " The Queen of heaven," she who "commands her son," — namelythe Virgin Mary, she is in your spiritual heaven, and in your temples, what Fewws was in the East, and Jupiter w^s among the Greeks and Romans! You have practically lost the most holy doctrine of Trinity, utterly in your thirty thousand gods and goddesses, usually named saints, and saintesses ! And this being the case with the object of divine worship, it is easy to see that not even one essential doctrine of the gospel has kept its place in your system. All these have been quenched in your heavens i All is dreariness and darkness : your skies are covered with a veil of blackness: no one solitary star sparkles there ! Now this being the case, hear the words in St. Clement's Epist. I. which you admit to be genuine ; St. Peter there declares that " the true succession is in the succession of doctrine." Also your Pope Felix says — " Qui participes, &c. those who would share the apostleship, must follow the apostles' doctrine." So also in your Decret. P. I. dist. 40. cap. I. " Petrus, &c. Peter left the inheritance of innocence to his heirs." And let me add a valuable extract from Gregory Nazianzen: — "To fuvyap&LC. He that holdcth the same doctrine is of the same chair ; but he who is an enemy to the doctrine, is an onemy to the chair." Orat. 21. In Laud. Athanasii: Paris Edit. 1778. Therefore your succession is broken ofT utterly, and forever!

This is not all. We sliall pay our respect to some of the prominent popes, through whom you claim your "holy and unbroken line of succession." A simple detail fron:^ history will show what kind of a thing this "holy and unbroken line of Roman suc- cession" is.

The popedom of Peter, and that of /onn, the female pope, rest on ctpial evidence. Peter's papacy was not mentioned for several centuries after his death : Joan's was

15*

16*2 SDMAX CATHOLIC COTHOTEaST.

not registered (6i two hundred years alter her decease. Bat even supposing the fictit>a true, that he was pope in good earnest, the Roman writers, and even the ancient fathers cannot agree who were the immediate successors of lord Peter, the fisherman ! Seven of the fathers with Augustine, make Linus the second bishop of Rome. Tertul- Uan and the Latins make Clemens the seccmd. Cossart, Ld his great work, the Con- cilia^ cannot determine ftt)m any existing evidence, which of these was the succesaur of lord Peter. He nranklv admits ''the uncenainty of the pontifical succession."" Latterly the supposition inclines to favor Linus. But, it so happens thai '• the Apo*- t jlical constitutions" bear witness that Linus, your second pope, was ordained not by pope Peter, bat by Paul. This fairly upsets the succession from lord Peter, by Linus. See Ap. Con. Lib. vii. 46, and Labbeus, Lib. L 63.

A^ain, Baronius, Bellarmiae and others make Cletns, and Anacletns two different pDpes : Cotelerius, Fleury, and others make them the same man : Bruys and Cossait declare that it is perfectly uncertain whether they were, or were not the same man ! Twenty other Roman writers have entered the lists to senle this interminable point ! See Cotelerius, Tom. i. p. 387. Binii Concilia Tom. i. p. 30, &;c., &;c. ; Edgar's Va- riations of Popery, p. 75, Dublin Edition.

The learned and solemn triflings of Rormsh writers fully establish this point, — namely, that there was not a soul of them that knew any thing about the papal suc- cesision! And the sum of the whole is this, — it is a truth abont as certain, and as valuable, as that of the true successor of Robin Hood, or Jack, the giant killer I Thus gentlemen, to avail myself of a truly expressive Lishism, — the pontifical sncces^ion was fairly cut off, before it began !

But passing tins, — and supposing the impossible thing to have happened, the grand schisms have utterly cut off your succession. Dr. Geddes in his valuable work, in tour volumes on the papacy, enumerates tictnty-fouT schisms ; your Baronius twtnty- six : Onuphrius the mt^t accurate of writers, makes thirty . this, said Edgar, in his Variations of popery, is the conmionly received estimation. The detailed account I have before me by Geddes and Edgar : and could I find rcK»n ^r it, I shoidd exhibit a history of wars, bloodshed, perjury, treason, blasphemy, and the most horrid impieties, reigning triumphant in the very throne of the pope, and in all his dominions ; and unparalleled in all history I A few specimens I shall glean from the principal writers.

The second schism was between popes Libeiios and Felix in the fourth centmy. Felix was chosen by the Arian faction to oppt^e Liberius, who was thence bani^ed- B ut ua^-ing signed the Arian creed, he was recalled : then conmienced the bloody wars between these two Arian popes. '• The wars ra^ed Iodj. the clerer were mur- dered, by the opposing factions, in the very churches."

St. Augustine, and Jerome, followed by the modems Fienry, and 3Iorery, Tom- iv. p. 42, unite in pronouncmg pope FeUx an Arian heretic ! St. Aihanasius, Ad So/., calls him a monster raised to the Roman hierarchy, by the mahce of Anu-christ ! See Labbeus, Tom. ii. p. 991. — ^Bruys, Hist. Des papes, Tom. i. p. 123, Edgar's Var. p. 76.

And will the American public believe me, when I declare to them that these two bloody monsters and Aricm heretics, were after all their minrders, perjury, and heresy, s<)lemnly enrolled in the ghostly list of Roman saints ! St. Felix ! St. Liberius ! TJiese are their titles. And here are the words which our priests address to them in prayer, on their festival days, — even to these murderers, and deniers of our Lord's deity.

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^'■Oh! St. Liberius, the light of the holy church, lover of the divine law, whom God loved, and clothed with the love of glory, — procure for us by thy interceding merits, the pardon of all our sins P' See Rom. Breviary, p. 35. And Rom. Missal, p. 14. The same worship is to this very day, offered up to the bloody and atrocious Felix asc saint, a pope, a martyr! And to this kind of gods, do Drs. Power, Levins, and Varela, offer up this kind of prayers ! If they neglect to do it, they know that they are perjured men. For they have taken the great oath to do it, and to do it regularly, <m pain of damnation in their soul, and their body !

The fourth schism was between popes Eulalius and Boniface in the fifth century. After m-any shameful scenes, the emperor decided the matter, and by imperial and military powers, commanded Boniface to be pope! It is evident that at this time, the Roman emperor dictated the election. Our priests, and "Holy Mother," must there- fore admit that Peter's spiritual lordship had, at this early period, yielded to the tem- poral power of the emperor Honorius, and his successors.

The seventh schism was originated by popes Silverius and Vigilius, in the sixth century. The first was elected by simony and fraud; and he was ordained by foroe and violence. He was created pope by the king of the Goths. Vigilius his rival was elected by another faction, by simony and fraud, equal in atrocity, to that of his antagonist. He received 700 pieces of gold, and the popedom from the empress Theodora, on condition of his aiding her purposes. This he accepted ; and was raised to the papacy. This "holy and infallible pope," in order to get rid ofhig rivals, suborned false witnesses to swear that Silverius was plotting to betray Rome to the Goths. He paid two hundred pieces of gold for his testimony of the perjurer. It succeeded ; the rival was banished, and shortly after this, he was starved to death ; others say, assassinated. See Godeau, iv. 104. Platina, 68. Now, it is obvious that, according to your own canons, both of these popes were illegally chosen. Here the links of the chain were again broken. Besides the character of Vigilius who professed to transmit the succession, was atrociously wicked. Covetousness, and the impious mockery of the laws of God and man, were among his least sins. He murdered his secretary by the blow of a club: he scourged his nephew to death; and was accessary to the murder of the pope, his rival. See Platina, 68.

The thirteenth schism took place in the close of the ninth century : it disgraced the papacy of Formosus, and Sergius. The first was elected contrary to the bulls of popes Nicholas, and Julius. But he was sustained by the power of the king of the Goths. Sergius, his rival, was finally expelled, and died an exile. Formosus did not long enjoy his guilty power and honors. Six years after his election, he died. The atrocious pope Stephen was his successor* This "Vicar of God" ordered his predecessor, Formosus, also a " Vicar of God," to be dug out of his grave. He bad him dressed in his pontificals : and gravely brought into court, to be tried. Tht> question was put to him, " How dared you, being bishop of Porto, to allow yourself to be raised to the Holy See?" The dead body not making any reply, as might natu- rally be expected, his silence was deemed guilt; he was solemnly condemned, his popedom declared illegal and invalid : his head and three of his fingers were cut ofl ; and his mangled body cast into the Tyber. The scenes which followed this, were outrageous and horrible. The "holy and infallible father" Stoi)lien died in a dun- geon by the rope ! Bruys pronounces his eulogium, — "This father and teacher of all christians," says the popish writer, — "was as ignorant as he was wicked." "He was guilty of a wicked and unheard of sacrilege," says Barouius. Pope John X., iu

164 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

his turn helped to cut off your succession by condemning pope Stephen and re-edta- blishing the interests of pope Fonnosus. But all things are mutable in "immutable jmd infallible Rome." Pope Sergius III. pronounced his ban on the decrees of pope John X., reverses his acts: restores the ordination of pope Stephen, and condemns the ordinations of pope Formosus. See Platina, p. 127. Now, it is utterly idle for any man to attempt to trace the genuine succession through all these confusions and tumults, and wickedness. If these men were christian pastors and " the pure successors'' of Peter, then what holy and exalted saints must Nero and Tamerlane have been!

Baronius, I am aware, ventures to make a somewhat different inference from thig. After a suitable degree of raiUng at the Protestants, as he always does when he is con- strained to narrate some of the infamous acts of the popes, by way of a Jesuit's offset, and ruse de guerre, he very gravely pronounces this succession of abominable popes *'a clear demonstration that the supreme authority of the Roman see can never possibly be destroyed. For, if it could," says he, " such a long succession of monsters in vice and folly must infallibly have ruined it." What an admirable argument tliis would have been in the lips of the Roman pagan emperors, who, j'-ou know, were also the supreme jpontiffs of the pagan superstition. "Verily," they might have said, " we have here the evidence of the truth of our holy pagan idolatry, and a demon- stration that our pontifical authorit}'^ can never possibly be destroyed. For if the pagan religion were false, and if my pontifical authority could be destroyed, — surely such a long succession of atrocious despots, must, by their vice and folly, long ago have ruined it!" The fact is this, in each of these cases, the boasters had nothing to lose ! The divinity of Roman catholic despotism and of pagan despotism ; being e-qually doubtful of proof; and equally from Peter and from heaven !

The nbitteenth schism happened in the beginning of the eleventh centur3^ It re- vealed scenes more shocking than any thing hitherto conceived. As Rome catholic advanced in age, she increased, by a double compound ratio, in all possible wicked- ness. There were three popes in this schism. Benedict was elected in A. D. 1033. He was placed in the "holy chair," by simony, the universal and every day sin of Rome ; and by faction, and t3^ranny. His life was a compound of all the pollution of the Roman pagans compressed into one little soul and body. This was "the holy father of Rome," the only "judge of all controversy," "the fountain of indulgences and pardon of sin" for money ! Silvester was put up as a rival to this monster; and he expelled Benedict. John was the third pope, at this time. Benedict, v/ithout resigning, sold the papacy to John for £1500 : and was quiet as long as this money ministered to his diabolical lusts and wickedness. Silvester who had been driven away by one faction, again returned and seized the Vatican. Benedict having spent his money, also renewed his claims to that office which he had sold for gold. These three ruffian popes, by violence and bloodshed, kept possession of the Lateran, the Vatican, and St. Mary's. " A three-headed beast," said your two writers, Labbeus and Binius, " rising from the gates of hell, infested the holy chair in a woful manner." Labb. vol. xi. p. 1280. Bin. vol. vii. p. 221. And Baronius, your orthodox Roman historian also calls them "the three headed beast which had issued from the gates of heil!" Tom. xi. Annal. A. D. 1044. — You have Cerberus, then, in the "pure and holy line" of your succession ! !

And how was a remedy brought to this state of things? Your Baronius has faith- fully told the tale in Tom. xi. Annal of A. D. 1044. " As the mouths of the real Cer-

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herus, with its three heads, were stopped only by * a pitchy mouthful,' says he, so a certain * pious man' of the name of Gratian, bethought of a similar scheme." The three mouths of th- iDonster pope could be stopped, he was sure, with money. For money you know, gei; lemen, is the only omnipotent god of your " Holy Mother" and her priests ! This man, Gratian, actually bought the pope's chair, with all the spirit- ual powers, and honors, and apurtenances, thereto belonging, be they less or more. He bought it, with all its natnes, titles, and attributes, of antiquity, catholicity, succes- sion, unity, miraculoiity, and sanctity. The three popes formally made over " Holy Mother Church" for gold!.] .Benedict, one of the holy fathers, for instance, was to have all the revenues arising from England, while he lived ; and the other holy pair had their just share ! . Arid the purchaser, by the merits of his gold, was duly made Pope, "Vice-God," sjid the "Holy father" of the faithful, to open heaven and shut it on whom he pleased. This new and fourth existing pope assumed the name of Gregory VI. I have only to add that your writers, Platina and Damian tell us with much gravity that Benedict, this wicked pope, who caused this schism, and bloodshed, and misery was subjected to punishment after death. Yes, the father of the faithful and "God's vice-regent" was doomed to punishment! He appeared, say they, to a traveller, with the graceful countenance of "a bear," and a head decorated with the "long ears of an ass!" he was ornamented also with the long tail of an ass! The traveller had the courage to ask him,— having found out that it was his " Holiness," what could possibly be the cause of such a wicked and unholy transformation? "Ah!" said the decea,sed Holy Father, — "this is the due reward of my pollution when I was the head of the Holy Mother !" This pontiff, adds one of your saints, i^i doomed to be dragged headlong, until the day of judgment, through thorns and filth, in. regions continually exhaling sulphur and stench, and burning with fire. See Da- mian, c. 3. Platina, 142. Spondani, Epit. Baronh VI. 1094. Edgar 82.

I shall notice only one instance more : the twenty-ninth schism, usually called the great Western schism, began in 1378. On the death of Gregory XI. the conclave, con- sisting of twelve French cardinals, and four Italians proceeded to choose a pope. The citizens of Rome had recently received back the pope and court, after 70 years ab- sence, at Avignon. They very naturally supposed, that unless an overpowering mul- titude should give them some salutary hints, backed by some well-timed cluh-logic^ to regulate their heterodoxy, they might be wicked enough to choose a Frenchman^ for a Pope : and he, of course, they had reason to fear, would retire to Avignon, there to spend his riches. Guided by such disinterested motives, they placed d. guard of honor around the holy conclave, and proceeded to give them the necessary hints by 30,000 armed men ; — namely, that if the holy fathers did venture to choose a Frenchman for Pope, it must be for no other reason than their own anxiety to get to heaven before their time, as martyrs!! The cardinals arc remarkably prudent men; they never had given a martyr to " Holy Mother" yet; and the}'- did not choose, at this time, to begin the precedent : their lives were exceedingly valuable ; good men were then scarce. They took the hint from the mob : and adopted measures to get ample ven- geance on both friends, and foes, and "Holy Mother" too!

They formally chose Urban VI. And then retiring beyond the reach of the Roman mob's discipline, they as fornuilly elected Clement VII. II(;ro your conclave chose two opposing heads of " Holy Mother." Clement set up his court at Avignon : Urban, at Rome. And from that day all Europe was convulsed with wars.

This great schism lasted about 50 years. All Europe was a great ecclesiastical

166 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTRGVERST.

arena, on which kings and popes who are the worst of men, entered the Hsts With deadly animosity, against popes and kings. What Httle remains there was of religioil in Europe, was nearly extinguished. The ghostly factions acted, usually, without policy, and always without christian principle. " The pope's conscience," says Ed- gar, " evaporated in ambition, selfishness, and characteristic malignity." The cam- paign was opened by a volley of spiritual artillery. The electors denounced pope Urban, and he excommunicated every soul of them, and formally gave the holy car- dinals all over to the devil, soul and body ! ! Clement paid Urban back in full tak. It was a fair trial which pope could curse his antagonist with loudest thunder and deepest anathemas ! Kings and Queens shared in the horrid curses ! No bishop, or priest escaped. They cursed all on each side, mutually : and each pope declared that "What he bound on earth was bound in heaven." Hence each believed, and declared that his antagonist, and all his adhering bishops and priests, were cursed and excommunicated; and thence strij)ped of office, and sanctity! And in as much as each of them was duly elected pope, and each of them was a gentleman of equal honor and equal credit, we are bound in duty, to believe each of them to have been cor- rect ! And as each of these duly elected popes had annulled and vacated all the ordi- nations, collations, and promotions of his rival, of course there was not one bishop, or one priest in all Europe, who was not duly deposed, and duly excommunicated from the church, and stripped of his office. They annihilated the hierarchy of Rome ; and it was regularly and duly done! And I respectfully challenge all the Roman priests in our Republic, to show any thing even plausible, against this historical fact.

As if to make things doubly sure, in this formal deposition, the council of Pisa deposed and set aside these tivo popes; and elected pope Alexander. This, instead of healing, made three acting popes ! And all Europe sustained a fresh convulsion by the three fierce ecclesiastical factions.

The council Of Constance, of atrocious memory, met in A. D. 1414. By this time jxrpe John had succeeded pope Alexander. The council required the three popes to resign forthwith : each on oath solemnly 3'ielded ; and swore on the holy evangelists, to obey. But each of them instantly resumed his papacy : and thus, says an able writer, " Holy Mother had three perjured heads ; and there were three perjured Vice- gods /" John was deposed for his infamous crimes : the council actually proving and declaring " the holy father" guilt}'' of " perjury, incest, rape, murder, and sodomy," See Labbeus vol. xvi. p. 178, 222, and Dupin vol. iii. 14. — Gregory the next pope, ab- dicated and renounced the papacy : the third one, Benedict, stood out: he retired into a strong castle, and there, deserted by all his friends, he consoled himself in his dotage, by excommunicating twice in the day, with hell, book, and candle, all the nations of Europe who had deserted his holy " personal cause !" Pope Martin was raised to the papacy. And the infamous council made itself an execration to all generations, by tlieir treachery and infernal cruelty. They condemned, and burned alive, the famous martyrs fiuss, and Jerome of Prague, against whom they could bring no charge, but tiiat of being devoted christians, and faithful opposers of the heresy of the Romish sect.

We might go on to adduce a list of upwards of 200 popes of a character, in all jx)ints, similar to these. But this we deem enough, both to give the public an idea of the line of succession boasted of by the Roman catholic sect : and, at the same time, to annihilate their ridiculous claims of descent from the apostles ! I shall only add that, were I asked to select a list of the worst men ; and the most wicked rulers :

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 167

even the most unprincipled of the species, — such as atheists, despots, mockers of virtue and rehgion ; the common enemies of God and man ; I would pass by the Kings of Egypt, and Syria, and the despots of Assyria, and Babylon; I would leave out the atrocious Alexanders ; and the Caesars ; and the Greek despots ; and the Ro- man emperors : I would even omit the News, and the Tamerlanes : — and I would, after making an honorable selection of a few worthy names, — give "the Popes or Rome," as furnishing that horrid list ! Their enormities, perpetrated under the mask of holy religion, exceed, in fact, the powers of description. The characters of these men, as hinted at in St. John's Revelations, " as drunk with the blood of the saints," ^-end as exhibited in the history of their lives, can no more be adequately portrayed than can the character of the prince of darkness! What man — what church, that respects the character, and claims the honor of being Christian, would ever claim sjnriiual, or ecclesiastical succession through such a line of inhuman, and despotic tyrants ! Men ! such as the arch-deceiver would select as his prime ministers ! Men ! who have been the head, the heart, and the ever ready hand of that bloody Romish sect^ which has already murdered sixty-eight millions of the human family : and is now seeking with an insatiable ghostly ambition, to regain its power, and would, if possible, murder as many more ! !

I am, gentlemen, yours, &c. W. C. B.

In The Truth Teller, under the date of August 8, the folloioing Letter appeared as the finale of the Priests.

TO DR. BROWNLEE,

A PREACHER IN THE MIDDLE DUTCH CHURCH,

This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Luc. 14. 30.

Rev. Sir: — Our controversy with you, personally, is terminated. It would be folly to continue it with a preacher who can neither form nor appreciate argument. Public opinion must be respected, — our own character must not be dishonored. To continue polemic discussion with you cannot add to i-eputation, for your substitute for argument are falsehood, ribald words, gross invective, disgusting calumny, and the recommendation of an obscene tale I These have been your weapons from your first to your last puerile letter.

"In the 'Truth Teller' of July 6th and 13th, the following proposition was proposed to you : ' What articles of faith, found in the scriptures in express terms, must be believed in order to be saved?' You were, at the same time, informed that 'the continuation of our c<!*ntrovcrsy with you, personally, would depend on your answer.' After a cautious delay your answer was concocted, — your articles of faith found in the scripture in express terms, were given. Our last letter contained ova* remarks on your Bihle creed. By this creed yo" exclude the trinity, and the incarnation. What is your answer to our letter? this: 'Your idtra zealotry' is ' ambitioning' too much when you find fault with my scriptural creeil, — or, indeed, any christian creed ! This is your theological answer ! this is the answer of the erudite in the ' Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost !' This is the answer of the prcacl>er in die Middle Dutch Church ! He says we 'ambition too much when we find fault with fus scriptural creed.' But his scriptural creed excludes tlic trinity and incarnation, and to find fault with the exclusion of the trinity and incarnation is, from his own avowal, ' ambition- ing too much!' Hence, to secure the favor and approval of preacher Brownlee, we must 0(>t ' find fault' with the scriptural creed which excludes the trinity and incarnation. We

168 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

ask his ' christian public,' is not this an ample and practical illustration of his protestant rule of faith."

'* But, further he writes; ' Fou 'ambition' too much when you find fault with any christ- ian creed !" Therefore, in the opinion of preacher Brownlee, no christian creed is to be con- demned. This is liberality ! But why does the preacher ' find fault' with the catholic ? Is tliis consistency ? Any christian creed may be adopted : this is the final, logical, and ortho- dox conclusion from the twelve polemical letters of preacher Brownlee on his protestant rule of faith. This is the triumph achieved by preacher Brownlee for himself, the members of the Middle Dutch Church, and his ' virtuous ladies.' As the bard sung of the burial of Sir John Moore,

'* 'We leave him alone with his glory.' "

John Power, August 8th, 1833. Thos. C. Levins.

LETTER XIV.— AND LAST.

TO DOCTORS POWER, AND VARELA, AND MR. LEVINS.

" Therefore I will put my hook in thy nose and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn THEE BACK by the way, by which thou earnest." — Isai. xxxvii. 29.

Gentlemen : — Indulge me in a few words on parting, seeing that nothing can stop your RETREAT from the defence of "Holy Mother." And I trust, I shall not be deemed greatly guilty, should I adopt a more playful humor, or, the philipic of the great master of eloquence. The former is useful to relieve all parties, in the midst of a rigid argument, and the sombre task of searching the pages of the fathers, and the dull lumbering volumes of the Romish writers. The use of the latter is as necessary and legitimate, in rousing our slumbering fellow citizens to a sense of their imminent danger ; and in scourging the conspirators against our republican institutions, our Pro- testant religion, and our civil and religious liberties. — as ever it was in the hands of the great master, against the enemies of Greece.

You inform the public, gentlemen, that *'your controversy with me, personally is at an end." I pray you, gentlemen, to beware of rash words. Controversy with me, personally, you do not mean to end. It is true, this theological, and historical discus- sion has not, I trust, been personal on my part. Personal sins, and flagrant delin- quency I have rebuked : but that is no " personality," which is levelled against crime. No, I chose a higher aim. No priest can, in a general discussion, be an object of personal attack; when such game is started, and in full view, as ''Holy Mother,'' and priestcrajl .' It is the head of all evil, on earth, namely error and vice personified, and completely embodied in Roman Antichrist, at which the honest Protestant aims the arrows of his quiver ; — and his " Jerusalem blade," when he comes to close quarters! But for you, gentlemen, — you have labored in your vocation of endlese personalities. Jesuitism is by nature and training, given to personalities ! Jesuitism would die of spleen, outright, if it did not vent its personalities. You have given the most perfect specimens in this discussion. You have, moreover, established the fact to the satisfaction of your enemies, that Romish logic has never yet distinguished between argument and personal abuse. I do not say that this is your personal in- firmity. No. It is of the essential nature of the whole system. Jesuitism is by itt very nature, at war with all mankind, and the good of all civilized society ! Issuing,

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 169

as it did, from the bottomless pit, -if its natural malignity and hatred of all that is good were changed, or modified, it would of necessity die. ''Nojaith ivith heretics,'" is the watchword of its bloodhoimds. The clanking of chains, and the moans of the tortured victims in the Inquisition, have beea its favorite music : and the fires of the AUTO DA FE, light up its dreary and horrid pathway ! The bowels of Jesuitism yearn over us, according to its natural parental feelings ! Wherever it had the as- dency it lighted up the gleaming fires of persecution. When its slave. Queen Mary, mounted the throne of England, the fires of Smithfield were lighted up. We cast our eyes over the massacres of Paris, and of Ireland, and in Piedmont ! We shudder at the Autodafes of Spain! And "you may expel nature with a fork," as the Ro- man poet said ; but nature will return in its unsubdued prurience, — and to-morrow would Romanism light up the Smithjield Jives, in our Park, had this bloody sect the political ascendency and power, in our land!

How could you, then. Rev. Sirs, be so utterly off your guard as to commit your- selves, by giving a pledge you never will redeem ! — But so it is : — as your own favor- ite hath it : —

*' A man may smile, and smile, and be a villain."

You have again repeated your blundering and ungrammatical card, demanding, — *' What articles of faith found in the scriptures, in express terms, must be believed in order to be saved ?" That is, what articles are to be believed to be saved? You have in all your letters, given the American public sufficient specimens, in all con- science, of the deficiencies of a Romish theological education : you might have spared the public taste this last infliction ! But this little Card is the youngest and last of the family : and of course it is a pet with 3"ou ! It is natural ! In a family, the 3'oungest, little, rickety child is always the object of an absorbing parental fondness, — especially when its parents are waxing old, and are feeble-minded !

You have given us another specimen of Romish logic in your remarks touching my scripture creed. You facetiously affect to infer that we reject certain doctrines because we do not mention them in express words. On your principles a man does not. believe what he does not find room to express in certain phrases ! Hence, on the })rin- ciples of your profound logic, our Lord, who does not, in express terms, mention either the Trinity, or the incarnation, in the Lord's prayer, did not himself believe in them ! This, however, is not my main reply. Had your education embraced in it, the first elements of a sound christian theologjs and the analytic method of evolving truth — you must have seen, that in the very first text which I quoted, namely, " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," — the true christian necessarily be- lieves in the Father, who sent his Son to redeem us : and in Jesus Christ the incarnate- God, who in human nature, suffered, and died for us : and in the Holy Ghost, who " creates us anew in Christ," and gives us that very faith by which we receive Christ. However, I have availed myself of your suggestion: — Nam fas est et ah hoste doceri/ I have, to satisfy you, added a few more texts to my "scripture creed," in tlic second edition of my Letters ; which you will admit to he now correct.

I shall not, therefore, follow you any farther, in your disjointed, and bald declama- tion about " Creeds of christian faith" and "articles of belief." "Physician, I say, heal thyself!" Those men, who have been fairly convicted of deism, on evidence whicli would satisfy any jury of twelve honest men; and who in fact, have openly declared in the face of the public, that tliey, and their sect do absolutely reject

IG

170 AOMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

God's word, as ^^ utterly defective,'' and utterly insufficient to he the rule of faith,^*-^ are not to be listened to, in discussions about christian creeds, and articles of faith. Is it not sheer hypocrisy ? *' And of all the earnings of this canting world, the cant of hypocrisy is the worst." And of all the hypocrites, the most insufferable are these tico classes ; — namely, — the solemn drunkard, on the alehouse bench ; and the infidel jniest demurely discusssing creeds, and the pure doctrines of our holy religion !

The highly complimentary truth which closes your last letter, would have been duly appreciated by me, had it not been wrung from you by constraint. Here the priests of Rome have been, in one respect, like the fair sex ; — pardon me, ladies, foi* ])lacing you, even in supposition, in the company of the priesthood of Rome, with whom, we are all aware, no virtuous lady can associate for one moment. But in th^ fair one's letter, one can never arrive at her real feelings and meaning, until he comef to the postscript. There, every thing is wrapt up in the last sentence. Even so, after all the priests' vituperation, and scandal, and personalities, the truth is evolved in their last sentence, — namely, — "We leave him alone," that is their opponent— "in his glory!" There are, I assure you, few polemics who can boast of receiving such a compliment as this from their antagonists !

It means, — "We abandon to him the whole cause, in despair! '■'■We leave him. alone in his glory ! Our Roman catholic rule is utterly untenable ! We abandon the defence! The heretic's ten arguments have fairly capsized us! They have crushed our rule ! And the one score and five arguments against Holy 31other'8 "idolatry," and her "superstition," and her "fanaticism," as he calls them, have annihilated our hopes. They are tremendous! Conscious innocence can withstam any thing I But a guilty conscience makes one feel one's self annihilated ! Hob Mothers "antiquity," v;ho can defend, when we have a conviction in our consciences that all our leading tenets and rites were, in sober truth, recently invented by ou popes and the priesthood. Then these treacherous fathers, — and that fatal want o the unanimous consent ! These monks of the dark age have much to answer for ^Vhen they did alter, erase and add, why did they not do their job thoroughly, lik« lionest sons of "Holy Mother?" They have done their work in an imperfect anc slovenly manner. They have left, on their old pages, enough yet to paralyze us ! And to crown the mischief, these books of our fathers, have got into the hands of the heretics. And, only think, our heretic in his terrible Letter VIII., has let the fatal secret out from these — our own hooks! Our plea of "catholicity" is gone, — unless we oppose stout denials to our own standard writers ! The plague rest — as our Shakespear says, on this cunning, reading, thinking '■^American public,'' — and this '■'relv^ious puhlic" of his ! What a serious mistake we have fallen into! We have learned, — but it is too late, that we are not in Spain, and the blessed South of Ireland ! We had hoped to make this "American public" believe that particular was general; that Rome and our church, were the universal world! Our succession is ridiculed too! Those schisms, and those diabolical popes, set forth in all their horrid garnish- ment, will kill us outright ! That Baronius, that Labbeus, and Binius, and Bruys, and Du Cange, and Dupin, and the rest of our slovenly, truth betraying writers, can never escape purgatory, for their wanton crime of affording materials to the heretics I f Why did our own sons Uft the veil off " Holy Mother I"

Alas ! for the stately bark of St. Peter ! It has been shipwrecked in Europe. And our last hopes were in bringing these United States under our grasp, and the holy des- potism,— the salutary despotism of Rome, and the Inquisition ! We were working

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 171

our way secretly and slyly. We had got many Protestants, — " silly fools," we admit, who actually sent their daughters into our nunneries, and their sons to our pure and holy seminaries of Jesuitism, to be educated! ! And carefully and successfully did we train them : and return them into the bosom of their heretical parents ; deeply imbued with pure monarchy and Romanism ; and faithful to the catholic Jesuits' cause ! ! But alas ! the cunning " American public" is now waked up ! And our hopes are blasted ! The curse of St. Patrick, as Shakespear says, be on these discussions ! It is true, we knew the wholesome rule of our Jesuit Busseus: "Avoid, if you can, all controversy on the articles of faith, with heretics!" We did act on this all along! But these obstinate heretics would not be way-laid. They plunged right onward ; and they got in spite of us, into our citadel, — into the very chambers of our imagery ! The veil so carefully thrown over all our weak and deformed parts, has been most unceremoniously stript off. And St. Patrick, as Shakespear says, only knows what is to be the end of these things! Our blessings on this officious, meddling "Ameri- can public" of his ! We had once thought that we could easily train, bj- our Jesuit legions swarming over the land, the people of this same American republic ! Our doctrines, our rites, and church government, sustained by a foreign power, cannot thrive, — they cannot even live in a Republic ! But when we shall receive the power, we shall teach these stiff headed Republicans another lesson. Spain, Austria and Italy shall be the fair model of a new and renovated government ! But the maledic- tions of St. Peter and St. Paul, as our Shakespear says, be on those ill advised dis- cussions! Our secret plans, from our head quarters in Europe, have been suddenly divulged, before they had ripened into perfection! Our benisous on this "reading and thinking" generation! Ten thousand anathemas on this "light and knowledge," as the heretics call it. They paralyze us ; they strike us blind, as do the sun beams the owl of the forest !"

Such, gentlemen, are the frank admissions conveyed in the last sentence, and part- ing scrap of poetry, of your last letter. We thank you for the concessions : we shall give wings to them !

But, finally, permit me to grace your retreat with an appropriate historical expo- sition of your favorite text at the head of my letter. It Avas not foi nothing that you quoted it so often, and so apropos. " Coming events cast their shadows before !" You had a presentiment of this ill fated retreat : and it was impossible that you could forget the retreat of the great personages, alluded to, in the premonitory passage of the prophet.

These were Senacherib, the despot of Assyria : with his two mischief-making sons, Adramelech and Sharezer; who closed the chapter of their father's accidents, in a bloody tragedy. These, with their servant, Rabshakeh, came up to invade the fair land of Judah, and destroy Mount Zion. The king of Assyria was but another name for a cruel foreign des])otism, exercised over the souls and bodies of men. You know who is the antitype of this unenviable character. TJie two sons of that prince, children of Belial, may represent the two men who are the right and left hands of the symbol of foreign despotism, — men, who, like these sons, would kill their sovereign ! And Rabshakeh was a vain, blustering, swaggering, wine-bibber ; much given to gascon- ade ; a captain of the Assyrian host; fighting against Zion, and against the Most High; much given to s|)eak and write blasphemy in the ears, and before the eyes, of the people : inuch given to taunt "the Hebrew of the Holy Ghost," and prefer the Babylonian traditions, and oracles of the heathens, to the pure and holy word of God.

!/«; ROSIAX CATHOLIC COXTROVERSt.

Moreover, for some misdemeanor or other, by the law of his despotic prince, he waf^ doomed never to marrj', nor to be received into the company of "virtuous ladies."' Hence he exercised himself much in the language of Ashdod, in speaking evil of all " the virtuous of the sex." For he did, —

"Like Moses praise and bless, The Canaan uhich he never could possess."

But haste we to the sequel — Never was defeat more public and more complete, than that of owr Assyrians! Never was a Retreat of any vain glorious foemeii covered with more infamy than was that of the despot, his two sons, and Rabshakeh ! Not one strong hold of Israel could they approach with a hand of harm ! Not one arrow took effect in any one fortress of Z ion. They missed their aim : they lost their cause: they lost their honor, they lost their whole host! The Mighty God of Zion breathed on them in the burning wrath of his Samiel, — and lo! they were all dead men ! The few struggling partizans, made their Retreat, in death like silence, and with unutterable confusion. God fights against all anti-christian powers I

Then, mark the end of the despot. The hands of those whom he trained up to wickedness, did overthrow him ! As for Rabshakeh ; — as j-ou are admirers of tradi- tion, let us seek his fate in the Misnah, and' the Gemara of the Talmud. It is very obscure ; but the most feasible may be this : — being a great patron of human igno- rance, he kept the people as blind and ignorant as possible. He hated reading and writing : it only made people averse, he would say, from the patient bearing of the yoke of priestcraft and despotism ! He took care to bum ever^'^ copy of the book of the law, that he conM find in the people's houses. But even the longest chain has an end. The tide of popular fury turned on him ; and banished him into some eremite's cell, to lead a life of penance and unalloyed misery. And he died as he lived, the enemy of God, the curse of civil society, and the execration of all enlightened people I His bleached bones v*-ere found by some humane shepherd, who placed them under a large rock, upon which, in process of time, some one wrote an epitaph. This epi- taph probably found its way into the Gemara : and some amateurs having translated it. — the famous Robert Bums added the charms of a poetic version to it, in the fol- lowing manner: —

'• Beneath these vngsed stones

Lie old Rabshakeh's bones ; O death I it's my opinion. You ne'er took such Ablatherin' bitch,

Into your dark dominion ! !"'

Yours very truly, and respectfully. W. C. Brownlee.

Notice. — The priests having finally retreated, and havhig entirely given up their cause, in this discussion it would be as discreditable to address anymore letters to them, as it would be in a soldier, who keeps in his ranks, to consort, or correspond with cowards and deserters. I shall claun the continued and kind indulgence of the christ- ian community while I go on in the regular discussion, in Letters addressed to the Members of the Roman Cathohc Church: retaining my right, however, to retum to the charge, should the Priests come out with "more last words.*'

New York, August 13, 1833. W. C. B.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 173

PART II,

LETTER I.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

*' There is not such a great difference between our church, and the Protestant, that you should leave us/' — said a priest to a young convert to Christianity. — " There is only this dif- ference between us," replied the youth: — " The Roman catholics worship the god whom the priest creates out of the wafer ; we worship the God who creates the priest." — Malan.

Fellow Citizens: — The priests having left the field clear, and undisturbed to us, I could think of no other to whom I should address myself, than to you. And I beg leave to do it, with great respect, and christian salutations. It can neither be to your interest, nor to mine, to be deceived in this solemn matter. And God knows I wish your salvation as well as my own. Permit me, therefore, to present myself respect- fully before you. And until we become better acquainted, let me introduce myself with a pleasant parable of olden times.

Once upon a time, the good St. Peter was sitting, in the cool of the morning, under a rich clustering vine, in the lovely green vale of Jehosaphat ; and in earnest discourse with a friend. The holy Apostle, and he, had retired from the dust and heat of Jeru- salem ; and they were discussing an important question, in a grave and solemn man- ner, befitting such men. The apostle's friend was a chief priest: a noted man; and a bosom friend to Nicodemus. His faith had been shaken in the Jewish system ; and he was devoutly inquiring how he should arrive fully at the truth, and be saved. He had discovered with no small degree of alarm, that truth was no longer in the Jewish system, and church. The pure w^ord of God, the Jewish doctors had impiously dis- placed ; and rendered void by the fatal traditions of their fathers. The pure system of Moses was no longer honored and received by them : and, with a singular incon- sistency, what was abolished in the ceremonial law, they now clung to with great ob- stinacy. The high priest, and his associates in despotism, had usurped power over the souls, and consciences of men : they set no bounds to their avarice, pride, and luxury. They traded "in the souls of men :" they even professed to open heaven ; and shut the gates of hell, at the ecclesiastical chancery prices ! They sold pardons, and permissions to sin, at all rates ; from Judas's sum of 30 shekels, up to the talent of silver, and the lordly talent of gold !

"The temi)le is converted into a house of merchandize — my dear Peter," said the chief priest, as he faimed his burning brow witli his snow white turban, — "In the midst of this universal corruption, the kingdom of God I cannot find. Now, in as much as he declared to our fiither Abraham, tljat his church should never fail, and repeated it to David, and all the prophets; and as it would be mockery to look for it amid the universal C()rru})tions of our high priest, and our chief ])riests and rulers of the synagogue ; — it must be found somewhere else. Is it to be found in the ncH\ nj)^ start, christian cfiiirch, just organized : or is it not to be found ovcu there V

16*

174 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSr.

St. Peter opened up to him the scriptures, and went on, comparing the Old Testa* ment doctrine, with those of Christ, in order to show him that this new, reformed^ vpstart church, — the christian church alone, held the whole and only genuine truths of God. And he was patiently bringing home to his heart, with many prayers, these apostolical instructions : and instructing him in the right way of the Lord God of hia fathers ; while he kept a strict eye on a singular, suspicious, and ill-looking stranger, who had entered the arbor ; and had placed himself not far from them. He was be- decked in a fantastic dress, of many colors, neither exactly Jewish, nor altogether Gentile in its shape : and there was a wildness in his looks, and antic gestures, which indicated the phrenzy of a madman ; or, to say the least, the air of a designing knave !

St. Peter went on, discoursingof the Trinity, the incarnation, the atonement; faith, and repentance ; and the justification of a sinner by faith in Christ, without the deeds of the law ; and thence the absolute necessity of good works, and a holy life. He was very particular in showing him that God only is the supreme Lord of the con- science : that no human or ghostly power on earth, should be permitted by any who calls himself a man, and not a dumb brute, to usurp power over the conscience ; or dictate a form of religion to it. " Think, read, judge, decide for yourself None of the Jewish priests, nor any priest under these heavens, can dare to prescribe to your con- science. Go to God's law, and word, and his inspired apostles. God speaks: listen ; obey ; and count that man an emissary of the de^dl, fresh from the burning lake, who would dare to lord it over your conscience ; or offer to appease God for you ; or to pardon your sins for a few Jerusalem coppers ! He is the arch impostor, — the antichrist; of which our beloved brother John will tell you more fully."

Here the singular stranger grew so impatient, that he could no longer contain him- self: and he rudely cut short the apostle's discourse, by abruptly crying out, — "Do you call me the impostor and the antichrist?" Then addressing himself to the chief priest, for he was evidently a stranger to St. Peter, — he besought him not to give heed to one word uttered by that " hoary headed deceiver ,-" for the holy order of the high priest, and the chief priests have the entire keeping of men's consciences. And they negotiate with heaven the whole of man's salvation for a moderate consideration. — But I am forgeling himself To give divine efficacy to my words, and confound all heretics, I must have in my soul the intention ; and on my body the consecrated apos- tolical raiment, — such as St. Peter the prince and pope : were he present, — would laud and bless." And upon that he applied himself to the work.

He rose up and made certain genuflections, and prostrations to the east and west : he then decked himself out in party-colored patches and rags, of red, purple, and white, and green ; and putting on a thing resembling three crowns, on his head; he went to an adjoining thicket, and cut a tall rod the top of which he twisted into a shepherd's crook. And coming gravely up ; he stood with a solemn, demure, half crying countenance, for a few moments ; then whispered "Now 1 have got the unction of holy intention ; now for the grace procuring gestures, and genuflections." And with that he applied himself gravely to a succession of bodily exercises, forty-Jive in number ; sometimes he bowed : then he kneeled : then he elevated his arms aloft. And having counted his f or ty-ffth, he sat down quite out of breath. " Now," said he, " what I am going to say, no one dare gainsay, under peril of salutary cold steel, and the hot f re ; — to wit, heading and burning I This crown, the emblem of power, and this sceptre, the symbol of pastoral qualification and care, God Almighty

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY* 175

made with his own hands ; and with his own hands, he placed them on my head, and in these hands!"

The apostle would have interrupted him: — but he silenced him with an outrageous clamor; and he went on, engrossing- the whole conversation himself. "-I am God's vice-god, upon earth : I am supreme: by me kings and priests reign and act r I am the lord of the human conscience : God has put this ghostly power in my unworthy hands, who am a servant of servants." — And while the words of humility were on his lips, he tossed his sceptre : and waved his lordly triple crown on high. — Then he went on: — " The revelation which God has given to the Hebrews and the Christians, derives all its authority and all its evidence from me : it is the word of God if I say it : it is not, if I say nay : I add to it, and I take away ; and who shall set bounds to this spiritual sceptre ! I have the keys of hell and of death ! I open heaven : and I open hell ! I shut them both as I will ! Through me alone, God speaks ! Through me alone, men shall apply to God. I am on earth, what the Almighty is in heaven! Hence I have power to alter what Christ did establish : I can add to his doctrines, when it can be made profitable to bring in much gold. I can add as many sacra- ments as I please to his humble and plain two. For this is also profitable ; — if not for doctrine, — at least for establishing my supreme power over the souls of my slaves, and minions. And they also bring much silver and gold to our coffers. Then gold hniigs might : and might, according to sound ghostly policy, always makes right! These are the maxims of my court !"

Here the wrath ef St. Peter was kindled fiercely against him. He had hitherto set him down in his own mind, as stark mad ; and he had viewed him with pity. But as he went on in detail, he saw that he was a knave, possessed with a legion of raving devils! "Who is he?" said he to his host. "Verily I know him not;" — said the horror stricken chief priest : I took him at first, for some of your friends : then in my mind, I thought him a poor demoniac, humbly following in order to get the devil cast out of himself: he frequently, I thought, mentioned your name and your authority. I suspect that he was a noted companion of Judas Iscariot !" " Who are you? Who sent you, sirrah ?" cried St. Peter, addressing him in terms of strong indignation ; and unsubduable zeal for God's glory.

" Who am I ?" replied he slowly and solemnly ; — " I am the spouse of the church ; and the church is my chaste and beautiful spouse. — God's vicegerent, and the infalli- ble vicar of Christ : I come from holy St. Peter the prince of the apostles."

"Your proof, sirrah!" said Peter. " There is my proof !" said he gravely. And he held out a roll of parchment : " I certify this roll to be the true and genuine roll, and deed of right and power, conveyed to me, through lord pope St. Peter from God !"

"Very well, sir impostor:" said Peter; — "you certify for that roll's authenticity: then pray, who certifies for t/ow?" " Why look ye here, — my pity on your weak- ness, old man ; — only inspect this roll ; and it will tell all about me ; and fully certify that I am the only legal claimant."

" And what then, sir knave, will you do, if we ridicule this ludicrous reasoning in a circle?" said Peter. " Why, Pll tell thee, hoary headed doubter, — if any one ex- presses a doubt, — I have the sword, the axe, the fire, and the stake! like the sword of earthly kings, this is my holy spiritual weapon : my vltima ratio ! my unanswerable argument!"

"What is your object," replied St. Peter;— "for you are a creature I never to my

176 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

knowledge saw before, — is it your object to save men's souls ?" " That is a secondary object." " What is your primary object then ? You may suppose me to be your St. Peter, — and tell me." "You St. Peter! — you a plain fisherman, St. Peter! — why St. Peter wore his red, and purple, and fine white robes, and his golden mitre 1 Christ made him prince of the apostolical college!" "Thou art stark mad, I tell thee," said St. Peter, — " but go on : dost thou set up thy kingdom solely to save men?" " Yes, I save them in the way of making a good job of it." " But, how ? I pray thee, go on."

"Why heaven is a great way off; and the way is very steep; and my flock are not very steady, or moral, sometimes: — "Very well," said St. Peter, — "you lead them to the fountain of the Redeemer's blood, I hope." " It is far easier, I tell thee, ignorant man, to lead them to the basin of holy water.''' "Holy water!" cried St. Peter ; — " I do not know that thing ; and never heard of it before : but do you not teach the holy atonement to be the only sacrifice for the sins of man." " No, no ; we are inventing the thing called the mass, though it will take centuries to get men so well taught, as to leave to me all the right of thinking for them ; and then take my bare word for every tiling : to call black, white, and the devil, Christ, if I only say it !" " The mass P' said St. Peter: — "that is perfectly new to me : the IMaster never said a word of it: he appointeci the Holy Sapper, to commemorate hi^ cL^ath, and his one, real, and perfect atonement."

"You know nothing at all :" cried the wild man, — " We need not the atonement of Christ ; ive offer up in the mass, daily, a sacrifice for the quick and the dead, to ap- pease God!" "Hold, in silence, thy blaspheming lips," cried St. Peter; "thou must be the Antichrist ! But what said you about getting your people near to the far distant heaven ? " Why, Ave make a sacrifice for them ; and what is defective in that we make up by putting the deceased souls into purgatory, and there, a smart burning of well applied flames, consumes in a salutary manner, all their dns, aud follies." " Well, that, we know, is taken from the abominable heathen; — but you do not mean to say that it has any thing to do with us, Christians ? I never taught it : and the Master never spoke of it : this he said, — ' The blood of Jesus washes all sins away.' That is God's only purgatory that I overheard of: for there is no other Savior than Jesus. "Bat what get you for all this? — Are your holy water and masses, and purgatory a free job?"

" Oh ! no : we save souls in the waj' of making gold and silver, and building up our power ! If we condescend to spare the time from our luxuries and pleasures, souls should be very thankful ; and pay their fees with less grumbling!" "And as you have added five new sacraments," said St. Peter; — "do you bestow grace through them, free to all, and gratis ?" " Oh ! no : there is no divine eflficacy in one of them, unless the church's dues be paid: it is the church's dues: it is St. Peter's pence P' " So, then this marvellous and newly invented system is all adapted to make gain — these shepherds shear the sheep, and flay them, and take all the milk to themselves ! I thought that our Master had said, — 'Ho! every one that thirsteth, come, drink: come without money and without price,' God's word says this." " That may be," said the demon, "but times shall be changed : these were Christ's laws: but I speak now of owr hoUness's laws." " Why the Master had his children mainly among the poor;" said St. Peter; ' and to the poor is the gospel preached.'-' "No, no; our infallibles declare that the rich can buy pardons for any space, — limited only by the limit of money, where that stops short, reprobation begins! Know ye not that the

Roman CATttOLtC CONTROVERSf. 17^7

streets of Heaven are paved with gold. As we have the laying out of the city; and of course all the paving, how can we have paving of gold ready, in every street, unless the people give us their gold /"

"Marvellously said:" whispered St. Peter, — "now do I see whither we have got: but repeat what thou saidst about a certain Saint Peter.'' " Why St, Peter was the prince of the apostles, infallible, and" — " ah !" cried the apostle interrupting him, "where gottest thou that novelty: — ay! prince he must have been, because he was a blundering, forward man: infallible, too," added the humble apostle with deep sor- row ; — •' they have got me to be what I never heard of from the Master, — infallible, verily! Ah! this mockery is offered because I did deny my Lord! I am humbled and mortified," continued he; "they call me infallible and prince!' I suppose be- cause JPaul sternly rebuked me, and showed himself justly my superior ! But go on," added he aloud : " After this ebullition what shall we hear next, I wonder?" " Why we select St, Peter to be the foundation of our church." "The blessed Master keep me out of such a church, with such a rotten foundation" — exclaimed St. Peter with holy indig-nation. "Give me, O my blessed God, give me grace to belong to that church that is built on the Rock of eternity, the Lord Jesus Christ! That is the Christian church," — cried St. Peter. "And that is the only, pure, and immutable church, which I also long to be a member of," — said the pious chief priest; but go on; let us hear all!"

"You know nothing," — cried the Demoniac in reply — " did I not lay hold o^holy intention ? Do I not stand up in my sanctified robes ? Am I not, therefore, infal- lible? If you doubt, you shall be damned, by me ! I will cast you into purgatory; and none of my holy priests shall pray you out — unless for a ruinous smn from your heirs !

Here the apostle, eyeing the motley buffoon from head to foot, burst out into a loud laughter : but, suddenly recollecting himself he said' — "I am determined to hear the possessed mad man out : go on : I will not interrupt thy extravagance : the pagan kings claim power over sun, moon, and stars ; but thou art " the wild beast whose tail sweeps the third part of the stars from heaven :" and with thy paws thou thr^west men into sheol ! Go on, I pray thee."

"Having laid my foundation of empire on St. Peter, I shall go forth to subdue all nations, kingdoms, tongues, and countries. My power extends to all the world, and all heaven, and all hell !"

Here the apostle sprang up from his seat; he could not stand it. " Nay, then. Sir Gascon, have done, at last. I see who thou art. Our sovereign and blessed Master Jesus Christ, warned us of the great Western maniac prince, who would be intoxicated with the blood of the saints. The system was conceived and plotted in hell: and thou art the demon let loose for a season ; and charged with the execution of it I Already, I see, art thou wandering to and fro through the earth, and hatching thy diabolical plots. Now, hear me, I am St. Peter! and had not the Master drawn the veil over thy mind, thou mightest have known me." Then, by a holy impulse, he laid the glorious system o^ the truth of Christ, as op[)osed to the systeni of Antichrist, before the vigorous intellect of the mischievous demon : it shone brilliantly as a polished steel mirror of the daughters of Judah : the truth beamed from it wiih unut- terable brightness, and flashed over his guihy ct)nscience and heart.

The demon, who is also the soul and spirit of Antichrist, cast his small, sunk, and twinkling eyes, first, on St. Peter, with fear and terror; and then on all the objects

178 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

around him, exclaiming: " Art thou come then, to betray, in thy apostolical \\Titings, and those of thy associates, the secret of our kingdom, which I have thoughtlessly blabbed out ! Art thou come to torment me and mine before the time ?" Then, with a hallow scream, he fainted away under the beams of the truth. And a sweeping whirlwind and vivid flashes of fire, and roaring thunder, the symbol of heaven's irre- sistible vengeance, — swept him away down the vale, into the Dead Sea !

Fellow Citizns : — I need not stop here to interpret the parable. Your own good sense will lead you to understand it.

I am, fellow citizens, with christian salutations, yours faithfully. August, 1833. W. C. Brownlee.

LETTER II.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

" We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the bodv, accordinff as he hath done, either good or evil." — Douay Test. 2 Cor. V. 10.

Fellow Citizens: — If you will unite cordially with St. Peter, in the wholesome doctrines here taught by him, in his replies to the evil spirit of Antichrist, then, assuredly, you and I shall be better acquainted: and you will not count me your enemy, because I tell you the truth.

No one of us, in this "land of the free and the home of the brave," wishes you ill. No one of us ever says, " ill-luck to you.'''' No one of us does wish you to forsake the true religion of your fathers. They are designing men, and impostors, who seek to persuade ^-ou that we have any such intention. We do solemnly assure 3'ou before God, that all we wish and beg of you is this ; — that, as men, as immortal beings, who are soon to stand before the awful throne of Almighty God, to be judged, each one for himself— 3-0U would study the holy scriptures ; and draw your religion out of God's word alone. It is God's word. God speaks to you and to us, in it : it is not obscure : make the trial and you will see : he speaks to us as plainly and clearly, as does a father to his children !

Break the chains of priestcraft in pieces, and be free ! It makes you poor, — who are laboring men : it keeps you in abject poverty, and unsuiferable bondage. You see the highly intelligent and learned men of your church despising, and laughing priest- craft to scorn ! Do the well informed ever go to the abominable confessional of a licentious priest ? Would the genteel and well informed among you permit their wives and their daughters to go to hear such infamous and obscene questions put to them by the bloated and pestilential lips of the priests! No, never! Resolve to be free from this cruel yoke. Go to Almighty God alone for pardon : go and confess to Him alone : he asks no money : he never sent any priests to rob you, to pay for pardons. Go in humble faith, to the only Savior, the great God, our Redeemer: he alone can pardon. It is impossible that any thinking and reflecting mind can, for a moment, l)elieve that the injinitely holy God, would commit to incontinent wicked priests, the power of absolving from sin ! A priest rebuking wickedness ! Behold the renovation of Milton's scene of " Satan reproving and chiding sin." Who can believe, — who can be so much of a knave, as to believe and teach that Almighty God who commands

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST. 179

you " to come, without money and without price," would send a priest to harter in pardon, and sell absolutions, and take money for letting souls out of purgatory ? Re- solve at length to rise up and be free from this worst of paganism ! Break the cruel chains of priestcraft from around your immortal and noble souls! Resolve, and declare, and appeal to heaven, that you will, that you shall be free, like all other christians around you !

Can any one of your families be said to enjoy liberty ; and mutual confidence in each other, when a ghostly tyrant establishes such an espionage over you; and employs the wife to watch the husband, and the husband the wife? Where is liberty and mutual confidence, and family peace enjoyed, when all the members of that family, are constituted spies over each other, and carry all the family secrets to the intermeddling priest! How can you, in one instance, trust your wife's honor to a man who puts the most loathsome and obscene questions to her ; and does it to entice her affections away from you ? How can you answer it at the bar of God, lor allowing a modest and innocent young child to go to the confessional ; to have her mind, and body poisoned, and polluted by a priest, at whose confessional, I do pub- licly and boldly say, no pure and virtuous woman can appear, without being shocked: and without actually suffering the loss of modesty and moral character! The dark ages have rolled away : therefore, no sober minded man in our republic can sink to such a degradation as to make such a bargain with a wretched priest, as did the late duke of Brunswick, who made his bargain and paid his price to the '•''lioly''^ priest to he damnedin his stead, if he should happen to be damned for his apostacy from Christ to Antichrist!

I am perfectly aware that in purely Roman catholic lands, no sentiment is more common than this, that the priest undertakes to negotiate the whole concern of salvation for his victims ! I implore you to rise from this state of infinite degradation. A man who can think and act as the Duke did, has a meanness of soul that is immeasurably contemptible! Nay, he cannot be a believer in Christianity ! Nay, he cannot be a believer in a future judgment, or rewards and punishments ! Nay, he is not even a believer in the existence of God ! Permit yourselves no more to be the victims of an infidel priesthood. In the name of God I beseech you, remember that if you die in your sins, after following the wicked priest, God will condemn you both. Every priest, whose conscience is not absolutely 'seared as with a hot iron,' knows that ht neither will, nor can take your place. Bankrupt and beggared, he has no credit, — no influence in the court of heaven. His own damnation is deep enough : and he can- not answer for you !

Open your eyes to the infamous imposture of purgatory, practised on you to cheat you out of your money ! As certainly as God is Almighty and just, and holy, so cer- tainly is there no such place, or things as purgatory ! The vile fiction, we have for- merly shown you, is only a few centuries old. Mark the imposition. Dr. Varela has told you lately in a newspaper, that it is the doctrine of his church, that no man knows who, or how many, of your departed relatives are in purgatory ! ! Now, tell me, I beseech you, how you can permit yourselves, or your wives, to be robbed of your money> in order to bring souls out of it, when none of these priests, who get the wagest of their robbery, can even tell who is in purgatory ! Depend on it, my friends, if their masses, and their prayers, had any— even the least interest and favor with God, he would not conceal from them who, and how many of those are in the fires, fot whom they pretend to pray.

186 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSV.

This is not all : there is another sheer imposture in this matter. It is not true that your priests either do, or can, say all the masses for the departed souls. If they did, they must be saying masses, day, and night, every hour of all their lives ! You need not, — you ought not to pay any more for at least a thousand years — for your priests, every where, at least, are a thousand years in arrears ! — Make them pay up in masses, before you pay another copper ! Ho^v is it that you are so slow, — so utterly without judgment, at making equitable bargains ?

The late Rev. Dutch minister of Sourland, Somerset, N. Jersey, was very intimate

with father? , who occasionally officiated there. Once, while in a jocose and

free conversation, the Dominie said to the priest, — " Father P , it is all nonsense

to profess that you believe in purgatory : you have too much learning and good sense to believe in any such thing! Come now, ami not right?" "Ah!" said father

P , "you are too severe: but come now, I declare solemnly, that I do believe in

purgatory, as earnestly as any other priest ! I am honest and loyal to Holy Mother." And he shook his vasty sides, and laughed right merrily ; and added, — " Come over to my chambers, and I declare to you, that I will show you purgatory." " What — show me purgatory?" cried the astonished Dominie ; — " Yes, you shall see it, on my honor, with your own eyes !"

You may be assured that the curious Dominie lost no time in visiting the priest. And, after a refreshment of no ordinary a kind, — for there were no temperance societies, in those days, the Dominie reminded his host of the promise touching the vision of pur- gatory. " To be sure" — said the father, — " You shall see it : follow me." He con- ducted hun into the confessional ; and approaching a small bureau, he pulled out the drawer containing some silver pieces, — such as dollars, half-dollars, and occasionally some few shining bits of gold ; — then turning on his guest the most quizzical look im- aginable, he said — " There, my good sir, is my purgatory : and the only one I know of, or care for!"

My respected friends, every one knows, that in a figure of speech, the effect is often put for the cause. Here is an instance of it. The silver and gold were the effect of his victims' belief in purgatory. The priest here gravely took the effect for the cause : he believed firmly in the visible effect ; while he left the cause to the faith of " silly fools laden with inicpit}^," who believe without evidence, and trust in the existence of a non-entity ! The most of the priests may, perhaps, be as learned, and as wise as this father : but, most assuredly, few of them are as honest and as candid as he was.

I have thus respectfully, and most earnestly urged on you the duty of asserting your independence, and claiming your unalienable birth-right, to think for yourselves, and choose your own religion. Do not, any more, repeat what assuredly is not true, that we aim at persuadhig you to forsake your religion, and the religion of your fathers, This is sheer priestcraft. The priests have taught you to say this. They do it merely for effect, and deception. We ask you to abandon, — not what you ever voluntarily chose ; not what you embraced after accurate scriptural research, and earnest prayer to God for fight; but that which has been palmed on you for refigion! Had you sought it simply from God, and out of his holy and only inspired Word, you would have found that which we would never have asked you to forsake. What we beg you to abandon is, that system of mental tyranny ; those human devices, not found in all God's word: that cunningly devised system, which takes away your pro- perty without giving you any instruction, or any equivalent whatever in return ; which Tobs you of real peace : which, by imposing flattery, leads your souls astray, from

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the only shepherd and bishop of souls, the Lord Jesus Christ; and chains you to the car of an unrelenting priestly vassalage, and the worst of all despotism! We implore you, fellow citizens, to hasten your escape from this yoke of bondage. Read, — think, —and boldly assert your rights to judge for yourselves ! Sustain the dignity and glory of your nature. In this happy land the souls of all are free, but yours. The chains of the dark age are still rivetted on you, by ghostly tyranny. Reject with indigna- tion, and spurn from you the disgusting legends, traditions, and impostures of men, who are six centuries behind all other people in knowledge, and morals, and religion ! Of men, who reap gain from ungodliness, whose untiring effort is to stop the progress of the Bible and christian knowledge ; and whose pleasure and gain lie in keeping the species wrapped in the profoundest ignorance ! Hitherto have the priests dictated for a religion to your consciences, what God never taught by his prophets ! And this they know as well as we do ! These inventions, and their mummery, and mock- ery of God and of man, are what we implore you to abandon. Choose your religion out of the pure and unadulterated word of God ; and no longer yield your souls a prey to the impostures of ignorant, profligate, and designing priests ! We appeal to the Most High, our common Lord and Master, that we long over you, to see you raised to the spiritual liberty, which all your fellow citizens enjoy, in our happy Republic. You only of all the Republican family, have not rid yourselves of the execrable spi- ritual vassalage, from which, by the grace of God, our fathers set themselves free !

One of our fellow citizens, the other day, gave a Bible to a Roman catholic neigh- bor, in Brooklyn. He is a respectable man: and he can read and write. It was given him as a great curiosity; and he promised to read it. But he soon brought it back. His own mind filled with the tradition.^ and nonsense of priestcraft, under tiie whisperings of his spiritual guide, was itself the standard and rule. For tradition and prejudice are the real and genuine rule of faith of the men, who exercise their souls by proxy, and think by proxy ; and believe by proxy : and who, if they drop unexpect- edly into hell, they expect to be recalled by priestly proxy, or else they have the con- solation that their proxy is to be "damned in their stead!" He threw the Bible to his neighbour. — "Take it back" cried he, ^'' it is a dangerous book! It contains dam- nable errors; and it has no Roman catholic religion in it: not even a word for "the' Mother of God," " the Queen of Heaven." I go with the priest in all that he says : and if he be damned; then I am willing to be damned too !" This authentic anec- dote I am prepared to prove by two respectable citizens who stood b}^ and heard him utter it.

In some political struggles, when party spirit has run high, we have heard of some warm politicians ^^ going the whole hog!''' But here is a novel display. Here is a daring spirit who carried the bold experiment into tlic world of mind and immortality ! Here is a master spirit, who bows so lowly before the throne of Antichrist; and burns with such zeal to support the crusade of priestcraft, and despotism against God's lioly scriptures, and the christian religion, that he is prepared to sacriricc body, and life, and even his soul, and even heaven ; and plunge into the gulph of perdition, to grace the cause, and win a triumph for the prince of darkness !

But, pardon me, I ask you, my respected friends, if this man acted widi the digtuty of a man ? Is this conduct rational, or befitting a human being 1 Can siicli a wretch as that, be fit to grace any office, or occuj)y any ])ost, — but the liandle of the oar of a galley slave; or the handle of the hammer of a wretched culprit in the mines o Mexico, or Peru ?

37

183 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

Here is another specimen, I heard it uttered the other day by one of yourselves, he was a good cathoUc. He " swore he was in the full faith ; and beUeved all that the priests believed : he was not quite so moral, he frankly admitted, as some others : but "he swore he was of the genuine faith.''' "Now, Doyle," said I, "what do you believe?" "I believe as the holy church believes." "Well, Doyle, what does th« church believe?" "Arrah now, she believes, I swear, exactly what I believe!" "Well said, Doyle, but tell us what you both believe?" He raised his fair Milesian face, and declared with the best humored smile in the world, — "Arrah! now we do believe exactly alike the same thing."

Having now, I trust, formed an acquaintance, and having mutually refreshed our memories with what we have gone over, in my former Letters to the Priests : I beg leave here to pause ; offering soon to present myself on a graver subject, and in a graver manner. I am, fellow citizens, -vs-ith respectful and christian salutations,

Your sincere friend, &c.

W. C. B.

LETTER HL

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH*

AvTjjO 6 (ptvyuiVj Kai -roKiv ixax^riaerai.

'• The man who fights, and runs away JMay hveto fight another day."

Demosthe7ies.

Fellow Citizens : — You have penetrated the reasons, before now, why the bish- op's three champions have deserted your cause ; and abandoned the defence of " Holy ]Mother." At any rate, every intelligent Protestant perceives the reasons. One of them was this : — There is a certain rule laid down by the Jesuits, whose order has been revived, to plant Romanism in our land ; and sap the foundation of our repub- lican institutions. That rule binds the consciences of the Jesuits, my late opponents. The rule I alluded to, is thus expressed by Busaeus, ^' Never discv^s the doctrines of Holy Mother Church imth a heretic, if it can possibly be avoided.'" You all know how scrupulously my antagonists obeyed this Jesuitical rule. They poured out their ebulitions of malignity against the only rule of faith ; and exhausted the last shaft of infidel animosity agEiinst God's holy word. This the}' would do. But they shunned all discussion of their church's doctrines and rites. Another reason was this : — when they entered the lists, they had no idea that we possessed the books, which we have ; and which are written by their great men. They had no conception that these works, now in our possession, and which we have been quoting, were in the United States ; but were on the contrary slumbering in the monastic libraries of Spain, Italy, and Austria. Hence they began, and actually practised, for a while, the ruse de gutrrt^ common with all Jesuits in places where the people have not their books ; and know not their tenets. They denied their own books : they denied their real doctrines. But it is impossible to describe their astonishment and confusion, when we quoted the originals of their own works, and named page and chapter. From that time, thej evidently drew back : and dealt no more m denying their books and principle-s.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 183

One of my antagonists exclaimed in the hearing of a friend of mine, — " Where in the mischief, do these fellows get all these books !" If it would be in any way edify- ing I would tell him. Under providence we are indebted to Napoleon, and his ''re- forming" troops, for many of them. These soldiers broke up many a Jesuit's and Inquisitor's library, in their visit to Italy, Spain, and Naples. Thes€ volumes were sold to these "reforming soldiers;" as plunder, profitable to themselves : and it is probable, moreover, that they had wit enough to discover that any body ; even heretics, would make a better use of these volumes than the dull, sleek-headed, fat, contented, ignorant monks of the cells, ever could do. I have in my possession a Latin work 308 years old. It was written by the bishop of Rochester against Luther, in defence of king Harry VIII. before that prince dashed off the pope's crown and put it on his own head. I have another tome of 3000 pages folio, and lately the property of one of the pope's " Apostolical Protonotaries ;" whose name and coat of arms are bla- zoned in front of it. It is a precious body of Jesuitism, — its laws, and doctrines, drawn at full length ; — namely, the works of L. Molina. And whatever uninform- ed men may say, these very doctrines of Jesuitism, as we shall show ere long, are re- vived in our country by the newly revived sect, in all their immutable virulence. He is unpardonably ignorant of European history, who does not know the genius of Jesuitism, the master mece of Satan's deepest and utmost stretch of invention : and also that every government of Europe has denounced them as equal to legions of in- carnate fiends : and the unrelenting foes of liberty and rehgion : the desperate ene- mies of God and man ! And that American citizen is as unpardonably ignorant of the present state of things in Europe, and his own Republic, who does not know that Jesuitism has been lately revived with full powers by the popes, with one grand spe- cijic object ; openly avowed here and in Europe, namely, to overrun this republic ; put down our republican institutions : establish despotism : and finally, the Romish hiei-archy, and the inquisition : and then organize crusades against the Ptotestant religion ! ! It is true, we smile at their diabolical and fruitless intentions ; and appeal to the Most High for protection. But be it remembered ; — this is to be prevented by the glorious schemes, and the means now used by the christian public : and by the missionaries, and by Sabbath schools in the vallies of the Mississippi : and by the Tract and Bible societies : — and not by these lukewarm christians, and lukewarm poUti- cians in our couniry, who cry, — -'no danger," — "no fear!" And who, moreover, betray on whose side they are, by sending their children to be trained up by licentious and expelled European Jesuits ! And who betray their country's cause by contribu- ting sums of money to build up Jesuit's chapels and colleges, out of which are to issue men, who will make deadly war against our republican institutions, and our religious liberty ! ! Who does not see that this is treason against our republic !

These are some of the reasons why your priest's have retreated from the fickl. Tlie object of Jesuits is to carry on their work in silence, darkness, and concealment. — They are determined secretly to undermine us. And when they think they have the power, we shall hear of the American gun-powder plot ! Hence our i)riosts hate nothing more than the exposure of their real doctrines, and their real object. And, hence, fellow citizens of all ranks, you perceive the reason why I must go on ; and tear the whole mask off from tlic face of Jesuitism ; and the whole of the faded purple robe off the old paralytic limbs of " Mother Babylon !" I have received let- ters from many parts of the United States; particularly from New England, Vir- ginia, Ohio, Kentucky; and the "far West," urging mo to go on. These contro-

184

R0BIA5 CATHOLIC COTROVERST.

versial Letters of New- York, and Philadelphia, are read v.-ith. a\'idity, by» perhaps, four milliotis of oiir fellow citizens. Does any man think that I can prove recreant to my God, and my country ; and hke the priests, turn my back and retreat ? Shall lobey two or three individuals ; and refuse the loud call of millions ? No! sooner let my arm fall from my shoulder blade I I shall not stop witU 1 am done : and the priests know what that means. I throw myself on the kind indulgence of the chris- tian and political pubhc, who have hitherto sustained me. And I entreat of all my fellow citizens, a patient and full hearing.

I shall now go on with tlie regular discussion. — I have despatched three marks of your priest's church. I now beg your attention, fellow citizens, respectfully, to the examination of the next mark.

Fourth. — Your sa^'ctitt. By this attribute of their church and priesthood, your priests mean to convey the idea that they, their associates, and popes, are really HOLT. They are quite separated from the wicked men of this wicked world : they are HOLT I They care nothing about power: nothing about money, — \-ile trash ! They would not take it from their devout and pure disciples I They are above it, — and above the world, and above its dainties I Revelry £ind wine, and mirth, are to tae HOLT and spotless priesthood, an utter abomination ! It niakes them even fain^ at the idea of social company I Their spirits die away in them at the idea of earthly joys, and merry entertainments ! They are holt ! They are sublimely weaned trom the world. A dinner on meats, and icine on Fridays, at home, or in a steamboat, would shock and kill them outright! The very presence of a female, — the very name of vrife, would make them expire in fits, and give up the ghost 1 1

This is not all. They are holt in their pope and cardinals, who have not yet practically beheved in the existence of the Deitj-. The prince bishops of the old world' who boast that they beheve in no other world than the present, are holt l The priests who know not the first elements of rehgion, are holt unto their g'orf.'" Their rites and doctrines, all invented since the sixth century, and invented by t^Tants and knaves, to plunder the people of the fruits of their industn.-, are all holt ! Their vest- ments of motley color, and unmatched shape, are ail holt. If a priest ^'Sicears by his holy vestments, '' as every devout Roman catholic knows, it is an oath which none of the simple faithful ever doubts. In a word what the priest does, is holy ; what the priest says is holy; what he blesses is holy ; what he consecrates, such as rehcs, were they even the bones of a convict, or a Turk — they are holy saintly relics I The chapel is holy : the floor is holy : the altar is holy : the candles are holy : the water is holy: the oil is holy : the incense and its smoke are holy! All that is absurd, and stupid, and outrageous on common sense, — such as the wafer consecrated into a God» ishaiy. All — all is holy, except only such small concerns as these; namely: the soul, the heart, and the lives of the priests, and their victims I "\Mien the priest ut- ters holy anathemas on all but his own sect, he is holy ! "\Mien he dooms the whole Protestant world to hell, he is holy ! When he grants absolution for sin at the stated price, in the pope's chancery book — and blots out iniquity on the graduated scale of pounds, sliillings, and pence, he is holy ! When he grants an indulgence at a stipu- lated simi, to secure an indemnity against future penalties and sins, just as far as the sum, fijxed upon, goes, he is holy ! In fine, the centre of all apostacy, sin, tyTann^' persecution, and ghostiy despotism, is pronounced at Rome to be holiness. And he who bears the title and Uverj' of Antichrist, is called "His holiness," in the ab- stract I And on the same principle, when the princes and rulers under the chief

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 185

prince of darkness, address each other in council, in Milton's Pandemonium, it is quite supposable that in courtesy they politely address each other by the names and titles of what they once were, — as "Your holiness!" "Your sublime gravity ! Your immaculate virtue !" And all this takes place while they are plotting the ruin of the blessed Redeemer's church ! And every student of human nature, and of things, knows that with deep designers and profligate men, there is a special advantage in calling things by names the perfect reverse of the truth ! If I plot the ruin of my country, I assume the name of patriot, and clamor loudly about patriotism ! If I am going to utter the most palpable lies, and fictions, and slanders, — I call my pages "Truth Teller!" If I am going to persecute, murder, and massacre good men; and extirpate the true religion of Christ, I call myself "His Holiness." If, like Satan, a masterspirit tries to do the work of darkness, " he transforms himself into an angel of light !"

I am aware that no Roman priest believes what he utters about "-^ holiness. ^^ It is used simply for effect ; to rivet the chains of deluded vicdms !

The entire argument of their champion Dr. Milner of England, is this. "If the church was holy once, she is holy still ; because the church never changes her doc- trines, nor suffers any one in her, to change them." Letter 19. In this sophism, he takes the " church," in one sense ; namely, to be the church of God: in the rest of his sentence, he takes it for granted, without any proof, that the Romish church is the only church. And hence he infers that the Romish sect is the only and entire church of God ; and, thence, that the Romish sect is the church in heaven : and the church on earth I And, from this unparalleled impudence of assumption, he tries to compose his muscles into si.lScient gravity, so as to infer that the Romish church is holy !

This is, precisely, the sophistry which pervades our vicar general's one sermon, which he preaches on this subject, always, and over all the world. He first sets about proving that " God's church is holy." He then solemnly concludes, not with' out a little pompous bravado, that "holy mother church of Rome is all the world over, pure and holy!" It is remarakble that he never took it into his head to prove that the church of Rome is the church of God; which he behoved of necessity to do, in order to prove her holy. His fatal logic leaves out, entirely, the connecting pre- mise ! On this principle, and mode of argument, the Jews have infinitely the advan^ tage of him. " We the Jews once were holy, as no believer in the Old Testament can deny." But once holy, always holy ; for the church of God is immutable : no matter, though we forsake the laws and doctrines of our fathers !" Hence the Jews constitute the one only true church !" And I shall venture to say that nO vi'-ar general, with the aid of all the bishops, and of all the popes, can refute their plea. And this is what every reasonable man must admit.

Your priests try to compose their faces so far into a semblance of gravity, as to lay claims to spotless sanctity in doctrine, sanctity in rites, sanctity in priestliood and vestments; and sanctity in the children of holy mother! In my Letter V[L I established the fact that your priests have so far deceived you, my fellow citizens, that they have not left one distinctive genuine gospel doctrine pure and en(ir^% in your church. If there be one, I invite any sensible man to point it cait. "Why. the Romish priests believe in the Trinity and in one God!" That I beg leave to deny. The ))ricsts create a g;od at every mass : and nKU'eover, to the one only object of worship they have added " the nioiher of God," and some thirty thousand other saints and saintcsscs, to whom they oticr incense: and sa^' more }>rayers than to God!

186

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

"But they believe in the incarnation of Christ." This I affirm they do not retair; *'pure and entire." The wafer converted into the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ, is offered up as their incarnate god and christ."'

"But, they adore the Holy Ghost." Can any one gravely profess to believe so» who has ever associated, in familiar intercourse, with a Romish priest ? Can any one soberly believe this who has read your priests' taunts about "the Holy Ghost?" No, I do assure you, fellow citizens, that they have no practical belief of the Holy Spirit : they believe not in his influences : nor in regeneration, nor in gospel hoh- ness: nor in "justification by faith, without the deeds of the law." Their incense, their holy water, their saintly intercessions, their priests' intention, and the efficacy of their rites to convey grace, have utterly excluded the Holy Ghost from their system of belief. Their rule of faith excludes the prophetical office of Christ : their mass and their own prieshood, have displaced Christ's priestly office: and the blasphemy and despotism of the pope's supremacy have taken the kingly crown off the head of our blessed Redeemer! In one word, the whole system of the Romish priestcraft is " a gospel" as completely different from the gospel of Christ, as the " great whore of Babylon," is different from the chaste spouse of Christ, and as different as the first born of Satan, is from the great God our Savior !

The only personal sanctity which your priests advocate, and require in your mem- bers, is wholly external. They must be sprinkled with holy water, and anointed with the holy chrism ; pay the church's dues : go, at least, once a year to confes- sion : and die in the bosom of " the church," meaning the Romish church: and, then, whatever may have been their unbelief, and vices, they are safe. The priest gives each man, even the most unreformed profligate, even a Charles II., or a Louis, a passport into heaven: and St. Peter and St. Patrick will suffer no refusal from any there ! Let me add that the priest's sanctity lies also all on the outer side. He must have had the lock shorn off, and his crown shaved ; and the consecrated vestments on, with its orthodox cut, and orthodox color : and all is holy ; — even though his hands be polluted with the worst of crimes; and his heart destitue of charity: and even possessed with a legion of devils! He is holy! in proof of this I quote your own accredited writers. Bellarmine, De Eccles. Lib. 3, cap. 7. There you will find it stated that a man who is a drunkard, a profane swearer-^nay, an infidel and "even a reprobate," may yet be a good member of the Romish church ! See also the Rhe- mish Annotations on John, ch. xv. and Sect, 1. So completely is gospel holiness lost in the Romish sect !

Your priests present exclusive claims to sanctity also from their possessing "the only holy institutions and rites," by which '•'■they convey grace,''' to their devotees. Pray what holy rites ? "Why, the seven sacraments." What! the five rites which you have added to our Lord's appointed sacraments. Do you really mean such sacraments as that of "holy matrimony?" "Yes, we mean that! and by that, through the priests' 'intention' are convej'-ed the virtue and purity of holiness to the married." What! and yet you denj- it to the priests ! You impose celibacy on them ! You deny them the holy efficacy of that sacrament, which, of all men living, they stand infinitely the most in need of! Do you mean the sacraments of penance* extreme unction, and all the other additional rites, which your priests facetiously call ^'Sacraments.'' Why, so far from possessing sanctity, or conveying it, they are sheer impositions invented by despots and knaves I They are the offspring of priestcraft, invented after the sixth century : and have been too successfully employed to rob

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 187

simple and credulous people of their property. For proof of this, may I beg your attention to my Letter VIII ? They are mere forgeries. And there is not one of your priests so utterly destitute of intellect, as not to know this. They have been false tokens by which money has been fraudulently gained : they are forged notes and checks by which property has been taken feloniously from the ignorant and unsus- pecting. And, now, I beg leave, fellow citizens, to put this question to everj' candid man in the community, whether the money obtained from people by these coun- terfeit sacraments, be not as wickedly obtained, as ever any money was obtained of our fellow citizens, by the forgers and counterfeiters that prowl on the community ? Is the " splended robbery" less criminal because it is perpetrated under the name and sanction of religion ? Is it less atrocious, and less ruinous to men, because the trans- action is the purchase and sale of men's spiritual liberty, and the souls of immortal beings, instead of the common articles of every day's business? Is it less damning before the eyes of pure Heaven, because, in the just and perfect liberty granted to religion, true and false, the laws of men reach not the ghostly felony ?

I am, fellow citizens, yours truly &c.

W. C. B.

LETTER IV.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

" The hypocrite in mask ! — He was a man,

Who stole the livery of the court of heaven

To serve the devil in ! In virtues guise,

Devoured the widow's bread ;

In holy phrase transacted villanies

That common sinners durst not meddle with !"

Pollok,

Fellow Citizens : — Your priesthood has laid claims to exclusive sanctity from this additional plea, that your head, the pope, is ^^ holiness itself:'''' and that, moreover, you had all the saints within your own church, to shed an exclusive glory o[ holiness (Ml you.

In a former letter on the succession of the popes, I showed you fully, that the list of the popes, contained a majority of names of the most atrocious monsters! Men they were, that invented and perpetrated crimes which surpassed, so far as we know, any thing ever conceived at the council board of Pandemonium ! Men who led on the blood thirsty troops of Rome, and murdered sixty eight millions of human beings; not to mention the fearful destruction of immortal souls, caused by their deadly errors! Are these men ''holiness unto the Lord !" And, as i^ov the saints, their lives and adventures are those of bloody knaves, such as Loyola: and fanatics. macerating their bodies by endless acts of personal and social cruelty ; and suicides! Monstrous "miracle-mongers" like St. Dennis and /owr others, who took up their heads after they were cut off, and walked with them under their arms — or, like St. Patrick and others, sailing over seas on their cloaks, and on mill-stones. I refer for proof to Butler's Lives of the Saints, the Acta Sanctorum, and to your Bremary.

The history of celibacy and inonachism in general, atlords the most impressive illus- tration of the priests' claims to sanctity. I shall merely allude to tliis at present.

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conseqtiences of these doctrines were horrible. Your own St. Bernard in the twelfth century, declares to the world, that "bishops and priests committed, in secret, such acts of turpitude as it would be even scandalous to express!" See Bern, in Con. Rhem, 1728. And Agrippa, in Bayle, i. tells us of a Romish bishop who boasted on one occasion, of having in his diocese, eleven thousand priests who paid him, each, one guinea, annually, for a papal license to keep a concubine ! Clemangis, your own famous writer, and an honest reprover of your priests' vices, declares "the adultery, impiety, and obscenity of the priests to be beyond all description!" "They crowd into houses of ill fame," says he, " they spend their time in taverns, in eating, gam- bling, drinking, revelling, and dancing. These, sacerdotal sensualists fought, roared, rioted, and blasphemed God and the saints. And from the company of infamous women, they would pass to the altar, and the mass!" "To veil a woman in those days, or make a nun of her, was synonymous with prostituting her, — c'est la prosti- tuer." See Clemangis 26, Lenfan. i. 70, and Bruy, Tom. iii. p. 610, 611. And And Mezeray says of the Romish clergy before the Reformation, that they were nearly all fornicators and drunkards." " They held their offices in taverns, and spent their money in debaucheries." Mez. Hist, de France, Tom. iv. p. 490. Edgar, p. 511.

The council of Valladolid say of the Spanish priests, that, "prodigal of character and salvation, the clergy led lives of enormity and profligacy in public concubinage." See Labb. vol. xv. p. 247. This declaration was renewed in the council of Toledo, in 1473. See Labb. vol. xix. p. 389, and Binii Concil. vol. viii. p. 957. — Gildas and Fordun have frankly unveiled the Romish priests of England. Even in " the sixth century the British priests," says he, "were a confraternity of the filthiest forni- cators !" See Gildas Epist. 23, 38. Oxford edit. 1691. And Fordun gives us king Edgar's description of , them in the close of the tenth century. "The clergy," said the king to their face, " are lascivious in dress, insolent in manner, and filthy in conversation. Their time they devote to revels, debauch-eries, and abominations; and their abodes are the haunts of harlots!" So much for his majesty's opinion of the Romish sanctity! See Fordun cap. 30, and Bruy ii. 219. Edgar p. 512.

We have an extraordinary anecdote to illustrate the '■'holiness'^ of the Spanish priests in the hfteenth century. Their revolting impurities awakened the zeal of even popes Paul, Pius, and Gregory! These issued their bulls against the priestly " se- ducers." These bulls compelled the Inquisition to take the matter up : and the " holy inquisitors" summoned the attendance of all the frail fair ones who had been asijailed by these sons of Belial, and of Sodom. It made a terrible commotion. Maids and matrons, nobles and })easants, flocked in numbers incredible, to lodge informa- tion. You may form some idea of the extent of ^^ priestly holiiiess and purity, ^^ from the numbers of the fair informers at the single city of Seville. All the inquisitors and their officers, with twenty notaries, were employed for thirty days in taking down the depositions. The number crowding in, was not a whit abated ; they took thirty days more, three several times ! But there was no end to the business! The patience of even In([uisi(ors could not get through it. What was the result ? Just wliat miglit iiave been expected, when the inquiry on such a matter was committed to priests and bishops ! " He that was without the sin," wished to go on. But the bench of })riests, and bishops, and notaries, was deserted ! " The multitude of fair criminals," says my author, "and the jealousy of husbands, and above all, the overwhchiiing odium thrown upon auricular confession, and the popish priesthood, caused the " holy tri- bunal" to quash the prosecution, and destroy all the depositions!" Sec Gonsal. 1)55.

190 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

Lorent. Hist, of the Inquis. p. 355. Limborch, Lib. iii. p. 17. and Edgar's Var. p^ 513.

There is one prominent attribute in popery, which marks itself in perfect opposition to Christianity. The latter, just in proportion to its extent and influence, promotes virtue and purity. But popery, just in proportion, to its extent, and the infliuence of the priesthood, promotes the most revolting impurity, and universal pollution ! Be- hold Rome, and Itcly, and Naples, this day ; and next to the&e, Spain and Portugal ! They are one vast temple of Astarte, and Venus ! The land of Sodom and Gomor- rah was inhabited by virtuous, decent, and orderly people, compared with the priests and nuns of those lands of popery personified! " The Lateran palace of the pope," says Labbeus, XI. p. 881. "which had been a sanctuary' of virtue, has been turned into a brothel." A council convicted one of the popes, namely, John XII. of fornication, murder, adultery, and incest! See Labb. XI. p. 882. Thuan i. 215. and Platina 132.

The council of Lyons, in which was assembled the chief of the bishops and cardi- nals of the Romish church, converted that city into one great temple of pollution. M. Paris p. 792. has recorded the speech which Cardinal Hugo had the unblushing impudence to pronounce to the citizens after the council was dissolved. "Your city," said the '•'■ holy and chaste 'priest,'''' contained only three houses of ill-fame, when "the holy Synod" met here. Now there is only one! But, that one compre- hends the whole city, between the East gate, and the West gate !" See also Edgar p. 516. The "Holy council of Constance was attended," sa3's your own approved writers, "by fifteen hundred infamous females." See Labb. Vol. XVI. p. 1435. and Bruy IV. 39. " These trained bands," says Edgar, " were the companions of the infallible doctors, who made speeches in defence of popery, and burned the heretics JoHi«^ Huss, and Jerome of Prague.

In the council of Basil, it was publicly avowed, and maintained by argument, by Carlery, your famous champion, that infamous houses were necessary, and proper, and a source of great revenue ! No man will venture to deny this quotation. Let him see the fact slated in Labbeus, Concil. Vol. XVII. pp. 98(). 988. Venice edit, of 1728. See also Canisius, Thesaur. vol. IV. p. 457. Antwerp edit. 17£G. And every person acquainted with the elements of Romish history, knows that pope Paul III. who convoked the far-famed council of Trent, made no scruples of availing himself of the revenue that could be raised from licensed houses of infamy ! And as 45,000 of these infamous persons were receiving the protection of his "hol}^" apostolical licen- ce*;, his revenue from this source was very great! See McGavin's Glasgow Protest- ant, ch. 15. These licenses continue under "his Holiness' " care to this day!

But it is not from this revolting sin alone that " Holy Mother" draws her revenues. She has traded, and does actually trade in all sins. In the far famed book called "The Taxes of the Apostolical Chancery," the prices of each class of sin are laid down. And let no Roman catholic priest, or layman expose his Jesuitism and igno- rance, by denying the existence of this book. Editions of it were sent out from Rome in 1514: from Cologn in 1515; at Paris in 1520; in 1545; and in 1G25. It is still in the libraries of the curious in Europe. It has been fully quoted by the " Morning Exercises," 4to. Edit, of 1675 London. And your own well known author Claud D'Espense in his comment on Titus, cap. 1. digr. 2. p. 479, makes this mention of it. "It is a wonder that this filthy index (the Taxa Concellaris) the pope's tax book, has not been suppressed : there is not a book more to their reproach : in it a price ia

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY; 191

•^etto all buyers." And finally the Protestant princes at the Reformation, made p«b- iic mention of it, and inserted it in their statement of the causes why they rejected the council of Trent.

From this authentic tax book, I shall present a specimen of the " holy priest's" traffic, and his prices of sin. In papal refinement of sin, the prices are fixed either for sins about to be designedly committed, — and this is called an Indulgence : or, they are paid for sins past,* — and that is called Absolution.

Extracts from " Taxa Cancellaria Apostolic^,^^ OR His Holiness' tax book ; Being a list of sins pardoned, and their orthodox prices, in British money^

For a layman killing a layman, i

For killing a father, mother, wife, or sister. For laying violent hands on a priest, without breaking the skin, For a priest to marry, no money can buy it, but to keep a concubine,

from one guinea to To eat meat in Lent (as bad as the murder of a father or a mother,) For a Queen to adopt a child. To procure abortion.

For taking a false oath in a criminal case, For robbing, or burning a house, For violating a maid. For incest, with sister or mother,

Behold the imposing claims of sanctity, admirably demonstrated ! And we are not copying the doctrines and practices of the dark ages. Popery never changes TO the better! This is the immutable law of its nature ! And no well informed man, nor any who has travelled in popish countries, needs to be told this. Men who read not on this subject, and who think less, and those who have none of the genu- ine Roman catholic books, but who draw some superficial views, from some of their amiable and liberal catholic neighbors, and friends, are seen to labor under fatal mis- takes in this matter, They believe the Romish sect to be improved and reformed.' My humble prayer to God is, that He would open their eyes, and convince them of their error. I deckixe with deep solemnity ; and I appeal to ancient and modern his- tory, for evidence, — that the popery of Rome never has altered, never can alter for the better, without being destroyed and annihilated. The Romish church claims immuta- bility and infalUbihty. She appeals to God; and says she never has erred : never committed deadly sins : never has changed : never has reformed : nor has ever need- ed reformation !

Every man wlio has been in Italy, in Spain, in Portugal, in S^\dtzerland, in South America, and Mexico, has seen this inscription on the fronts of the various churches, even to this day, — " Plenary indulgences sold here,^^ at such and such prices. Again —

"The bishop of sells indulgences here at" — such and such low prices. "An

English gentleman," said my friend Dr. Avery, "was with me at Naples : and on reading the sign over the Indulgence shop, he went in and gravely purchased for a, small sum, an indulgence to do any sin for ane hundred duys/

0	7 6
0 10 6
0 10 6
0 10 6
0 10 6
300	0 0
0	7 6
0	9 0
0 12 0
0	9 0
0	7 6

192 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

I would beg those men who think so favorably of modern popery, to read Br

Moor's Tour in Europe ; and Graham's Rome in the 19th century. I refer to Rome

as it is, a Tour in Italy, by Miss Morion : she finds and pronounces Italy a large

nation of Atheists ! Also Lady Morgan's Rome in the 19th century.

In South America, the morals of the priests are as bad as they were, and still are,

in Spain. My friend Capt. M , has seen them "in their robes at the cock-pit,

bull baiting, drinking, gambling, and involved in every possible licentiousness pub- licly and unbliishingly, as if there were no sin in any thing they could do."' And one most atrocious attribute of modern priestcraft is this ; — they sin with men and women, over the whole catalogue of the ten commandments; and then at the close of the crimes, they will solemnly pronounce, on the victims of their seductions, their priestly pardon and absolution for the sins then and there committed ! We may gravely question if even Satan himself, were he to walk forth in a visible form, in his robes of diabolical concealment, could invent more impious mockery of religion, or show a degree of atheism at all greater than this !

Such are the doctrines, discipline, and practice of the Jesuits, who now swarm over our land, and are opening colleges, and seminaries, and are offering to teach our sons and daughters. And, Protestants, will you,— can you bid them God speed ? Has, then, judgment fled from Protestants, and enlightened politicians, to brutish beasts ! Have men lost their reason ? "To veil a daughter, or put her into a nunnery," says even a Romish author, just quoted by us, — " is the same thing as to prostitute her !" And no father or mother can rise up from the perusal of the true, — alas ! too true narrative of "Lorette, the history of the daughter of a Canadian nun," — with- out a deep conviction of the modern, and ever unchanging infamies of priestcraft and popery! And what parent who wishes not to murder the peace, and the very soul of his child, could be tempted so far from parental duty, as to send his daughter for education, into the atrocious haunts of a nunnery ! WT^at ! can a father be so lost, as to place a sweet, innocent, unsuspecting daughter within the very fangs and grasp of the Jesuits ! Would to God I could open your eyes to view this matter as christian parents should view it. These European Jesuits, and their partisans, initiated into the deep and damning policy of Rome, preside over these seminaries, which spread traps for j-ou, and them. They carry over sea with them, all these doctrines, and immoral practices, which I have been imveiling. What ! can you barter the purity and innocence of your sweet and amiable daughters, and sons ? Wliat ! in the name of mercy, will you immolate the souls of these dear and immortal beings, whom God has given you ? Can you have a doubt remaining, after all the quotations made, touching the real policy and designs of popery, and of those men, on whom every government of Europe has uttered the ban of an universal curse and execration ? In the name of the God of tnith and mercy, let me lift my pleading voice to utter this my solemn warning to you, one and all ! I do earnestly declare unto j^ou, that it will be discovered by you, when it is too late, that those who place their daughters and sons in the haunts of such monsters of vice as the Jesuits are, — are far less ten- der hearted than the Hindoo who sacrificed her child to Gunga ! Or the wretch who placed the smiling babe in the red hot arms of the image of Moloch ! These destroy the body : those poison the soul with the venom of the worm of the second death !

So much for the claims of holiness, facetiously set up by the partisans of intriguing priests, and their church. Our laughter at these pretensions to holiness, is checked

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST. 193

©oly by the bitter conviction forced on us, that under these unnatural claims, they conceal a de-adly conspiracy against virtue, morals, and religion !

I am, fellow citizens, yours respectfully,

W. C. B.

LETTER V.

^O THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

" An Petrus Romae fuerit, sub judice lis est : Simonem Romae, nemo fiiisse negat !"

" We are not sure that Peter ever sat

In Rome : but Simon did, — we're sure of that !"

Frov. of the IQth century.

FelLow-Citizens, — It is one of our privileges, as citizens of this republic, and one of pre-eminent importance, that we, the people, claim and exercise the right of watch- ing our public servants. We inspect, and decide upon their public character, and official conduct with freedom, and independence. The constitution and legitimate laws are the rule and standard, by which we require them to regulate their conduct in public life. If they recede from, the spirit of these, and seek their own aggrandize- ment, and sacrifice the patriotic virtues, and the public good, on the altar of personal interests, and ambition, we consign them promptly, by our legal vote, to the obscurity of private life. This is our birthright; and it is unalienable.

Novv^, vvfhat should we think of any political, or military officer, who would tell the people, they have no right to think for themselves on politics : no right to elect their pubhc servants : no right to dictate to them: but that they Vv^ho have climbed into office, it may be, by iniquitous means, have the sole prerogative of appointing men to all offices in the state ? In a word, that the servants of the people are above control, and accountable to none ; that they are every thing, that the people are nothing, and asthe dust under theirfeet ? No republican, — no honest man could endure this cant of the old world's despotism. Yet this, you know, is the identical despotism of every lloman catholic government of Europe. And its galling chains are rivetted, just in proportion to the power and influence of Catholicism pervading the solUs of a bru- talized people. Can you, fellow citizens, look without disgust and horror, upon this state of things ? Is your gratitude to this republic, so small that you would not dis- countenance, and put down the knaves, who would sap our free institutions, and bring back U])on you and upon us, this degradation, and despotism of European cathohcs ?

But are politics so far superior to religion? Are the interests of time so far exalted above those of eternity ? Is it gallant and glorious to vindicate civil rights, while you allow the revolting ghostly despotism of the dark ages, still to crush your immor- tal souls in the dust ? Will you spurn from you the edicts of civil tyrants, and ki>» the hands of the wretched minions of Antichrist, who urge their claims to rule over your souls, bodies, and j)ropcrty, witli the iron mace of a llildcbrand ! Your ])riests not only allow of no liberty of conscience, but vmblushingly laugli it to scorn ! They tell yon, tiiat you have no right to read the lioly Bible : tliat you nnist not hear your Maker sjjcak, except through the priest's mutterings : that if you dare to think ou

IS

194 ROMAN CAtHOtIC CONTROVERST.

religion, or even to speak to God, or even breathe a vow to him in any other tray,. than as the priest shall frame it, and offer it up /or money ^ you commit a mortal sin f Your bishop declares to priests and people that he is lord absolute over you all: that you have no right to choose your own spiritual guides : no right to choose your officia- ting ministers in the chapels, which you rear ! He dictates his own favorites to you : and tells you that you have no right from man or from God, to refuse. This you see outrageously practised every day in this free repubhc ; and land of clear christian light, and liberty ! We behold the darkness and horrors of the tenth century in free and enlightened America ! And of a Sabbath da}-, the priest, before he can ascend the desk to officiate, must throw himself down on his knees in the dust, and adore the bishop and kiss his hand, and worship the image of the absent pope, in the august person of the bishop who represents, in our republic, the intruding and usurped power of a foreign despot I This you see the devout and holy priest Levins do in St. Patrick's chapel, from sabbath to sabbath ! Is this the deportment of freemen ? Is this the Christian religion ? Is this becoming the dignity of reasonable men ? Is this not degrading, like the superstition of pagans ? Is it not unspeakably worse than the degradation of Turks ! How long, I beseech you. will you lick the ghostly tyrant's foot ? How long will noble and immortal beings be the crushed down vassals of a for- eign antichristian tyranny ?

I have, in my preceding Letter, set before you, fellow citizens, the moTol character of your priesthood, from the humblest even to the pope. And their moral pollution, which we were constrained to unveil frankly, is not the result of human infirmity merely; or adventitious circumstances alone. It is necessarily engendered by the es- sential elements of popery. Auricular confession and priestly celibacy ever have covered, and ever will cover the Romish church, with a flood of pollution ; and will drown it in pealition. And, fellow citizens, has it never occurred to you, how minutely your priests have fulfilled, unintentionally, the prediction uttered from the Holv Ghost, in the Bible? See 1 Tim. iv. 3. The apostates from the truth were. not only to depart after "the doctrines of demons," — that is, — the worship of demons and departed souls; but were to be noted "6?/ their forbidding to marry.''' And, moreover, the great apostacy of Babylon was by inspiration, called '* the mother of harlots and abominations.'' In no other apostate christian church or sect, in all the world, is " marriage forbidden,'''' but by your priesthood and in your church ; and in no pagan land, know we of such a systematic course of deep and damning pollution, as in your church's monastaries, and nunneries, and at the confessional !

From a sketch of this revolting immorality, I pass, ^\-ith your leave, to exhibit the DOCTRINES taught in your priests' books, colleges, and seminaries. I thus pass from the streams which flow, like the waves of the second death, over your church, to un- veil the great fountains thereof. The main one is the infamous code of ethics taught ])y your Jesuit priests. And I quote these to open, if possible, your eyes to the infamy of your spiritual guides ; and to awaken the slumbering consciences of those ill-in- formed Protestants, who send their children to Jesuit seminaries. And may the God of mercy grant that our solemn v/arnings may be the means of putting parents on their guard, to pluck those exposed young Protestants, as " brands from the devouring fires!"

I would just observe that the order of Jesuits, after being put down, and deemed accursed by the Christian world; and expelled from every government in Europe, was revived by pope Pius VII. in 381 4. He took them under his special career

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 195

placed them at the head of his seminaries and colleges ; as *' instruments most capa- ble, of forming youth to christian jpietij P' The plain meaning of which is this; that all other men had some remains of conscience ; but the troops of this sect were without conscience, and could, in cold blood, teach all that Rome could suggest ; and practice all that the prince of darkness could require ! And the pope after settling them as his chief apostles, closes his Bull with telling the world that "those, who should infringe upon this Bull; or by an audacious temerity oppose," these his dear and best beloved sons, would incur "the wrath not only of Almighty God, but of St. Peter !" These are the men who are, like the filthiest plague of Egypt, creep- ing up over the length and breadth of the land: and are threading their path\Yay into our schools, ana nurseries, and bed-chambers !

Their constitution is strictly monarc/iia/. A general or prince, is chosen over them for life : his pov/er is supreme, and universal : to him every member of the Society must submit his sentiments, and his will : to his injunctions he must listen, ''as if they were uttered hy Christ himself.'''' " No member can have any opinion of his own : '■'and the Jesuit Society has its prisons independent of the secular authority."' See Pascal's Prov. Letters, p. 15. N. York Edit. Hence those dungeons and cells, under their chapels, and college buildings, which any one may see, as their buildings go up : and which have been so accurately and publicly noticed by the late veteran Lorenzo Dow, in his appeal to the American public on this matter.

The doctrines taught by these men, in the Romish books, and seminaries, are calcu- lated to give a deatli blow to civil liberty, as well as to our holy religion. In the opin- ion of all the eminent political men, of all the governments of Europe, their senti- ments, instilled into their pupils and devotees at confession, were more fatal to the liberties and rights of mankind, than even to religion. This is recorded in the pages of history. " Jesuitism is a familiar devil ivho enters the house, craivUng in the dust: crnd ends by cornmanding with lordly haughtiness /" This graphic delineation I cop}' from the late admirable work 07i Jesuitism, by Mons. De Pradt, the Roman catholic archbishop of Malines. I beg leave also to draw your attention to the Arret of the Parliament of France, issued in 1762, containing a statement of the reasons for the extirpation of Jesuitism. These with the pontifical reasons of the pope Ganganelli for his bold measure in dissolving the society, in 1772, exhibit in their true light, this band of conspirators against our civil and religious institutions, — the curse of our land, as they have been the scourge of all Europe !

The first; tenet of their creed exalts the pope to a monarchy, " unlimited by demo- cracy, or by aristocracy." This is civil and spiritual : he claims and receives homage as much as a civil prince, as a spiritual. Dr. Pise, and also all our New-York priests have had the unblushing hardihood to deny that they own the pope, or do him homage, as a temporal prince !" With men so reckless of truth, and who, availing themselves of tlie Jesuit doctrine of mental reservation, say one thing, and believe another, it were needless to reason on this point ; and folly to listen to what they say. They know as accurately as any well read Protestant docs, that tlie temiwral and spiritual claims of the pope, never were separated for the benefit of American Ro- man cathoHcs. They know that these claims never can be separated. It is a matter of recorded fact, that the pope claims power over the bodies, and souls of all men, Protestants, as well as catholics; and over all Protestant, and non-Protestant govern- ments ! The Protestant government of England, and of the United States, are only rebels, who arc to be regained back by the conversion oi' Jesuits, or by force of arms

^96 ROMA!? CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

in due time ! In the solemn belief of every pope, and every tree Roman catfaotlc^ the Protestant kings of Holland, and England have no more risrht to reign than had the excommunicated Harry VIII.. and Queen Elizabeth ! In the solemn behef of the pope and every Jesuit, our protestant and venerable chief ?»Iagistraie. has no more right to bear the reins of government, than Harr\- VHI. or Queen Elizabetli had in England! The fact is. every protestant prince, ever\- protestant President, subject, aLd citizen, are annually excommunicated at Rome, and in these United States. And I assert in the face of the most imblushing Jesuit, and before the Amer- ican community, that it is a matter of the most notorious e\-idence, that on every Thursday of passion week, annually, according to the Bull. In ccma Domini, our protestant President, and all our protestant magistrates, governors, and everv pro- testant member of our city corporation, are publicly, formally, and solemnlv excom- municated, cursed, and sent to hell and perdition, in ever\- Romish chapel in the Inited States I But, then, it is pronounced in Latin, and not generallv known. Every priest takes " an oath on the evangels, and the cross" to do this. And if there be one of them that can have the assurance to deny that he does this, then he is hy his own confession, a perjured k^^aveI 1 shall afterwards, give the priest*s oatli, and this Bull of •' universal ban, and damnation," pronounced by the foreign tyrant, and his charitable, holy, and christian serrcnfs. the Romish priests, on all of iis. — our President, governors, and the whole magistracy, and the Protestant people of th^e I'nited States-

I am. vours trulv. ^c.

W. C. B.

LETTEE VI

TO TEE 3IE:-IEEE.? OF THE BO^IAX CATHOLIC CEURCH.

•' The scarlet colored whore I whose priests are lords.

Whose cofiers held the gold of ever}" land :

Who held a cup of all poliutious full,

And with a double bom the people pushed .'"

Feleow Citize>s: — If you possess truly republican, and tndy religious views and feelings, you will consider that man yoiur best friend and benefactor, who labors to tmdermine the power of priestcraft, and to aid in achieving your liberty. Yes, fellow citizens, you will thank me for raising my warning voice, and assming you that you know not what deadly vipers you are warming and cherishing in your unsuspecting bosom ! What! do you believe ^hst a Jesuit yiiest can deem himself botmd to render allegiance and obedience to magistraies who are anatheicatized by his "Lord God on earth," the pope ? Can any citizen be so weak, or so ignorant of human nature, as to believe that a Jesuit priest will teach his pupils, or his devotees at the confessional, to own a government made up of protestants, who are cursed, and excommimicated by his spiritual dictator, the pope ? To be sure they will not con- fess this : they would not be Jesuits if they admitted it. They have the same pro- fotmd oath of secrecy as free masons had. They are to keep the secret until they gain the ascendency. I call on every magistrate of the land, and every protestant fellow citizen, to read the Secreta yionita. or Secret Instructions of the Jesuits (Princeton Edition of 1631.) We are indebted,, for this - terrible book" of Jesuits'

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY, 197

secrets, to' the parliament of Paris. They passed the act to aboUsh the Jesuits, in secrecy; and the execution came on the Jesuit college like a thunder stroke. Their palace was surrounded by troops, and their papers and books, and these " Secret In- structions^^ were seized before they had heard that the parliament had taken up their cause !

Now hear their own words by which they teach their pupils in the United States the absolute supremacy of the foreign despot, the pope. "The pope, speaking from his chair, is exempt from all ignorance, error, and mistake." See Dupin Disserta- tions, p. 333: Bellarmine, iv. 1, 15, and v. 9. And Labb. vol. xiv. p. 1428. Edgar p. 157. They are in the habit of calling the pope " Our Lord God," — not merely a '■^god,''^ as magistrates are sometimes called: but "Our Lord God." And even on their own explanation, they call him " a god," as a magistrate, — here is a public admission that they own that foreign ruler in his temporal and civil power. And hence no Roman catholic, strictly so called, can take the oath of allegiance to our constitution and government, without mental reservation, or falsehood, and 'perjury ! 1 appeal to our professional men of every denomination.

I shall give only one quotation farther. The following homage to the pope, was expressed by an archbishop, in the council of the Lateran, in the hearing and presence of pope Leo X. And hence it has the sanction of a pope, and a council ; and it is, in the belief of every true Roman catholic, of equal authority with the holy Bible ! The homage was this : — " The pope has power, supra omnes potestates tarn cceli, quam terra, — above all the powers of heaven, as well as of earth!" Nay he professes to do what God himself does not, — and cannot do- In " the mass" he and jhiis priesthood profess to create their Creator ! Out of a wafer, they make God ! Now, the Most High never created, never could create himself! I And thus the instructions taught in our Jesuit seminaries, are an unparallelled compound of cruel ghostly despotism, and blasphemy! Can the most resolute infidel in all the land, can the christian magistrate, or a christian citizen be persuaded to hazard his chil- dren in the seminaries, and under the instruction of such teachers! Whosoever he be that does this, with his eyes open to what every one cannot but see, must be pro- nounced an enemy to God, a traitor to his country, and the destroyer of his children's innocence, and their immortal souls !

I. shall now present you with a specimen of the moral doctrines of your priests. These correspond, in all points, to their theological tenets, ^neas Silvius, aftetr wards pope Pius ii. says in his Epist. 26: " Islihil est quod, Sfc. There is nothing which the Rom.an court does not give for money: "it sells the imposition of hands, '• (the ordination of priests. Alas ! — then, for the succession !) "it sells the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and the pardon of sins is not given to any but such as are well-monied !" And, well said a poet of their own, namely, Mantuan, Lib. 3. "All things are saleable at Rome,— temples, priests, altars, prayers, heaven, — yea God himself," in the mass, to wit, — " are all for sale !" And lience the standing miracle at Rome which jirjestly modesty strangely forgets to enumerate in the "miracles of the saints." By the sale of her trifles such as the sight of relics, and her prayers, and her indulge?icics, and the pardons, she possesses the power of converting lead and feathers into solid gold! The greatest, and, in faci, the only unpardonable sin in the Roman church is povcrti/ 1 if you have only money you can buy the beat seat in heaven, and the snuggest joys of all paradise ! If you have no money, you can get nothing, not even a drop of wafer to cool the tongue ! And what is really inhuman, — if the priest knows your povertv,

la*

198 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

he has not the bowels of compassion enough to pray you out of purgatory ; although by his own testimony, it would cost him only a single word of his mouth ! ! This is the first article in the code of his ethics. The most horridly immoral thing is jpoverty! " The poor cannot be comforted !"

"As the Jesuit's morality is entirely pagan," says Pascal. Letter V., "nature is a sufficient guide to them." And nature does guide them with a vengeance! The force of this doctrine of probable opinion is wonderful. If a man be in a dilemma about dut}^ : this, for instance, appears vice ; that, again, is virtve : or thi^, at another time, seems virtue, that, a vice. To relieve him, he requires no more than "the PROBABLE opinion" of somc ouc. And to comfort him, the opinion of even one grave doctor, "will make an opinion probable! And be it ever so wrong and im- moral, if he onl}'- follow the probable opinion, it is saintly purity, it is true virtue ! And what is still more accommodating — should two grave doctors differ on the point, and each of them declare an opinion; why, then, each of "the grave doctors" makes his opinion probable : so that you have a probable opinion on lioth sides. And in that case, the way is clear, whatever law or gospel say. Take either side you please, just as it suits your own views, and interest. That which you do is virtuous, and alto- gether right! Hence the old Jesuit proverb ; — Saepe premente Deo, fert Deus alter opem! " If one god press hard on us, another god brings us aid!" That is to say, both sides, namely, the right, and the wrong are both right, — just as our interest requires it. See Pascal, Prov. Lett. V. And what is very marvellous in ethics, — if a person following a probable opinion, commits an enormous sin, the priest must absolve him, even though the priest holds an opinion utterly the reverse. And what is more still, — if the priest refuses this boon, he is himself guilty of a mortal sin ! this is taught by Saurez, Tom. iv. dist. 32. sect, 5, also by Vasi[uez, Disput. 62, cap. 7. and by Sanchez, N. 29. Pascal, Lett. V. p. 79. For instance, one doctor says, "thou shalt not murder in an}- case." Another grave Jesuit says, "it is just and useful to take off a man, like Henry IV. of France." The assassin follows this ''''probable opinion,'" and does murder him. And the Jesuit priest is bound, under pain of a "mortal sin" to grant absolution to the assassin,, and free pardon, and an entrance into heaven: while he is conscious that he deserves the pains of hell, and is actually plunging into it ! !

Passing by others, I shall quote the very accommodating principle of -''directing the intention.''^ By this simple expedient, the Jesuit school can convert an immoral , and even an atrocious deed, into what is commendable. For instance, a man may fight a duel, and kill a man; providing he direct his intention timply to retrieve his honor. He fights not with the intention to kill, but to do a service to himself. In like man- ner, a man may kill a A\dtness whose testimony may ruin him. To take away the immorality of this action, he has only to intendhis own good, and not intend to murder even lehile he kills ! This has been taught by Reginaldus, in Praxi, v. 21, sect. 62, by Lessius De Just. Lib. ii. cap. 9, by Escobar, Tr. 5, Ex. See many more revolt- ing instances in Pascal, Lett. VII.

I shall close with a few quotations illustrating other branches of practical morality. "A man," says one of your most respectable moralists, "who makes a contract of mar- riage, is dispensed, by any motive, from accomplishing his promise." Sanchez Oper. Mor. Decal. pars. 2, Lit. 3. Again, — "A man may begin his testimony with, / swear ; .he Can add this mental restriction, to day, in a whisper he may repeat, ] say ; "and then resume his former tone, — / did not do itT^ See Filiucius, Quest. Mor. vol.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 199

ii. No. 328. Again, " no witness is bound to declare the truth, before a lawful judge if his deposition will injure him, or his posterity." Taberna vol. ii. cap. 31, p. 288. "A priest may equivocate before a secular judge; — because such a judge is not a lawful competent authority to receive the testimony of an ecclesiastic /" See Tambur. Lib. 3, p. 27. Again, " the rebellion of Roman prisets is not treason, because they are not subject to the civil government. ^^ See Fmman. Sa, Aphor. p. 41. And, fellow ciUzens, hear the words of the Romish favorite Bellarmine, De Rom. Pon. in Lib. v» cap. 6, p. 1094. "The spiritual power must rule the temporal by all sort of means, and all expedients, when necessary. Christians,^^ that means with them R. Catholics^ " should not tolerate a heretic kingP' Now, every Jesuit priest in the land, believe* and acts on this, when he has the power. But all the members of our government do, by the pope's decision, consist of heretics. Hence no Jesuit, and none of his devotess would tolerate our government for one day, if they had the power !

Again, "a man condemned by the pope maybe killed wherever he is found. '^ See La Croix, vol. i. p. 594. Again : "it is not a mortal sin to steal that from a man which he would have given, if asked for it. It is not theft to take any thing from a father, or a husband, if the value be not considerable." See Emmanuel Sa, Apor, under the woid furtum, theft. Once more, "a child who serves his father, may secretly purloin as much as his father would have given a stranger for his compen- sation." See this in Escobar, Mor. Theol. vol. iv. lib. 34, p. 348. And again, — " Servants may secretly steal from their masters as much as they judge their labor is worth, more than the wages they receive." See this in Cardenas, Crisis, Theol. Diss. 23, cap. 2, p. 474. And Ludovicus Molina thus teaches, that if "■ a man or woman servant (hired persons) have not a sufficient support, or what is usual and necessary, he or she may secretly take, and use out of their master's goods, what is fit : they are not to be blamed for doing so, — providing they first asked him for leave so to do, and he refuse it." See Mol. De Just, et Jure : Tom. u- p. 1150, Ment Edit, of 1614.

Thus it is manifest from their approved books lying open to the world, that the Roman catholic priesthood are the grand depository of principles bearing a deadly hostility to the christian religion, and to our free institutions. And I renew my appeal to the great American family, that the Protestant, who countenances these principles, or a^ids them with his money ; or sends his children to their seminaries to imbibe these tenets, is an enemy to God, a traitor to our republic, and the destroyer of the peace and happiness of his children/

I am, most respectfully, yours, &c. W. C. B.

200 EOMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

LETTER VII.

TO THE MEMBER? OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

On the Unity of the Romish Church.

" The other shape, If shape it might be called, that shape had none ^

Distinguished in member, joint, or limb ; Or substance might be called that shadow seemed : For each seemed either." — Milton.

Fellow Citizens : — I trust I have in my last two letters put to rest, the claims face- tiously made by the "Roman catholic priesthood to sanctity. All the personal and sacerdotal holiness, to which they can lay any^ honest claims, lies wholly in their mot- ley consecrated gannents, of duly orthodox shape, and holy cut! This easy and accommodating holiness is readily put off; and most conveniently put on, during "a holy fair," and '• a solemn gala da}- :" while in the inner man, they are stouthearted deists, with few^ exceptions, and mockers of the holy scriptures : and in morals, as we have shown, the most consimimate rakes, and polluted pests of civil society ! I rest my proof wdth the American community : I appeal to the histoiy, and the voice of Europe, South America, and Mexico, for the fuller evidence of this disgrace, and foul blot on hmiian nature I I come now to speak of the enitt of tlie Romish church.

Were this unity which the priests proudly boast of, a mere harmless extravagance, like the lofty lilies of eastern princes, we should pass it in silence. But it is constituted a mark of their being the one only true church. And all the churches of Christ, on account of the supposed want of it, are doomed to be heretics, not one solitary soul of whom, as your priests daily teach 30U, can possibly be saved. Hence, in the Ro- mish church this is a dangerous and bloody dogma. It eats out the vitals of broth- erly love and christian charity. It is the parent and nurse of bigotry, discord, and every^ ilUberal feeling. This is too manifest in every communii}' vrhere popery has any influence. Ycur priests take the lead. When these charitalh, and chaste exclu- sives walk our streets, or look into a Protestant assembly, they cross themgelves, and whisper out, — "These are odious heretics! These men, women, and children, will all be damned ! As soon as they die, they will all be in perdition !''

And this proceeds not from " constitutional malignity,'' or mere morbid misanthropy. It is engendered by the elemental doctrines of popery, in the heart of even females* and those who are naturally delicate, and humane. '• You ought to be executed for propagating these tenets, and opposing Holy Mother."' — said a young lady, in this city, only two 3-ears an apostate from a presb\-terian church, — only two years a papist !

This is the very spirit engendered by the doctrines of Roman cathohcism. It is avowedly taught by your ethic writers. Here are the avowed declarations. " Those whom our lord the pope has condemned mat be laweullt killed, any where !" See La Croix, Tom. i. p. 294., and Secreta Monita, p. 114. Princeton edition.

This is the law and theory : the practical result is exhibited in the Inquisition, in the Parisian, and Irish, and Waldensian massacres ! And every one w^ll admit that the executions, and the laws of popery are true, to the life, to each other !

I have to add that m the popish charity, a heretic m faith, is \-ie"t\ed precisely in the same light as a common murderer f

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST. 201

Therefore, it is the decided opiuion of all Roman priests, that it is as lawful to kill heretics, as it is to kill murderers ; nay that it is as necessary, and as dutiful to kill the first, as to kill the last ! Hence, when the church of God has quoted that text, in the Revelation, as descriptive of popish persecutions, and in proof that Rome was the Babylon '•'-that was drunk ivith the blood of the saints; — Holy Mother replies in the w^ordsof the Rhemish Annotations on Rev. xvii. 6., "Their blood is not called the blood of saints, no more than the blood of thieves, man-killers, and other malefac- tors,- for the shedding of which, by order of justice, no commonwealth shall answer."^ Such a dangerous tenet must not, therefore, pass tmnoticed.

The iiomish priests should be the last men, in the world, to prefer claims to unity, in any sense. There is, in fact, no unity in the priests' church. Will you, I pray you, follow me in the examination of this point.

I. The christian world has been against you, and you have been against the chris- tian world. You have been Ishmaelites on the face of the earth. There have been churches who, from primitive times, have stood out, not only unconnected with you, but iramoveably opposed to your whole S3'stem. These have testified against 3-our most obnoxious abominations ; and, a& is evident from the venerable monuments of their history, still existing, they hold in their confessions and creeds, the great leading principles of modern Protestants. European Christendom has been the grand theatre of the Waldenaian church. These christians were immensely numerous ; as is evi- dent from the prodigious number of your church's m.urderous armie.s deemed requi- site to be sent out against them. These people were called by different names, by your persecuting forefathers; but the three great divisions of them were,-;— the ?r«/- denses, the Albigenses, and the Wickliffites. These had one common faith : they unanimously rejected images, saint worship, the mass, purgatory, and all the essen- tial tenets of Romanism. And in all the essential doctrines of Christ, they were at one with the reformed churches. See Jones' Church Hist. 2 vols. N. York edition. Reinerus, the Dominican writer, says in cap. 4. " that these were the most ancient heresy; and that they existed from the days of Silvester; or, others say, from the days of the apostles." Holding the apostolic doctrines, they dated their origin, as three Romish writers admit, " and their defection from the Romish communion, from the time of pope Silvester ; and they regard Leo, of the times of the emperor Constantine, as their founder." Romanism, as Edgar observes, at this time gradually ceased to be Christianity; and these inhabitants of thevallies, left the antichristian communion of Rome. Your church, and the w^orld, have changed around this devout christian so- ciety; while its principles and practices, through all tiic vicissitudes of time, live im- mutably the same. " The Waldensian church, though despised by the Roman hier- archy, illumined, in this manner, the dark ages; aiid appears, in a more enlightened period, the clearest drop in the ocean of truth ; and shines the brightest constellation in the firmament of holiness ; and sparkles the briglitest gem in the diadem of our Immanuel : and blooms the fairest flower in the garden of God !" See Edgar's Vnr.

Turn now, with me, to the East. The Roman catholic church was boldly rcjocteii by the Greek church, an immense body of christians, in the isles, in Turkey, in Rus- sia, in Europe, and in Asia. The Romish church Avas as decidedly rejected by the Ncstorians; by the Jacobins, or the churches planted by Jann^s; by the churches of Armenia; and by the Syriac churches. To form some idea of the extent of the Greek church, let me state, that in the eleventh ccnturv, the patriarch of Coustanl'r-

20'2 KOMA>* CATHOLIC CONTKOVilRSt.

nople governed 65 metropolitans ; and 600 bishops ; and each bishop had thousands of priests under himJ^See TLomas<='n, Dscipline de L'EgUse, Pan 4. 2. 17. And Allatius vol. I. )<A. The Greeks, I must observe, are the farthest perhaps from the I)urity of the Reformed churches, for this painful reason, that they unhappily remain- ed the longest in connection with the corrupt church of Rome I But it is a matter of recorded history, that that immensely numerous body of Christians, has, as a church, renounced papal usurpations, corruptions, and tyranny. And they have formally and regularly excommunicated the Roman catholic church ; and denounced her with solemnity as no longer a church of Christ. See Simon, cap. i. and Canisius vol. IV. p. 493. And^-et your priests, in the most ludicrous manner, cease not to prate about UNITY and catholicity!

Moreover, the Armenian church, an iin-.nensel}' extended body, spread over Armenia, i*ersia, India, Turkey, — have opposed, and also anathematised the Romish church. Then there is the Syrian church, who have in ancient times denoimced you as an ■apostate i:ect, and no more a true church. And this primitive apostolical people have "existed in the heart of India, to this day, as it appears from their remains which were visited by the late Dr. Buchanan. See his Star in the East. And, in a word, the European, the Asiatic, and the African churches, who have thus solemnly dissented from the Roman catholic church, have been at least, four times more numerous than the members of the Roman church, even before the Reformation, when she was in all her glory." And I invite all the Jesuits in the United States to gainsay this by anj- one historical document. Yes ! it is a fact, clearly established by history, of -which the priests take infinite i)aius to keep you all perfectly ignorant, that poper\> instead of unity and catholicity which are its vain and empty boasts, was never embraced, — never countenanced by more than one fifth part of Christendom. Yes I every man well read in chiu-ch history which the priests carefully conceal from you, fellow Citizeas, does know assuredly that all along from apostolic times, there were Jour christians or dissentients to* everyone Roman catholic.

The countless thousands, and hundreds of thousands of the Waldenses, and the immense multitude in the Oriental aud African churches, — even amid their painful " divisions about minor matters of words and ceremonies," did all oppose with firm- ness and ynaniniity, the cruel tyranny, and revolting corruptions of the Roman <;atholic church." Yes I four to one, of all these were opposed "to the sons of error, superstition, and popery," See our appendix, No. i. And yet your priests boast with unparallelled assurance of their imity and universality I Behold, fellow citizens, how these French, Spanish, and Roman Jesuits insult the American cop-munity, as if you were ignorant of the first elements of European and popish history ! They walk fortliin the midst of us, and babble o{ unity and universality, as if we were enveloped in the popish darkness of the tenth century. They enjoy our liberties, they walk forth in our social intercourse, they smile in our faces, — and gravely tell us.^"— " Ye are all heretics! Ye are as bad as murderers! We have, however, this consolation over you, that though we want the power to justify you at Ihe stake, and the gibbet, — ye will all soon be doomed."

H. Your priests boast of unity audharmony among yourselves. This is quite facet tious, and if you intend it for a sally of wit, why, it is tolerable for monks and priests. But I shall suppose that you are serious, and gravely refute your claims. Need I remind you of the fatal schisjns in your church, with which we refreshed your jnenaory in a former letter ? "Where was your unity in those days when ttco ancj

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

20^

thret popes, with their bloody partisans, rent Holy Mother's family into agitated par- ties ? Must I ^emind you of the bloody wars, *which impious and atrocious popes excited, to accomplish the end proposed by their rebellions againot their lawful sovereigns, the emperors? Need you be reminded of the civil wars which raged during the reign of the emperor Leo between those who opposed images, and "the furious tribe of image worshippers ? Need I tell you how the popes Gregory I. and II. were the authors, and ringleaders of these civil commotions, and insurrections in Italy, in their excessive zeal in behalf of image worship ? See Mosheim ii. cent. 8, part. 2, ch. 3. Has not the whole world heard of pope Zachary who excited Pepin to rebel against his sovereign, the king of France, and depose him, and reign by violence, in his stead ? And of pope Stephen whose restless ambition stirred up the French king to carry on war, and shed the blood of the Lombards, to extend his papal dominions ? Who has not shuddered at his inhuman destruction of the tens of thousands of his own good catholics, as this priest fought to wrest property and dominion from the emperor? See the pages of your own writer, Platina, in the life of pope Stephen, ii. ; and Stillingf. p. 367. Trace, I beseech you, the progress of the papal throne, to power and sacerdotal glory. That papal throne was founded in out- rage and rebellion against governments : it was built on the ruin and lives of millions ; and cemented in human blood ! "So great was the devastation and blood shed caused by popish unity and popish harmony, that, as two of your writers relate, — " the country about Rome suffered more, about that time, than in the invasions of Northern bar- barians, for 344 years before !" See Platina, in Life ( 1 Stephen II. ; and Blondus, Decad. 2, Lib i. Stilling, p. 369. Need I remind you, moreover, of the infamous treachery of pope Gregory IV. who undertook a journey into France, professedly with a view of composing differences between the emperor and his two sons, but who had no other object, as the result fully proved, than to excite the sons into an open breach, and war with their own father? x\nd thus, the head of unity kindled the flames of discord which were not quenched but by the blood of thousands. " Pope Gregory IV.," — says Hincmar the Roman catliolic bishop of Rheims, — " came into France : and there was no peace from that day, in the country." Hincmar, Epist. p. 577, Stilling, p. 371. Need we, also, rehearse the doings of pope Gregory VII., who has been well named, ''the hell-brand?'' This pious head of the Roman catholic unity, excited continual wars in Germany, and (be adjacent kingdoms. The emperor, Henry IV., fought in his time, no less than sixty-two pitched battles, (that is, fen more than Julius Caesar fought,) and all of them at the instigation of the pope, in one way, or another. See the Chron. of Ursperg. p. 226, and the history of that period : and Stilling, p. 372. Need I recite the horrid tumults which that pope caused by his enforcing the laws of celibacy upon the priests ? Or the public distrac- tion caused by his inhuman treatment of Henry IV., notwithstanding all his ser- vices? His making that poltroon prince stand at his gate, three days, clad in sack- cloth, bare headed, and bare footed in winter, before he deigned to give him an audi- ence? Was this characteristic of the head o( unity and harmony 1 If you have any doubts on the matter, I shall recivg in evidence llie only good thing whicli this scourge of mankind during all his lifetime, cither did or said. I allude to his dyinff words, as recorded by Math. Paris. His. Anglic, A. D. 1087. Having called one oi' his friends to him, he confessed that "ii ivajf through the instigation of the' devil that he had made so great a disturbance in the christian world /" This is an instructivw lesson of a pope, on unity !

804 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

In one word, it is clearly manifest to every reader of history, that in all the endless train of tumults, insurrections, and wars which have convulsed Europe, and drenched her in seas of blood, for about the last eleven hundred years, the pope and the Romish prelates have been the grand agitators, and prime causes! And yet the priests boast of unity and harmony, as an exclusive mark of their being the true church !

I am, fellow citizens, yours &c. W. C. B

LETTER VIII.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

"About her round,

A crj'of hell-liounds, never ceasing, barked,

With wide Cerberean mouths, full loud, and rung

A hideous peal!" Milton.

Fellow Citizens: — We go on with the proof that the unity of the priests' church is discord.

For, — III. The various orders and rules of the monks exhibit a house divided against itself. These Orders are so many regiments in the pope's army, who act in concert only against the common enemy. Each of them has its ownesprit du corps; and has, from time to time, caused the fiercest contests and tumults on various parti- zan questions. There is 1st the Benedictines with their rules ; and dressed in the characteristic solemn black, from the color oiihe favorite raven, which attended Bene- dict in his solitude, and which as a sensible and judicious creature, the holy monk appropriately called his " brother ;" and was, in fact, as Dr. Geddes, vol. iii. 367, recites out of the writings of the order, " hisjirst brother in the solitude.'" Then 2d , there are the monks of Cluny, founded by the wild fanatic St. Odo, who did not con- ceal that he was infested b}- flocks of mischievous foxes wherever we went ; no man could tell where they came from, until a humane wolf volimteered most devoutly and obligingly, to be his guard by day and night ! Then 3d, there are the Cameldunians, whose clothing is white, because the ghost of St. Apollinar walked out, in clothing of pure light, from below the altar, and appeared to their founder. The 4th order is that of the Gilhertines, named after their founder, who was moved to institute the order from the presence of a crucifix, gravely and sensibly nodding its head at him, as do the statues of our modern 3IandaTines ! The 5th order is the Carthusians ; — " an inhuman order." as Dr. Geddes justly styles them, from their crucifying every fine feeling, and social principle of human nature ; a thing our priests are not guilty of, as we have seen I The 6th is the Cistertians, which differs as much from that of the Carthusians, as that did from all its preceding brothers! This order is clothed in white, because the mother of the founder was favored with a marvellous and appro- priate dream, that she was about to give birth to a ichite dog! Then there are the three orders of the Celestines : the Williamites ; and the Silvesteniites.

Besides these, are the Canons Regular : and the fourteendiff'erent orders of St. Au- gustine. Then we may enumerate the Dominican, and other Mendicant orders, w^hich differ widely from the monkish orders : and there are the strong army of the Francis- cans ; and to crown the whole, the authors of all mischief, the Jesuit's order. Each of these has a particular resident virtue and eflficacy ; and they gravely tell us that it

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 205

lies in some holier article of their holy dress. For instance, the Dominican's virtue lies in their white scapular: that of the Monks hes in their belts: that of the Francis- tans in their sleeve. And it is proper for us all to knovv^ this, that when the golden dreams of the pope, and his monks, are realized, and when they have conquered this fair republic, and established these orders : and when they will swarm on our streets, in their holy processions, " as plenty as blackberries," — we may carefully put our- selves on our good manners ; and so, by the orthodox Roman way of thinking, and worshipping God by human proxy, save our lives. We must, for instance, swear in these days, by the Dominican's white scapular; salute the monk by kissing his belt; and the Franciscan by kissing his holy sleeve, as we kneel in the dust, for the honor of having his blessing, or the saintly honor of laying the foundation stone of a vile nunnery, or of worshipping and lauding to heaven the priest's favorite nieces^ under the name of sisters of Love ! All this they do, in popish lands !

Between these diifferent orders, and the bishops, and the parochial clergy, there have been perpetual wranglings in all Roman catholic countries. And the pope slirev/dly avails himself, of their influence mutually. When the bishops are refrac- tory, he judiciously foments quarrels by the monks ; when the latter become turbu- lent, he throws in his papal sword to make the bishops' scale weigh down ! Besides, there have been as deadly feuds between these orders, as ever there have been among Highland clans, and Border reivers! The Jesuits cherish violent feuds against the JTansenisto ; the Dominicans maintain bloody strifes with the Franciscans, and the Scotists Vv'ith the Thomists ! And all these orders know club logic, infinitely better than arguments of grace !

In fact, the Romish church, in its interior, has been like a boiling caldron, over a fiercely burning fire ! The agitated scalding waves now thrown up one thing, and now another. There is no rest, no peace to priest, to pope, or to prelate ! And yet these imn glory insultingly over the Christian world, in their unity and harmony ; and hold this up as the divine mark of their possessing in fee simple, the only true church ! !

IV. There is no unity between the doctrines, and rites of the Roman catholic church ; and those of the holy Scriptures, and the Fathers. Follow me in the proof of this. First, the papal supremacy \s the corner stone of your fabric, if this falls, the whole system falls, and the trodden down people regain their rights and liberty.

Now there is no evidence in the Bible, or in sound tradition, (hat Peter had any supremacy from Christ. On the contrary, all evidence, and sober tradition are against it. Your priests impose on you, and confirm the evidence of their impostures, by their marvellous ignorance of Greek criticism, and painful specimens of their literary knavery ! Christ alone is that Rock on which the church is built : Peter is not, and he cannot be the Rock, as your priests pretend. This is the point on which we are at issue : we exalt Christ Jesus the eternal Son of God, as our only foundation. Your priests actually ])refer to this honor, an erring and feeble mortal, the man Peter! Is it not mortifying to the dignity of human nature, and man's noble })owers of reason, that any man should be so lost, and so atheistic in his princi})les, as deliberately to ptefer a frail mortal creature to the Great God, our Savior, Jesns Christ ! F(dlow Citizens, I implore you to shake otf the chains of ghostly ignorance and ini])osiiire, which the priests rivet on you. Tell them that you choose not to be stultified, and crush- ed down to the level of brutes, by them! What! can you ])()ssibly prefer a fi-ail, er- ring man, for the foundation of the church, and the basis of 3'our own eternal liopes, and reject Christ, the Almighty God ? If you do, fellow cilizeus, you renounce the

19

20G Rt)MAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

dignity, and the honor of man ; you throw wantonly away every thing that ennobles the Christian!

It is well known to every Greek scholar, that the Roman catholic priests, in labor- ing to establish their fanatical error, on this point, have fallen into a disgraceful gram- matical blunder, for which a school boy would be disciplined. This they do in thett critical exposition of the words in Matt.xvi. 18. " Thou art Peter, a rock, and upon this rock will I build my church." By this imposition on the illiterate, they ex- pose their ignorance of Biblical criticism ; or, as the only alternative, they betray a mischicAOus act of knavery !

The true rendering is this : — " Thou art Petros ; and upon this the Petra,'— cTTi TavTr, rj) Jlerpa — I will build my church." Now, it was not Petros, Peter, who was to be the foundation. Christ said no such thing. These priests slander our Lord : — he said it was the Petra, not Petros, on which he built the church. And from the very phrase, namely, '■'■upon this the rock,'''' it is manifest that the Lord pointed to his own person, as he said, " upon this the rock ;" as, on another occasion, he said,^ — '•destroy thi^ temple," — meaning not the outward temple before them; but "this, the temple of his body."

Now, it is notorious that your priests have fallen into the very error, into which th« Jews fell. They understood him to say* " their splendid temple of stone ai "1 timber," — and not his "own body." In like manner j^our priests make the Petros the same as '■'this the rock,'''' meaning not the divine person of Christ, but the frail man Peter !

And oars is the exposition given by St. Augustine : — " I have said in a certain pas- sage, respecting the apostle Peter, that the church is founded upon him as upon a rock." But now mark what this great man said afterwards, — " But I do know that I have frequently afterwards so expressed, that the phrase " upon this rock,'' should b« understood to be the rock which Peter confessed. For it was not said to him thou art Petra, but thou art Petros, for the rock was Christ." See Aug. Oper. Tom. i. p. 32. the first book of his "Retractaiiones." Bendict. Edit. Paris, 1685. This is also tho iudoment of seven other fathers. And let it be especially noted that what our Lord said to Peter about "the keys," and "the remission of sins," he also said to th» ciiurch of God." See Matt, xviii. 17, 18. and also to all the other apostles, to whom he gave "the keys," and power of disciplinary remission, just as much, and as expli- citlv, as to Peter. See John xx. 23.

And, Ipray you, fellow citizens, to remember that your priests are at open war with the holy scriptures on this point. Let the inspired writers explain this matter to us. See 2 Corin. ix. 4. Paul says, " that rock was Christ.'" Will you give more heed to ignorant and profligate priests, than to the inspired and holy St. Paul ? Hear him again in Ephes. ii. 20. " We are built upon the foundation of the apostles and proph- ets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone,'' or rock. And in Revel, xxi. 14. Sr. John declares " that in the foundation were the names of the tivelve apostles," — Mild not Peter's merely. Read, think, and judge, I beseech you, for yourselves. Nay, hear St. Peter himself explain this ; you certainly will give more credence to St. Peter than to those illiterate and licentious priests, whom St. Peter in his hasty wrath, were he here, would " smite, and cut their ears oflV In his first Epistle ii. 6, 7. he declares Christ to be "the precious and elect, and chief corner stone, and the Petra, tht iffCK. ' Yer. 8.

And moreover, our Lord himself settles the question about Peter's "supremacy." Sec Slatt. XX. 25. Mark x. 42. There he puts all his disciples on a perfect footing of

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 207

equality. He charges them to borrow no model of power from the heathen : to allow of " no lordships ;" "no exercising of authority," over each other as his apostles, and ministers. These were "Gentile" customs, and not christian. And Peter never claimed supremacy ; and none of the apostles ever gave it to him in a compliment. Hear his own words, in 1 Epist. ch. v. while he is addressing "the elders who have the oversight of the flock," that is " teaching elders,'' or " the pastors.'' He assumes no supremacy over them; he claims no other rank than that of a fellow ''elder." " I am also an elder," — says the holy and humble apostle. And placing himself in their ranks, he charges them " not to be Lords over God's heritage !" How could he be supposed guilty of that tyranny and crime, against which he thus solemly guards the christian ministry? — Now, suppose one of their pious elders, or "priests," if you wijl, had said, — "Our Lord Peter! Our Lord God Pope Peter!" What would be have said ? Our Lord's words to himself, on another occasion, when he showed that he was neither supreme, nor infallible, would have ministered to him the words of the severe but just rebuke, — "Get thee behind me Satan! for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men !" Hence he had no supremacy; and if Peter had no supremac}^ — your ipopes, were ihey even his suc- cessors, have none.

But farther, I can produce seven of your fathers against this supremacy of the bishop of Rome. 1st. St. Augustine signed the decree of the Milevitan Council \^hich declared that " if any man shall appeal" from his own bishop, to any one, " beyond seas, let him be received into communion by none in Africa." Thus he de- •clares that there is no supremacy of the bishop of Rome, over the African bishops, and churches. See Mans. Concil. Collect. Tom. iv. 507. Venef. Edit, of 1785.

I am aware ihat popish writers quote the following out of Augustine's Epist. 43 alias 162. — " The supremacy of the Apostolical See, has always remained in the church of Rome."

But can ihis be genuine, and no forgery ; when, as is testified above, Augustine signed the famous decree of the Milevitan Council, protesting against the papal su- premacy of Rome; and solemnly excommunicating all who should even a])peal to Rome against his own church and bishops in Africa?

But the point is settled without supposing a forger}'-. The fatliers had not alwnvs the unanimous consent with themselves. In Tom. i. jd. 32. Retract. Lib. «., Augustine frankly admits that he had made Peter the Rock, and the foundation of the church. But this he retracted; and declares that "the Rock is Christ whom Peter confessed," "for," adds he, — "it was not said to him thou art Petra ; but thou art Pttros : for tiie Rock was Christ."

2d. St. Jerome says, — " The church of Rome is not to be deemed one thing, and the church of the whole world, another." — " Wheresoever a bishop is, whether nt Rome, or Eugubiura, or at Constantinople, or Alexandria, or Tanais, he is of the sajne worth," &c. "But all bishops are successors of the apostles. Why do you i)roduce to me the custom of one city?" Sec Jerome to Evagr. Tom. ii. p. 512. Paris Edit. 1602. Again he says — " Bishops should recollect, that they are greater than elderg, rather by ciisiom than the truth of the Lord's appointment ; and that they ought to rule the church in common." Jerome, o/i Titus, Tom. i. Lib. i. cap. 1. — Finch. p. 166.

I am, fellow citizens, yours, &:c. W. C. B.

208 ROMAN CATHOUC CONTROVERSTTr

LETTER IX.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

^ Popery condemned by the Scriptures and the Fathers.

"In the first six luindred years, there was no church, no one doctor, no one martyr, no- one confessor, no one member, in the West, or in any other part of tlie world, v\ ho was properly and formally a papist." — Voetius.

Fellow Citizens: — We have seen in the progress of our discussion, that your priests have a cumbrous and inaccessible load of materials for their rule of faith. To the holy scriptures, they add the apocrypha, and oral tradition, and the unanimous consent of the fathers. The etlect of this is obvious. If I add to "any rule," or measure, two inches, or cut off two, from it, — it is no longer a rule : it is utterly destroyed. The very object for which it was made is lost. This leads infallibly into deism. Hence every Roman preist, just in proportion as he is a consistent papist is an irrecoverable deist;, and a stout-hearted opposer of God's word. His first les- son, and the first element of his system is this : The holy scriptures are not the rule of faith : they are not perfect ; their authority'- is given to them by the pope and his priesthood ! They have no divine authority over the soul and consciences of men, but what a profane priest gives to them !

This overwhelming truth our New York priests have taken incredible pains to convince the American community, in each of their letters, before they retreated. And there is not a reflecting man among us, whether he is christian or deist, who does entertain a doubt on tlie subject. Every body knows that the priests here are zis resolute, and as stout-hearted deists, as Voltaire, Hume, or Paine was ! And having gone this fatal length, it is no wonder that there does exist among our Ameri- can, as well as European Roman catholic priests, the same division which exists among the deists : namels'', the immortal deist, who believes in a future state; and the mortal deist, who does not believe in a future state! And in this they have, by the way, pontifical precedent and example. One of the popes of Rome, on his death bed, summoned his favorites around him, and made this extraordinary remark, " I am dying ; and I shall soon have three doubts solved, which have long hung on my mind; namely, — whether there be a heaven, — whether there be a hell, — and whether there be a God !"

Bitt, by abandoning the evidence and weight o^ divine authority, for his religioii* the Roman priest gains his great object. He throws the whole proof of his novel system on the evidence of human aidhority, — and on tliat alone ! He is compelled to do this, because he is conscious that its essential doctrines, and rites were entirely invented, some centuries, after the Bible was given by God to the church.

One principal fountain of the priests' authority and evidence, is the unanimous consent of the Fathers. On this I join issue with them : to this test I cheerfully follow them ; and we shall see that they are condemned by the fathers, as well as by the scriptures. Now, let me here stuie explicitly, the Roman catholic maxim and law on this point. It is this : — " That doctrine and rite which has the unanimous consent of the Fathers, is binding on the human conscience : that which has not the unanimous consent is of no authority whatever." This is the radical and fatal doctrine on which Romanism as a system of novel religion, is founded and reared.

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209

Now, I can easily show that the distinctive doctrines and rites of Rome, do abso- lutely and utterly want this, their own essential evidence. And here let it be especially noted, that it is of no consequence to us whether or not the Romish priests produce quotations perfectly the reverse of those genuine ones which I shall produce. Let them do it : only let them quote fairly. We wish them to offer opposite quota- tions. In doing so, they will only ruin their cause the sooner. They will prove that the fathers do not only not agree with each other, — but that they do contradict them- selves. Hence, there can be no unanimous consent of the Fathers.

I have formerly given a specimen of the Fathers on the popish supremacy ; I shall add a few more. And it will be edifying to give the exposition of a few of them on the famous text, " Thou art the Peter, and on this rock will I build my church,'' fyc. In my last letter, I gave St. Augustine's exposition. " It was not said to him, thou art Petra ; but thou art Petros: for the Rock was Christ." Tom. i. p. S2, Retractions. Again: *'Did Peter receive those keys, and did not John and James, and the other apostles not receive them? "What was given to him, was given to the church." Sermon . 149. Tom V. p. 766. Bened. Edit. Paris, 1685.

St. Jerome declares " Christ to be the Petra, the Rock ; who granted to his apostles, — donavit apostolis — that they also should be called rocks." On Amos ; Tom. v. p. 263, Paris Edit, of 1602. But, I shall help your priests to another quotation; for I wish to be impartial. In Tom. iv. p. 15, he makes Peter the Rock, and the chuich founded on him! Aga.m, in Tom. iii. p. 173, this consistent saint says: "The catholic church," (he does not say the Roman catholic church,) but, "the catholic church is founded in a firm root, upon the Petra, the Rock Christ."

It is proper to state, however, that some who are well skilled in Jerome's writings, do maintain that when he makes Christ the petra, — the rock ; he extends this to all the apostles equally : " they are all rocks : the church rests on them all equally.

I must also vindicate him from a quotation which your priests here, and in Europe, have given out of his book. Adv. Jovin. Lib i. cap. 14. It is this, — "Among the twelve to prevent schism, o)ie is elected, aud established as the head.'' Here the Jesuits are guilty of a partial translation ; and of garbling the entire sentence. I «hall give the true rendering, and the entire sentence: "But tliou sayest, the church is founded on Peter, although in another place, the very same thing is done upon all the apostles; and tbey all receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and th« strength of the church is established equally upon them all. Yet, therefore, among the twelve one is chosen, that, the head being appointed, the *ccasion of schism may be taken away," — that is, the one chosen was " head," or president to keep order. This was, in Jerome's view, all of Peter's supremacy. And even this is questioned ; for when the full college of apostles met, which was only while they were at Jerusa- lem, it was not Peter, but James who was "the head," and president. Acts XV.

St. Chrysostom says "Christ did not say upon Peter, for he did not found hi« church upon a man ; but, upon faitli. What, therefore, means this Petra, — Rock ? Upon the confession contained in Peter's word." 0])cr. Tomi. vi. p. 233. Pari^ Edit. 1621. The same idea he advances in Sermon 54. on Matt. xvi. 18.

In like manner Origen on Matt. xvi. : and Athanasius in his letter to Sorapion, Paris Edit. 1627. Also St. Cyril of Alexandria, Tom. v. p. 509, Paris Edit. 1638. Also St. Ambrose, De Inrarn. Sac. Lib. i., Paris Edit. 1690. And it h(dj)s my cause, to add, that St. Ambrose is so dt'stitutcof the unanimous consent, that he advocates, Peter's supremacy. Let tlie priests produce this contradiction, on his puiros, ami

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210 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST^

thereby aid our cause. And finallyt St. Hilary makes the rock confessed by Peter^ to be the only foundation of the church. See his work, De Trinit. Lib. vi. Paris Edit. 1652. The original of all these Greek and Latin Fathers, I am prepared to give, at any call. The original, in Greek and. Latin, is lying before me. I omit them only for want of room.

Theodoret the Greek fatherrlhus wrote in 451 ; '•^Christ alone is the head of all : but the holy church is his body ; and we say that the saints are the members of his body; one, indeed, is the neck; and another the feet. By his legs, understand St. Peter, the first of the apostles." On Canticles, Lat. Edit. Paris 1608. Thus he makes Peter the legs, which are borne up by the feet ; and by no means the head !

Next, let me present you with a quotation or two from Turtiillian ; "Peter was called a stone, or a rock, for the building of the church. All the apostles were rocks." Contra Marc. Lib. iv. Again; — "Survey the apostolical churches, in which the very chairs of the apostles still preside over their stations ; in which their own epistles are recited ; uttering the voice, and representing the presence of each of them. Is Achaia nearest to thee? Thou hast Corinth. If thou art not far from Macedonia, thou hast the Philippians, and Thessalonians. If thou can^t go to Asia, thou hast Ephesus ; but if thou art near Italy, thou hast Rome, whence to us also authority is near at hand." De proescrip. adv. Hseres. cap. 36, p. 215, Paris Edit. 1675.

This is the famous passage, which the Jesuits and other popish writers had sported so long, as an irrefragable proof, from one of the most ancient of the Fathers, of the supremacy of the Roman See. But the imposture has been detected, and exposed. Will my reader believe me, when I assure him that in quoting the above, they left out all the lines printed in Italicks ! In the Priests' Book, the quotation begins with, *• If thou art near Italy," &c. See Finch's Romish Controv. p. 214.

Ambrose is usually set irt opposition to Peter's supremacy^ Hear his words; — "Faith is the foundation of the church; for it was not said of the flesh of Peter, but of his faith, that the gates of hell should not prevail against it." De Incarn. Dora. Sacram. Lib. 1. Cap. 5 p. 711. Bened. Edit. Par. 1690. Again; "What is said to Peter, is said to the Apostles." In Psal. 38. Tom. i. p. 858. Onco more, — " not unmindful of his place, he enacted the primacy, — a primacy of confes- sion, not of honor : a primacy o( faith, and not of orderJ'^ De Incarn. Lib. i. as above.

Let me next carry you to St. Cyprian, who thus wTote in A. D. 248. — " The other Apostles were the same as Peter, endowed with an equal fellowship of honor, and power, &c.'* De Unit. Eceles. p. 107. Oxford edit. 1682.- Once more, in his pre- fatory Address to the bishops at the Council of Carthage he said, — "No one of us has set himself up as the bishop of bishops; or has driven, by tyrannical fear, his col- leagues to the necessity of obeying him ; since every bishop has his own will for the exercise of his liberty and power &c." And this was the sentence of the council of Carthage. See Labb. and Cossart's Concil. Tom. i. p. 786.

St. Hilary we must not omit: hear his words uttered so far back as A. D.-358. "The building of the church is upon this Petra, Rock of his (Peter's) confession: this faith is the foundation of the church : through this faith the gates of hell are weak against it." De Trinit. Lib. 6. Par. Edit. 16:52. Again in his Expos, of Psal. 52, he says, — " The apostles obtained the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Once more; — "we have known no rock but Christ; because it is said of him, — but the Rock, Petra was Christ." Expos, of Psal. 140. Enarr. p. 1138.

Finally; St. Gregorit, the pope, makes an enlightened opposition to the supre-

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVEHST. 211

macy of the pope, in A. D. 590. I could fill pages from him; but I select the fol- lowing,— "Ego autem fidenter dico, &c. I confidently say, that whosoever calls himself Universal Bishop, (Pope,) or desires to be so called in his pride, is the fore- runner of Antichrist: because he, in his pride, prefers himself to the rest. And he is conducted to error with a similar pride. For as " that ivicked one'" wishes to appear a god above all men, so, whosoever he is who desires to be called sole bishop, extols himself above all other bishops." Lib. 7. Indie. 15, Epist. 33, Ad. Maur. Aug. Bened. Edit, of Paris, 1705. And in Lib. 7. Indie. 15. Epist. 40, he shows beyond tlie denial of Jesuits, that the bishops of Alexandria, and Antioch, with him of Rome, were equally descended from the Apostle ; and that the one had no supremacy over th^ other. And this man, remember, I pray you, was a pope, and one of your saints, whom you worship, and adore with the burning of incense. Hence, jsoa shonldtell your priests, who scandalously impose on laymen's ignorance of history, that they stand a poor chance in their hopes of getting into paradise by the merits and prayers of St. Gregoi-y, the pope ! For they oppose and blaspheme this demi god, by their modern popery. You may depend on it, if St. Gregory, the pope, has any control of the gates of paradise, not one soul of the Jesuits can ever get in for love, or money !

To the authority of the Father's, I shall add the decisions of councils, against the papal supremacy. It is well known that before the council of Nice, which first divided the government of the chruch into four Patriarchal seats, Rome had very little, or rather no pre-eminence. All the Jesuits are, of course, well, acquainted with the verses of-iEneas Silvius, who became Pope Pius ii., namely, — "Antequam Nincenum, &c. Before the Nicene council, every bishop or pastor, lived to him- self: little respect was paid to the church of Rome." See Pope Pius, ii. Epist. 301: and Willet's Synopsis p. 158. In the Nicene council, no primacy of power was given to Rome, over the whole church. The Patriarchs of Jerusalem, of Antioch, and Alexandria, were independent of the bishop of Rome. The fact is, the bishop of Rome was really a small concern in those days. The Oriental churches knew scarcely any thing of his name, and nothing of the modern facetious claims of abso^ lute supremacy, made by our Romish fanatics !

Lastly : your own master spirit, the Jesuit Bellarmine admits unluckily, what "overthrows the papal supremacy. He says, 1st. that — "It doth not depend on Christ's institution, sed ex Petri facto, but from the fact or deed of Peter, that the bishop of Rome, in preference to the bishop of Antioch, or any other See, should be St. Peter's successor." "It is," sa3's he, '■'■jure htimano, non jure divino :'''' — by "human law, not by divine right, or law, that he has all that power, wjiich he has." "It is not ex prima mstitutione, S,-c. from the first institution of the pontificate, whicii is read of in the gospel." Again, he frankly admits, — "■' Romaiium pontificem, &c." that the Roman pontif is the successor of Peter, is not expressly set down in the scriptures; but it is grounded on St. Peter's tradition." See Bellarm. De Pontif. Lib. ii. cap. 17. also cap. 16.

Thus, your principal writer abandons all ]iroof from scripture. Hence, it is disho- nest, and sheer imposition, in any of your priests to quote ths text oi' Peter, the JRoch to prove the pope's supremacy. And touching this writer's proof of Peter's supre- macy from tradition, — his whole argument, in one word, amounts to tliis. A priest goes into court to claim the possession of an immense estate : — " It is true," says he, "I do not claim it by any written deed, or by the will of the true owner. But the genuine members of my family, John Roe, and Nicholas Doc have a tradition in our

2J2 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

favor, from time immemorial, — and, therefore, we claim it, in opposition to those who have the genuine and authentic will; in as much as our tradition is better than any deed or will, in the jwssession of the lineal heirs ! !" This is the whole amount of the Roman catholic argument.

And thus the supremacy of the Romish church and pope arose, not from the will of God, or an}'- command of Christ; or the voice of Peter, or any legal deed of the church : but, like the power and supremacy of Caesar, Alexander, or Tamerlane, — it arose out of human pride and ambition ! It was reared by iniquity, fraud, and atheism : it was erected at the expense of millions of human lives : and the blood of eixtij eight millions has cemented it ! ! And wo, wo, wo be to the man who, in any way, aids, or sustains it. It is an enemy to the human race ! It shuts up as far as it can, the gates of heaven ! It has already been the eternal undoing of millions ! It is the most malignant enemy of God. And the Almighty has pledged all his perfec- tions to destroy it for ever and ever ! See Rev. chap, xviii.

Your sincere friend, &c.

W. C. B.

LETTER X.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Poptry condemned by Scripture and the Fathers.

" O alienate from God! O spirit accursed ! Forsaken of all good ! I see thy fall Determined " Milton.

Fellow CITIZE^^s: — I finished, in my last letter, the quotation of testimonies from the Fathers against the supremacy : I now beg leave to observe : —

Second, that the use of images in divine worship is condemned by Scrijiture and the Fathers.

Hear the voice of God to j^ou:— " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." Math. iv. 10. "Little children keep 3'ourselvesfrom idols.'" 1 John V. 21. Deut. xxvii. 15. " Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the Lord ; the work of the hands of the crafts- man ; and putteth it in a secret place : and all the people shall answer and say, Amen.'^ And hear the voice of God in the second commandment: " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image ; or any likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth : thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.^^ And the whole of the scriptures, on every page, denounce idolatry as rebellion against God, and sheer atheism !

But the popish priests leave put the whole of the second commandment from their catechism, except a line or so. They make three commands in the first table, and seven, in the second. They express the first precept thus; "Thou shalt have no other gods before me : thou shalt not make unto thee any graven thing, &:c." See the Catech. of the council of Trent, authorized by pope Pius V. There is a double act of treason here against Almighty God. They leave out the word image, and render it "graven thing:" and they cut off the whole of the precept after the words "graven thing." And to make up the ten precepts, they divide the tenth into two.

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For instance; their ninth commandment is : "Thou shalt not covet tliy neighbor's house." And the tenth is : " Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife." &c.

Let us now hear the Fathers against the use of images in the worship of God. St/ Augustine says: "This is the chief cause of this mad impiety, that a figure resem- bUng a hving form, operates more forcibly upon the feehngs of these wretched men, than its being manifest that it is not hving ; and therefore, that it ought to be despised by.;the Hving." Expos, of PsaL 113, Enarr. Again,- in his 44th Epist. to Max. he says, — "know thou, that none of the dead, or any thing made of -God, is worshipped as God., of the cathohc christians." Here he states that those who worship, or bow down to the dead, or to creatures, are not catholic christians. There is another famous passage in St. Augustine in Lib. JDe Mor., or his Manners of the cathohie church, — in which he declares the worshipping of sainfs tombs and pictures, to be as bad as gluttony and drunkenness. Here are his words : " I know that many axe worshippers of tombs and pictures; I know that there be many who bantjuet most riotously over the graves of the dead, and giving meat to the carcasses, do bury them- selves upon the buried ; and attribute their gluttony and drunkenness to religion." Q-uoted in the 14th Homily of the church of England on the Peril of Idolatry, part 2, Again, he says, — "Images be of more force to crooken an unhappy soul, than to teach and instruct it." Again, — "When images are placed in temples, and set in honorable sublimity, and begin once to be worshipped, forthwith breedeih the most vile affection of error." See 14 Homily, ut supra.

Hear Tertullian, — " Omnis forma, &c. Every form, or little form must be called an idol." " God forbids as well the making as the worshipping of an idol, — the divine law proclaims thou shalt not make anidol.'^ De idol. cap. iv. p. 87. Paris 1675.

St. Athanasius says: "0\oj$firMv &c. The invention of idols is not good, but altogether evil. For that which has a bad beginning, being wholly bad, cannot he deemed good in any way." Orat. Contr. Gent. Par. Edit. 1627. Finch, p. 195.

St. Ambrose thus writes : " The gentiles worship wood, because they think that is the image of God: but the image of the invisible God is not in that which is seen; but in that which is not seen." On Psalm 118, Tom. i. p. 1095. Bened. Edit. Paris 1690. Again, — " The church knows no vain ideas, and vain images of figures ; but she knows the true substance of the Trinity." On the Flight of time, Tom. i.

Of the same sentiment, are Origen. Clemens Alexand. Eusebius, Cyprian, Lao- tantiur-, and Epiphanius. Gregory insists that images may be used, " but are by no means to he worshipped or lowed doivn unio.'^ Sec Registr. Epist. Lib. ii. Ind. 4. p. 1100. Boned. Edit. Paris 1705.

Memorable are the words of Lactantius, Lib. ii. De Orig. Error. Tom. i^ p. 185» Paris Edit. 1748 : " There is no doubt but that there is no religion in that place where- ever any image is. For if religion stand in goodly things, and there is no godliness but in heavenly things, thin, are images without religion.''^

In like manner writes St. Cyril. But I shall close this with the words of the coim- cil of Eliberi in Sjjain, held in A. D. 800. "Placuit picturas, &.c. It haih seemed good to us that piciurcs ought not to be in the churches, lest that which is worshipped or adored be painted on the walls." Finch, p, 256. Thus scripture and the Fatliers condenuj. the use^ and the worship of images in the church.

Third. — The worship of angels and saints is condemned by the scri})tures and the Fathers. Col. ii. 18. "Let no man beguile you in a voluntary humility, and wor- shipping of angels." When Joh» in an unguarded moment fell down to worship the

8tl4 ROM.\y CATHOLIC COW TROTERST.

angel, (Rev. xix. 10.) he was sharply rebuked, — "see thou doit not — worship God." In Psalm Ix. 11. we are taught by the Lord how vain is the help of man, be he €Uad, or living, — ''O God, give us help from trouble, for vain is the help of manP'' In Jeremiali iii. 23. we are taught to look to no created being : but unto God only for salvation: — *• Truh- in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel." In Acts iv. 12. it is declared by St. Peter, who spoke by the Holy Ghost, that no angel, and no saint can help to save us : — " There is no salvation in any other, than in Jesvs : for there is no other name under heaven, given among men, tcherehy we must be saved.''' No, not one among all angels under heaven: none among all men, in heaven, or on earth I And to make it doubly sure,^God has thus proclaimed, in Jerem. xvii. 5, — " Thus saith the Lord, cursed is the man that trusteth in man ; tliat maketh Jlesh his arm: and whose heart departethfrom the Lord." — Hear also the words of our Savior, in Matt. iv. 10., *' Jesus saith unto him, get thee hence, Satan, for it is icritten, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.""

From all these divine passages we gather these two essential doctrines : — Isr. All persuasions, or motives to use, or worship idols, and go after other gods, come from Satan. 2d. There is no place in divine worship for saints' merit, or saints' worship. For it is certain that none of all his creatures can bring up to the throne of God any personal worth, or merit, or sanctity, which he can add to our Lord Jesus Christ's in- finite atonement, and his holy and prevalent intercession. No angel, or man can be supposed to be a suitable object to pray to, unless they know the hearts of all men. But God only is the sole object of worship, because " he o^'lt knoweth the hearts of all the children of men." 1 Kings viii. 39.

- Now hear the Fathers on this point : — St. Bernard on Heb. i. 14. says, — • ' E vidently :arethey our ministering servants, not our masters, or lords." And on Psal. 90. sec. 11. " If not our lords and masters, then are they not to be worshipped."

St. Augustine thus declares, — "Christ is the High Priest who has entered, for us, ■within the veil, and who alone of those who have appeared in the flesh intercedes for ■W5." In Psal. 61. Tom. iv. p. 633. Bened. Edit. Paris. And the f:>llovs-iug is irre- sistible,— ••Rtspondent, &c. they answer, we worship not evil spirits, we worship those beings whom you call angels, the powers and servants of the great God. I wish you would worship them, and you would soon leain from them, not to worship them. Take the angel for a teacher." He then refers to St. John, and the angel whorebuk- -ed him. Aug. Oper. Tom. iv. p. 1054, in Psal. 96. Bened. Edit.

The words of St. Athanasius are equally decisive, — Ov^ Cw e^i Sec. It belongs alone to God to be worshipped, and the angels themselves are aware of this; for although they surpass others in glory, they are all creatures, and are not beings to be worshipped, but beings who worship the Lord." Third Orat. against the Arians; Paris Edit. 1627. To the same puqDose are the words of Origen, Theodoret, Greg- ory Nyssen, Epiphanius, and others.

Fourth. — Prayers in an unknown tongue are condemned by Scripture and the Fa- thers. The Breviary, used by the priests, is in Latin : and their prayers, and the mass, are exhibited in Latin. It is true, Roman cathohc prayer books are found in English. But I have had occasion to observe in a former Letter, that these books put forth in English, are very^ ditferent from the genuine Breviaries. The}' are sheer im- positions on you, their ovm devotees, designed mainly to impose upon Protestants. In these English mass books, they appear marvellous^ orthodox ; and do make a mar- ▼ellous approach to Protestant prayer books. They have, it is true, the prayers to

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the saints, and " the rosary of the Mother of God." But these are shorn of their chief blasphemies, to stop the mouths of uninformed Protestants. The infamous blasphe- my contained in the prayers to the Virgin, for instance, is carefully expunged in the English versions of the Breviary. I mean the phrase " Holy Mother command thy Son, ^c." In the Latin Breviary, it is "jube filio," command thy son. "Holy Mo- ther, ora patrem, jubejilio, — pray to theFather, and command thy Son."

Again, — " Jure matris impera dilectissimo tuo filio Domino nostro Jesu Christo; By the rights of a mother, command thy most beloved Son, our Lord Jesu? Christ." See Bonavent. Cor. Beat. Virg. Maria : Tom. vi. Romf Edit. A. D. 1588.

Again, — " O felix puerpera, nostra plans scelera, jure matris impera Eedemptori! Ora suj)pliciter (Patrem ;) praecipe sublimiter (Redemptori.") That is, — "O happy Mother of God, by virtue of the rights of a mother, atoning for our crimes, lay thy commands on the Redeemer ! Humbly supplicate the Father ; lay thy imperial com- mands on thy Son, the Redeemer!" See Hist. Sec. Char. August. Ue Commem. Beat. Mar. Fir.— Morn. Exer. p. 523.

Now, these horrid blasphemies are weekly perpetrated by your priests in Latin, But did such a prayer book lie before the public in the common tongue, and were such monstrous fictions, absurdities, and blasphemies, as are recorded on the pages of the Latin Breviary, uttered in a New- York, or any American audience, — they w^ould be shocked to such a degree thatthey would start from their seats, and leave the Chapel, to save themselves from the inflictions of such prayers, and vows as are fit only for Rabshakeh, and the court of the King of Assyria!

I hesitate not to affirm, that this reveals one of the chief reasons for your priest's employing Latin. No priest dare come out in the vulgar tongue, among an enlight- ened people, v/ith their prayers to the saints ; or with the monstrous, and revolting fictions of the mass, in English. They would as soon venture out with an English translation of St. Bonaventure's psaltery; in which all the psalms are altered so as to be addressed to the Virgin Mary : or, with an English version of the most infamous and obscene questions put by priests to persons,— and even females, in E77glish, at the confessional !

This practice of Latin prayers, and services, is condemned by St. Paul, speaking by the Holy Ghost. See 1 Cor. xiv. "If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let one interpret. But if there be no interpreter let him keep silence in the church." Again, Ver. 9. "Except ye utter by the tongue, words easy to be imderstood, how gliall it be shown what is spoken? For ye shall speak into the air!" " If I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh, a barbarian, and he that speaketh, shall be a barbarian unto me !"

Here, my fellow citizens, St. Paul declares that your priests make themselves, ab- solutely, nothing but barbarians unto you. And if you believe St. Paul, speaking by inspiration, you are bound to believe them barbarians, when they insult you by their senseless Latin mummery ! When will you rouse uj) and begin to act as men, — as rational beings! When will you assert your mental and spiritual liberty; and roll off from you the^e endless wrongs, and insults, heaped on you, by designing sacer- dotal knaves ! Arise, and maintain your rights. Were you going to petition a friend, oa: the Corporation, or the Congress, for a special favor, would you acklress them in an unknown tongue? Do you not sec the monstrous absurdity oi' J jUI in i)raytrs, which scarcely even one of your priests can translate, or even read accurately, and none of all the people can understand ! Does not your Maker conmiaud you to uso

5J16 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

a known tongue? Hear the words of Paul, 1 Cor. xiv. 15., "I will pray with the Spirit, and 1 will pray with the understanding also.'' But no people can obey this command, under your priests' impositions. None of you can understand one word !

Hear, now, the Fathers of the church. They condemn the prayers in unknown tongues. Origen says, — " Christians in prayers, use not the very words of scripture" (that is the Hebrew ?nd Greek,) " but the Greeks use the Greek, the Romans, the Latin, and so every one according to his own dialect, does pray unto God, &c." "And he who is the Lord of every language, hears the prayers put up to him in every lan- guage.''' Contr. Cels. Lib. 8. p. 402.

Hear St. Ambrose, — "If ye come together to edify the church, those things ought to be spoken that the hearers may understand : for what does he profit the people,, who speaks in mi unJcnown tongue V In 1 Cor. xiv. And if your priests do not know that the Hebrews attempted this innovation, before them, let them now knov.- it. And let them know, moreover, that St. Ambrose rebuked the folly thereof. In the place above quoted, he thus adds, — " There were some, especially of the Hebrews, that used the Syriac, and the Hebrew tongue, in their services^ but these aimed at their own glory and commendation, not at the people's benefit." What a rebuke to your haughty priests, from one of your own sainted fathers. Let them writlie under the scourge of St. Ambrose !

But hear St. Augustine next : " Intelligere debemus, &;c. We ought to understand what we pray for, that we may not like birds, but like men, sing unto God. For black-birds, and parrots, and crows, and magpies, &c., are taught to sound forth what they understand not. But to" (and this includes, as in David's psalms, both pra3-ers and praisings,) "sing with understanding, is granted not to a bird, but to a man, through God's good pleasure." Enan-at. in Psal. 18, Morning Exer. p. 303. Thus you see that father Augustine, and his ancient associates, considered prayers in an unknown tongue, as similar every way to the piatings of a magpie, or a parrot ! Origen, Chr3'sostom, Jerome, Basil the Great, are decidedly of the same opinion. Their original words are before me. I omit them for want of room. See Fulk's Confut. of the Rhemish Test, on 1 Cor. xiv.

But I cannot omit Cardinal Cajetan, your own champion's words. In his Com- ment, in 1 Corin. cap. xiv. he says : " Ex hac Pauli, &c. From this doctrine of St. Paul, it follows, that it is better for the edification of the church, that the public prayers which the people hear, should be made in that language which both priests and people understand, than that they should be made in Latin!" Hear, finally, St. Thomas Aquinas, your angelical doctor, — "Plus lucratur, «Sr.c. He gains most who prays and understands the words which he speaks, Sz-c." " Melius est, &c. It is better that the tongue which blesses, should interpret, for good words should be spoken to the edification of faith." Now surely where the people listen to the Latin prayers, no man can understand — no man can diligently say, amen ; no man can, along w^ith the priest, offer up a petition. How forcible the words of the apostle Paul : *' I thank God, I speak with tongues more than j^ou all ; but I had rather speak five words to be understood by, and to edif}', those that hear me, than ten thousand words, in an unknown tongue!" 1 Cor. xiv. 18.

Thus far, we see, — your system is condemned hy the word of God and the ancient Fathers of the. church.

I am, fellow citizens, yours respectfully, &x.

W. C. B.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 217

i,^ LETTER XL

10 THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Popery condemned hy Scripture and the Fathers.

*'But the abominable, and murderers, and impure, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all fiars, shall have their part in the lake which biirneth with fire and brimstone." — Rev. xxi. 8.

Fellow Citizens; — Having despatched the chief marks and notes of your priests* church, I thought it proper, before I entered on a minute examination of your sacra- ments, and essential rites, and doctrines, to take a rapid view of your system, as a wliole ; and to show you that we do not Hghtly affirm that popery is condemned by scripture and the Fathers.

Your priests have their grand test of the truth of their whole system ; namely, the unanimous consent of the Fathers. These Fathers explain the scriptures, say they, and give " the only true meaning of them :" these Fathers conveyed the genuine traditions, and handed down the holy Roman catholic rites, ceremonies, and sacraments. In fact, the unanimous consent of the Fathers is the pillar of popery. This unanimous consent of the sainted writers, you say, is wielded by the pope, and the church, with infallible and immutable precision. It props up the tottering stool of St. Peter, and sustains the pope on it ; and he in his turn, sustains the unanimous consent of the Fathers. I am justifiable, therefore, in taking some time, and pains to overthrow it.

And before we dismiss it, I trust it will be made to appear as absurd and ridiculous, as the claims of the holy and chaste priests to sanctity ! We therefore go on : —

Fifth. — Your peculiar worship offered to the Virgin, '■'•the mother of 'God^'''' is condemned by scripture, and the Fathers. Whatever is not enjoined of God in his worship, is to be considered will-worship ; and is, therefore, to be rejected, as forbidden of God. That which Paul in Col. ii. 18, calls dprjGKeia. the worshipping of angels, i'S by him called in ver. 23. edeXodpncrKeia ivill-worship.

Now, in all the New Testament, there is no command to pray to Mary, no example favoring it, either on the part of Christ, or of his apostles. The angel used the words to her, which you torture wickedly into a prayer, '^ Hail Mary ! Ave Maria. '^^ Now, who that impious blasphemer was, who first conceived the monstrous idea of this being a prayer, and an act of worship, is not known, — history does not reveal the infamy of his name. The angel simply used the common salutation, ^aipe. And it no more includes the idea of worship, than our common salutation, " How are you 1 or, Goodhye, — a contraction for ^'' God he with you.'"' "Hail Mary!" It is the same word used by our Savior in Matt. v. 12, to his people, and there rendered rejoice ye I Did our Savior in this address, worship his audience? If so, then the angel also adored Mary. And if so, you are correct in worshipping her with your Ave Maria ! If not^ then you are imposed upon, by knavish priests !

Our Lord, while as man, he did his mother reverence, — as one " under the law," — never adored her, never admitted her right to interfere as intercessor, or adviser, in his mediatorial work. There is a strong instance and proof of this, in John ii, 4. Mary seems to have suggested the idea that he should miraculously give wine : he replied in language of the most polished respect, — Hwai, Lady, wliat to mc, and to thee ? " My hour is not yet come." That is, — " Lady, — I honor you as my mother in th(j flesh, as Son of man : but as Son of God, what is common between me and

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thee?" Nothing: I receive no hints, no instructions; as Son of God, I have no mother: I have no sovereign, "My hour," fixed by me as God, '*is not yet come. I shall work a miracle when my hour comes." And the fact confirms this exposition. If your i)rayers had been due to her, then St. Peter and St. John, and all the ajjos- iles were very impious, very negligent, and most criminal men. They never name lier : they otler no vows to her : rear no altars to her : made her no statues ; brought no incense to her! What impious atheists these men, the holy apostles, must have been, in the belief of all Roman catholics dyed in the wool !

But let us hear the Fathers; — Epiphanius bishop of SrJamis, in 366, thus wrote, — " AXX' dure HXi'aj &c. But neither is Ehas to be worshipped, although he be alive ; nor is John to be worshipped." ***** "Nor is Thekla, or any one of the saints worshipped. For that ancient error shall not prevail over us, to forsake the living God; and to worship the things that are made by him. For they served and worshipped the creature more than the Creator, and became fools! For if an angel will not be worshipped, hoio much more loill not she that was horn of Anna, (Mary) ?" Contra Haeret. 79. p. 448. See also Usher who quotes it: and Finch, Controv. p. 242. — Again he says, — "HMaap«&c. Let Mary be in honor, but let the Lord be worshipped." Again, — " Let Mary be in honor, and let the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost be worshipped. Let no man worship Mary. This mystery is ordained, I say not iox woman, but not even for a man ; but for God. The angels themselves do not assent to this doxology ." Do. p. 450. and 449. And Usher in his Keply to the Jesuit Fisher : p. 345. St. Augustine claims your unwavering faith here, and surely one of your demi- gods, as he is, must be submitted to implicitly, by every priest, who is not a rebel to the saints in the ghostly calendar. '•'■Who is my mother, and ivho my brethren?'''' Then pointing to his rf?5c/j;Zes, he added, — "these are my brethren, and whosoever shall do the will of ray father, the same is my brother, and my mother, and my sis- ter." Now hear St. Augustine, — "What else did he teach us by thjs, but that we should prefer our s^jfrifwrt/ to our ccrTiaZ relationship," &c. — "Mary, therefore, was more blessed in adopting the faith of Christ, than in conceiving his fiesh. For when one said. Blessed is the womb thatbarethee, he answered, Yea rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it." — " Her maternal relation would have profited Mary nothing, if she had not home Christ more blessedly in her heart, than in hex flesh.'" See Oper. Tom. vi. p. 342. De Sanct. Virg. Bened. Edit. Paris, 1685. How completely does St. x'Vugustine here overturn and destroy the popish monstrous tenet of worshipping Mary as " the Mother of God !" " Her mater7ml relation," says this Roman infallible oracle, — " would have profited Mary nothing if she had not borne Christ more bles- sedly in her heart." Instead of being "Mediatrix," and a "goddess," and " inter- cessor,"— as your priests feign, — she needed salvation from Christ, as well as the humblest sinner. Ilow completely does St. Augustine, then, annihilatethe blasphe- mous title invented by the priests, and given to Mary, namely, " the Mother of God P'' Sixth : — The judicial power of your popes and priests to forgive sins, is condemned by scripture, and the Fathers. The council of Trent, Sess. 14. Canon I. declares penance a sacrament, and dooms " to perdition," the unhappy man who doubts this, or denies that it was instituted by Christ, — "to reconcile those christians to God, who have fallen into sin after baptism." It is divided by your priests according to the council of Trent, into two parts : 1st. The matter, or the acts of the penitent, contrition, confession, and satisfaction. 2. The judicial absolution of the priest in these words, *' Ego io absolve, I absolve thee.'" And, once in each year, at least, must every true

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 219

Roman catholic go to his priest, for confession, penance, and absolution. Thus, at one short kneeling, a man must confess the sins of the whole year ! But, then, your priests affect, though under the hazard of a '* mortal impiety," to divide sin, — 1st into deadly sins, — of which there are only these seven classes, — pride, covetousness, luxury, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth! 2d. into venial sins; or those easily forgiven; or, to use the words of your writer Sonnius, — "venial sins are worthy of 'pardon:'''' or as Bellarmine hath it, — " they make not a man guilty of eternal death." Andradius and your St. Bonaventure are even more accommodating, — " For venial sins," say they, — " we do not so much as need repentance." Now, all sins, not ranked under the seven deadly sins, are venial. These mortal sins the professed "penitent" affects to confess in the priest's ears. And upon "the exact confession of them," says the council of Trent, Sess. 14. cap. 6. " the penitent has absolution pronounced on him, not conditional, or declarative only, hut absolute, and judicial/^ And thus the priest pronounces an absolute and eternal pardon, " not conditional," for he cannot know the heart, he cannot know whether the penitent does truly and sincerely repent : it is " not conditional." And the deluded man is assured that he can plead it before the bar of his Maker, with infallible success ! The penance to "make satisfaction," is some bodily suffering, as fasting, kneeling in church, beating the breast, polling the head, going in hair cloth, saying many Ave Marias, or as the simple faithful do in Ire- land, crawling round the course, at Loch Dearg, or Holy Well, on their bare knees, on the sharp pebbles ; or walking a number of miles on pilgrimage, with their shoes filled with dry pease, which the "knowing ones," particularly the delinquent priests, take care to boil! But, all cases of penance are dispensed with, as usual, in this infamous system, for a stipulated sum of money, from 25 cents, to one hundred, or five hundred dollars !

This monstrous system of impiety is worse than heathenism. But this was the predicted feature of " Babylon the Great," the master-pieco of popery. That system stands out alone in this eternal infamy, that it made merchandize in the souls of men.'''' The slave dealer traffics in human bones, muscles, and flesh ! But according to the prediction of John in the Apocalypse, popery traffics in human souls. See Revel, xviii. 13. Monstrous as this appears to every one, your priests, nevertheless, affect gravity enough, to quote holy scripture for it. For instance, Mattii. xvi. 19. is pres- sed in as an evidence. Peter "received the keys of the kingdom." Hence he has the exclusive power "of binding, and loosing."

Here, there is the commission of manifold errors in pressing this text into their ser- vice. First, admitting it to have been spoken exclusively to Peter, it remains to be proved that your popes are his successors : and even although they were so, at first, we have demonstrated by a chain of evidence that no priest can break, that the suc- cession has, in every point, been cut off, entirely, and forever ! Second : the power of "binding, and loosing, and opening," with the keys, was given to the other apos- tles, in every respect, as much, as it was given unto Peter. I refer you to John xx. 23. " Jesus says unto them (the apostles) receive ye the Holy Ghost : whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained."

But, third, this power was given to the church, who, by her ]iroper officers, has the conservative power of discipline, and of restraining and casting out from her holy communion, the impure and wicked. I beg to refer you to Matih. xviii. l^. "Verily I say to you," says Jesus Christ to all his, apostles, and ecclesiastical otiicers, in holy succession, — '^whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven ; and u'hat-

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soever yt shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heartn. ff'here two or three art srathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Hence, Christ beiug iu "the midst of us," in liis church gathered in his name, the deed is his own, when duly done; and by him is it ratified.

Of these tilings are your priests wilfully ignorant, for they are miserably defective in theological science ; and the accurate knowledge of tiie Bible. It forms, in fact, no distinctive part of their studies I

By ''the kingdom of heaven," in the gospel, is meant the church on earth. How, else, could it be compared to '' a field having tares and wheat." Or to '"the net hav- ing fishes, good and bad." Matth. xiii. 47. Or the wedding feast chamber, having guests good and bad ? But youi priests, stupidly enough, make it the heaven above : and give Peter the keys to open up those gates which Christ alone opened, into

HKAVEN !

This point settled, the matter is easy. The church, by her proper officers, exer- cises the keys of discipline, receiving in the truly penitent, on their confession : shut- ting out the apostate and vile: and receivings back again the truly contrite. "The power of remitting sins, given to the church," says bishop Jeremy Tayloi's works, p. 587. " is nothing but an authority to mmister that pardon given by Jesus Christ." And St. Jerome says, "the church pardons sins, as the Levitical priest clehnsed the lepers ; — that is, he did discern whether they were clean or not, and so restored them TO the congregation; or shut them out." And memorable are the words of St. Au- gustine,— "ApudDeum, &;c. God regards not the sentence of the priest; but the life of the penitent." He adds, " The priest is something as to the ministiy-, and the dispensation of the word and sacraments : but nothing as to the purifying, and justify- ing of the sinner, /or 72o;ie tcorks that, in the inner man, but He who created the whole man.'' See Bishop Taylor. DuctorDub. p. 587.

I am. fellow citizens, vours respectfullv,

W. C' B,

LETTER XII.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHrRCH.

On the Unity of the Romish Church.

'• If there is aught, thought, or to think, absurd,

Irrational and wicked, tlii= is more.

This most; the sin of devils, or of those

To devils growing fast." Pollok.

Fellow Citizens: — I invited your attention, in my last, to the judicial power claimed by Roman catholic priests, to forgive, and absolve from sins.

This impious system of your priests, is not only based on the pervejsion of scrip- ture, but it is, in ever)" form, opposed to the whole sj'stem of Bible truth. " Christ is the author and finisher of our faith:" he has, by his one sacrifice forever peifected them that are sanctified:" "by the deeds of the law, no flesh living can be justified." " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us." It man can make satisfaction, and can propitiate God by pains, penance, and prayers, then is not the atonement of our Lord perfect ? And if not perfect, it is no atonement

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 221

at all. To make place for penance and human satisfaction, is to utter the lie to our most blessed Savior, who, when dying, said, in reference to his atonement, — "/i is Jinished r'' If there be any thing of the penalty, or the curse still remaining in tempo- ral evils, and afflictions, then has not Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law! That wretched priest who has the audacity to hear deluded victims of popery, at the confessional, and pronounce his absolution, and pardon judicially and absolutely, is placing his vile carcass " in the throne and temple of God, calling himself God !" That miscreant who pretends to grant absolution ; and who gravely sells indulgences for money, does "traffic in men's souls ;" and has the insufferable daring of the atheist to call men away from the Lord Jesus Christ ; to call men away from his one, only, and perfect atonement; to call men away from his only availing intercession, to his own infinitely degraded system of chicanery ; his miserable sj^stem of trading in souls for pounds, shillings, and pence ! The infinity of this littleness, and matchless bathos, is surpassed only by its matchless atheism ! Over the whole pages of the Bible, this one great, and all pervading doctrine is spread out, and made most manifest to all, that Almighty God alone pardons sin: that he does it to the believer, only, for Christ's sake ; that he cannot, and will not, deny his justice, insult his purity, or degrade his Eternal Son, by accepting of any human merit, or any human works, to fill up the measure of his all perfect atonement. And, hence, these words of Jehovah, which are the summary of the gospel : " /, even /, am he that hlotteth out your tranS" gressions for mine oivn sake ; and will not remember thy sins.'" Isaiah xliii. 25,

We may sum up the scripture argument thus. The divine law required no human penance; no works, to procure pardon of sin; nothing but the sacrifice only ; and that pointed to Christ's atonement. If God pardon sin for his own name's sake, then he does it, not for the sake of any sinful man, or impure priest. If the lamb of God takes away the sin of the world, then no sinner — far less an impious priest, can do it. We "are saved through faith ; by grace; not of ourselves; not of works." Eph, ii. 8, 9. Then is there no place for penance, none for merits, or ghostly buying, and selliuo- ! " God gives us, along with Christ, freely, all things." Rom. vih. 32. And, hence, he not only grants us the remission of sins, but remits the punishment, temporal and eternal also. Hence, there is no room for penance, or the impious intrusion of a priest's absolution. Christ " trode the wine press alone ; and of the people there was none with him," None could be associated with him: none "could bo baptised wliii his baptism :" "he is God : beside him there is no Savior ! " His was the only name under heaven, by which we cai| be saved." Hence there is no place for saintly intercession, nor penance, nor ghostly imposition of absolvings from sin !

The case of the woman convicted of adultery, (John viii,,) affords us a demonstrar lion on this point. If ever our Lord had ordained penance, here it would have been enforced. " J3ut H(; retiuired of her no penance^ no satisfaction for her great sin. He only scaled his pardon to her, iuid dismissed her saying, 'Go and sin no more !' Hence no satisfaction lor sin by us is required in the scriptures." Luther.

The saints in heaven were saved by Christ's merits only; and their song of "-rati^ tude is the everlasting admissioa that they had no merits of their own. They had nothing but what they received of grace. And in reference to their obedience to the law as a rule of fife, tha^, law requires absolute perfection, and spotless \nm\\, ia soul, in tongue, and in the whole moral dei)ortnient.

Now the saints arc far from having any merits over and above all (he rtvpiiroments vf the law of God, as your priests, tempting the i»aiiencc o{ heaven, do im^i aud-i-

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clously, affirm. They do not, in this life, even come up to the smallest requirements of the pure and spotless standard of moral duty. ''In many things," says the highest authority, "they offend all." Jas. iii. 2. Hence, fellow citizens, there is no truth in, nor even the slightest foundation for the ludicrous fiction of priestcraft, that the saints' merits, composed of the materials of all that perfect obedience, in word, deed, and ihought, which they render to God, over and above all that his holy law requires, are carefully collected and laid up in a golden heap, in the pope's treasury ; and that the pope keeps the key of this same treasury : and graciously, and very disinterestedly sells out for pounds, shillings, and pence, the merchandise of the merits of the saints, under the name onndulgences and ahsolutions ! This profitable ghostly manufactory has by the wretched ignorance, and infinite degradation of all popish nations, been ilie pope's grand mint ! At this he has coined more money, counterfeit coin I admit, in his traffic in souls, than has been coined at the Mint of the United States ; or at the Mint of England ! For he has had a brisk and uninterrupted trade in souls, and indulgences, for more than twelve centuries I I 'What devoted followers they are of laeir founders, Judas and Simon Magus ! !

Let us now conduct you to the Fathers. St. Augustine speaks in the strongest terms, against the judicial powers of priests, or any man to forgive sins. Having ([uoted the passage out of John xx. 23, and solved some difficulties, he goes on, thus : " Whose sins ye remit, t]ie\' are remitted, &c. But since these words are introduced, when he had said thi^, he breathed on them and said, receive ye the Holy Ghost ; and then was conferred on them the remission, or retention of sin, it is sufficiently evident that they themselves did not do this; but the Hoi}- Spirit, by their ag*ency, as he said in another place ; It is not you that speak, but the Holy Spirit who is in you. See Aug. Oper. Tom. ix. Lib. 2, p. 42. Contra. Epist. PaiTnen. Bened. Edit. Paris, 1685. Again, — " Peccasti, &c. Hast thou offended thy brother ? Make satisfaction to him." These satisfactions in private and public we admit: but satisfaction to God, neither he nor we acknowledge." See, in Math. Serm. 16, De Poenit. cap. ]0.

St. Jerome says: "The bishops and presbyters not understanding that passage, assume to themselves something of the arrogance of the pharisees, so far as to imagine that they may condemn ihe innocent, and absolve the guilty ; whereas with God, it is not the sentence of the priests, but the life of the guilt}^ that is looked into." Then having quoted the case of the priests and the leper under the law, he adds, — "In the same manner, as the priest, there, made a man clean or unclean,'' (that is, declared them clean or unclean) "so, here, the bishop or presbyter binds or loosens, not those who are innocent or guilty, but officially, when he has heard the nature of their sins he knows who are to be bound, and who, to be loosed." Oper. Tom. vi. in Math. 16.

St. Chrysostom in one place, speaks strongly against this power of forgiving sins judicially: "To forgive sins truly, indeed, is possible with God only." On ] Cor. 15. Homil. 40. Tom. v. Mogunt. Edit. p. 451. And against auricular confession, he says: " Ai'a tovto &c. For this reason, I beseech thee and pray thee, to confess continually to God. For I do not bring thee into the theatre of thy fellow servants, nor do I call on thee to discover thy sins to men. Uncover your consciences to God ; and show him your wounds ; and seek a cure from him." Hom. 5, De incomp. Nat. Dei. Par. Edit. 1621. And his Homil. De Pcenit, et Confess. Tom. v. Laf. Edit, he says — " It is not necessary to confess your sins to witnesses, — let God alone, see thee confessing." And farther, in speaking against the forgiving of sins by priests, he says vehemently: " Ku -t &c. And why do I speak of the priests?

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Neither angel nor archangel can perform any of the things which are given from God. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost administer all things. The priest furnishes his tongue, and lends his hands." Horn. 86, on John xx., Lat. Edit. Basil, 1539. I am fully aware that this Father advances a sentiment, in his De Sacerdote, quite opposed to the above : and quite opposed to the sentence above, taken from St. Je- rome. But I leave it to your priests to quote that, to help on my cause by setting this Father in arms against himself; and against St. Jerome; and against the unanimous consent !

St. Ambrose thus writes : " To you, he says, I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that you may bind and loose." " What is said to Peter is said to the apostles." In Psal. 38, Tom. i. p. 858; Paris Edit, of 1690. Again : "Ecce quia, &c. Behold I truly, sins are pardoned by the Holy Spirit. But men hrmg a ministry for the remission of sins; they do not exercise the right of any power." De Spir. Sane. Lib 3. c. 18. Again : " Sine peccato, &c. No one is without sin, but God alone." "Also, no one pardons sin but God only, because it is written, who can par- don sins, but God alone?" De Spir. Sand, ut supra.

Pope Gregory I. the saint^ who lived before your modern popes and priests had invented the prominent and facetious fictions of your system, thus writes against the judicial power of the priests to forgive sins ; " Thou who alone sparest, who alone forgivest sins. For who can forgive sins but God only !" Greg. Expos. 2, in Sep- tem Psalmos Pcenit. Bened. Edit. Paris, 1705. Finch, Controv. p. 240. Thus, 3'our pope and saint, Gregory, overthrows the main pillar of your priestcraft !

St. Basil says : " EX^^ro &c. Let the true lawgiver come, the powerful Savior : he alone having the power to forgive sins." Comment, in Isai. cap. 6.

St. Hilary, in 358, thus writes : " Verum enim, &c.^, But it is true that no one can forgive sins, but God alone. Therefore it is God who forgives sins : but no one for- gives but God." On Math. Con. 8, Paris Edit, of 1652.

To the same purpose writes St. Cyprian, De Lapsis, sec. 7. Edit, of Oxford, 1682. And St. Cyril speaks thus decidedly against the modern fanaticism and extra- vagance of popes and priests ; — " He only, who is by nature God, has the power of absolving from their sins. For whom does it befit to release the violators of the law, but the author of the law himself?" See much more of this forcible ^^Titer, who con- demns your priests, in all their impious system. Comment, in Johan. lib. 12, Tom. iv. p. 1101. Paris Edit. 1638.

Finally, Clemens Alexandrinus, in A. D. 250 thns writes ; for he and all his associates knew nothing of popery in those days : the prince of hell, and the popes had not yet matured the lie. " Ma tovto hovos Wherefore, he alone who was appointed to be our Master, by the Father of all, — can forgive sins : since he alone can distin- guish betvv'een obedience and disobedience." Paidag. Lib. 1. cap. 8. p. 116. Paris Edit, of 1641.

I have dwelt longer on these topics, than 1 had anticipated : but I was anxious to open to your view the solemn testimony, and sentence of condemnation, i)assed by the scrip- tures and the Fathers on some of the most important dogmas of the church of Rome. He u'/jo prays to the Virgin Mary, and goes to a priest to confess his sins and receive judicial pardon, is doing what the sainted Fathers condemn in the very strongest terms ; and what Almighty God forbids by the mouth of his prophets and apostles. Hence he who persists in praying to the Virgin Mary, and seeks absolution from a sacerdotal impostor, is a rebel against the " unanimous cofisenV of Fathers, is at war

a^A ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

with Almighty God, who alone can pardon sin; and, as an idolater, is in deadly peril of damnation! Sec the 14th Homily of the Episcopal church, entitled, On the Peril of Idolatry. The language which I have all along used, is feeble in comparison with that of this honest, and truly apostolical Homily of the Episcopal church. And here, by the way, let me observe for the bemjit of the present generation, that of all the writers that have entered the lists, in English, against the Roman Antichrist, none are more intelligent, more forcible, more violent and invincible, than the Episcopal writers. I need only name Archbishop Usher, bishop Jeremy Taylor, bishop Hall, Chillingworth, the immortal Willet (Synopsis Papismi, folio,) and all the rest of the old genuine Calvinistic Fathers of the Episcopal church of England. For there were giants in those days .'

Oct. 5, 1833. I am, fellow citizens, yours &c.

" W. C. B.

P. S. Permit me, here, to record an historical fact, which throws a new and unex- i)ected light on two prominent attributes of Holy Mother, and the pope: namely, their immutability, and the pope's power to dispense, thereby making that which was sin by law, to be no sin. The fact is this : — only a few days ago, it was a mortal sin in a Roman catholic, to eat flesh on Saturdays. This mortal sin was defined by an infal- lible law of immutable Rome !

But bishop England, just arrived from Rome, has promulged the immutable decree by which the former immutable decree is done away. The pope has made that which was lately a mortal sin, to be now no sin. The simple faithful are permitted to indulge freely, of a Saturday, in beef, pork, and mutton, henceforth, without sin, or any damage to a tender conscience, all the former immutable laws of infallible Rome to the contrary, notwithstanding.

This, fellow citizens, you ought to hail as one step towards your emancipation from the yoke of a cruel foreign despotism ! You will, next, be allowed to eat meat on Fridays also !

W. C. B.

LETTER Xm.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Popery condemned by the Scriptures and the Fathers.

But the unfaithful priest, what tongue

Enough shall execrate ? His doctrine may

Be passed, tho' mixed widi most unhallowed leaven,

That proved, to those who foolishly partook,

Eternal bitterness."' Pollok.

Fellow Citizens: — Bigotry and fanaticism possess singular attributes.' In all lands where they have the ascendency, they answer arguments by sending their op- ])onents to the gibbet, and the stake. These are their last and only arguments in }X)pish lands. But in Protestant countries where they are chained up, like the tiger, they rail at all discussions of their religion and pretensions, as " arrant persecution." And they whine and fret under unanswerable argument, a*s "the ungodly raillery of tJhe reprobate !" And, finally, when driven from the field, by the force of truth, they

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 225

hire the anonymous scribbler, who sells himself for a morsel of bread, to abuse the character of their opponents, and even invade the decencies of family, and social order. The late controversy of your priests, and the Saturday columns of the Ro- man kennel press, notwithstanding his late castigation, afford us painful evidences of the truth of this.

My fellow citizens, — I attack not the religion of your fathers. This charge against us, is one of the sore evils under the sun, engendered by priestcraft, and propagated by their kennel press. Their cry is, — "Will any thing persuade you to forsake the religion of your fathers ? Will you listen to one, who would seduce you from your fathers' religion?" What impostors ! What imposition ! Now hear me. You had fathers who lived under the benign influence of the genuine christian religion, before your priests, and the popes had completed the invention of the novel fiction of popery. Whether you come from Ireland, or France, or Scotland, or Spain, — your ancient forefathers enjoyed Christianity long before popery was born, or swaddled by the popes. There was pure Christianity in Ireland, in Scotland, and in Spain, long be- fore the ])opish emissaries invaded these countries, and reduced your later forefathers to its abominations. In my Letter VIII. I have proved that, during the first sLx hund- red years, there was not one that was properly a papist. Your ancient fathers held the same opinions in religion, that are now held by Protestants. Your later ancestors were seduced by a heartless band of ghostly impostors, into the atheistical principles of popery; just as the children of tlie Seven churches of Asia have been reduced by the Turks into Islomism. Now, what would you think of those modtrn Turks, the children of christians, who, when urged and entreated to forsake Mohammed, and be- come christians, would reply, — " Will you dare to seduce us from Islamism, the reli- gion of our fathers?" Would you not urge upon them that their more ancient fa- thers were true christians, — and that they ought to cast off the imposture of Moliam- med, and become what their fathers once were !

Now I am doing notliing more than this. Your ancient, and well informed fathers, in Ireland, Spain, France, Scotland, England, — were true christians, before the emissaries of popery overran these lands. We are imploring you, by the fear of Al- mighty God, and the bowels of mercy, in the Lord Jesus, to return to the pure, and holy religion of 3-our forefathers ; and cast off the impostures, and fictions of popery ! Reject, with abhoiTcncc, the novelty of popery : — return to the ancient, pure, primi- tive Christianity of your forefathers, as it is found in the holy Bible. Should a sedu- ced child of the ancient Greek church, believe his Turkish deceivers, or the solemn voice of Christianity calling him back to the Christianity of his fathers ! Should you rather believe the ghostly deceivers who trade in 3'our souls and bodies ; and who in- vented })oi)ery fjr this traffic, — than the deeply solemn voice of truth summoning you back to the religion of Jesus, as held by your forefathers ?

But I shall now go on with my discussion.

Seventh : Your priests' leading tenet that the holy Scriptures are not the Rule of faith is deism ; and is condemned by the Scrijjtures and the Fathers.

Tile arguments on the divinity, and perfection of the Bible, as the only rule of faith, I need not here repeat. Sullice it to say that Ahnighty God has given his holy Word for this one unique i)urpose, — namely, the only rule of faith. And has moreover, pronounced it perfect. '* The law of God is perfect, convirling the soul ; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple, the statutes of the LorJ are right, rejoicing the heart ; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlighteniufj

226 ROMAN CATHOLIC COTROVERST.

the eyes: the judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether." Psalm xix. '* All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for iastruction in righteousness ; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good icorArs." And, finally, the apostle says to Timo- thy.— ''from a child thou hast known the scriptures," — he says not "the traditions," ''the unanimous consent of uninspired men," — but ""(he scriptures, which are able to make you ivise unto salvation, through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.'" 2 Tim. iii. 15. 17.

Now hear the Fathers who condemn the modem system of the infidel priesthood, on this matter. 1. St. Hilary, in the 4th century says — " Fidem, &c. Do you seek the faith, O Emperor ! Hear it then, not from new writings, but from the books of God.'' To Cons. Aug. p. 244. Paris Edit. 1652. Again,— "Qufe Scripta, &c. let us read the things that are written, and let us understand what we have read : and then we shall fully discharge a perfect faith." De Trinit. Lib. 8.

2. Basil in 369 says, — " ^^lepa &c. It is a manifest falling from the faith, and a crime of the greatest pride, to desire to take away from the scriptures, or to in- troduce any thing that is not written. For Christ says that his sheep hear his voice, and not the voice of another." Sermo De Fide p. 294. Tom. ii. Bened. Edit. Paris, 1722. Again : — To yap upas &c. It is right and necessary that every one should leara what is useful from the holy scriptures, to furnish the mind with greater piety, and also in order not to be accustomed to human traditions.'' Reg. Brev. Resp. 95. in Tom. ii. p. 449.

3. Tertullian, who lived in the close of the second century, says : — " Scriptum, &c. Let the school of Ilermogenes show that it is written : if it is not written, let them fear the curse directed against those who add or diminish." Adv. Herm. p. 241. Paris Edit. 1671.

4. St. Ambrose in the close of the 4th century says: — '-Quae in Scripturis, &:c. How can we adopt those things which we do not find in the holy scriptures?" De Ofl[ic. Minist. Tom. ii. Lib. 1. Paris Edit. 1690. Hear him on traditions, — Again, — " Lego, &c. I read that he is first, I do not read that he is second : let those who say that he is second, teach it by reading.^' De instaur. Virg. Lib. 1.

5. St. Cyril, of Jerusalem, in A. D. 386, thus wrote : — Tovroiv rag &c. Of those books (the Canon of Scripture) "read two and twenty; but have nothing to do with the Apocryplia, — ^r^csv ex^ koivov, — ^have nothing in common with them." Cat. 4. Oxf. Edit. 1703. Again: — "Aciyap, &c. Not even the least of the divine and holy mysteries of the faith, ought to be handed down without the divine scriptures." MriSe eiioi &c. Do not simply give faith to me speaking these things to you except you have the proof of ivhat I say, from the divine scriptures. For the security and preservation of our faith are not supported by ingenuity of speech, but by the proof of the divine Scriptures." Cat. 4. p. 56.

6. St. Cyril, of Alexandria, in the beginning of the 5th century, tlius condemns the priests' fictions, and deism ; — O yap 6vk &c. For how shall we receive, and reckon among the things that are true that which the divine scripture has not spoken ?" Glaph. in Genes. Lib. 2 Paris Edit, of 1638.

7. St. Athanasius, — a name suflficient in itself to be weighed against all the popes and priests whom antichrist has ever canonized, or named, — thus wTites, — " Ei roivw &-C. If then ye are the disciples of the gospel, speak not unrighteously against God ; but walk in the things that are larittefi. But if you will speak any thing be»

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 227

sides that which is written, why do you contend with us, who are determined neither to hear, nor to speak any thing but that which is written? The Lord himself says, if ye continue in my word, ye are truly free." De Incarn. Christi, Paris Edit, of 1627. And again : — " AvrapKsis &c. For the holy and divinely inspired scriptures are, of themselves, sufficient for the discovery of divine truth." Orat. Cont. Gentes.

8. Ori^en speaks thus admirably, in condemniiig your priests' errors : — "As all gold, whatsoever it be, that is without the temple, is not holy ;, even so every sense, which is without the divine scripture, however admirable it may appear to some, is not holy, because it is foreign to the scripture.'" See his 25 Homil. in Math. Lat. Edit. Basil, 1571. Again; "Consider how imminent their danger is, ivho neglect to study the scriptures, in which alone the discernment of this can he ascertained.''^ Lib. X. cap. 16. in Rom. Basil Edit.

9. From St. Chrysostom I could copy an entire column of noble sentiments, con- demning the deism, and sacrilege of your priests, who dare in the face of heaven, to deny the holy scriptures, to be the rule of faith : and prohibit the use of them to the lay community. I shall copy a few extracts from this Greek father; — "What need is there of a homily ? All things are intelligible and straight in the divine scrip- ture : all things that are necessary are clear /" Homil. 3. in 2 Thess. ii.,Mentz. Edit. Again, in his Homily on the text, — " Let the word of Christ dwell in you richty," — he says, "Hear, — how he enjoins you in particular (viz. the man "in business, and who governs a wife and children,") "to know the scripture, and not lightly, nor, as it may happen, but with great diligence." "If you will have nothing else, get the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Gospels, as your constant teach- ers.^^ " Ignorance of the scriptures is the cause of all evil : we go unarmed, to the battle." Hom. 9. inEpist. ad Coloss. 3; Tom. vi. : Mentz Edit. How utterly does this eminent Father and saint overthrow the deism, and the impious fictions of popery ! And is there one intelhgent member of the Roman catholic church, so tho- roughly priest-ridden, as to yield his faith and conscience to the keeping of a bigotted and ignorant priest, who can count beads, and mutter jjater nosters, — it may be, but who is utterly ignorant of the Bible, and of the Fathers ? Is there a human being, endowed with reason, who would yield himself to the guidance of such men, in pre- ference to St. Chrysostom? In his Sermons on Lazarus, he removes, and scatters to the winds, all the objections of your infidel priests, wiio dv;ny the use of the scrip- tures to the plain and unlettered. He enumerates the objections of " tradesmen," and " business men," — he then goes on, — "I am engaged in the things of this life ; it is not for me to read the scriptures, but for those who have taken a farewell of the world, who dwell on the tops of mountains, and live constantly after that fashion. What say est thou, O man ? Is it not thy business to study the scriptures, because thou art distracted with a thousand cares ? It is thine nmch more than it is theirs, &c."

Your priests, to sustain their imposture of keeping the Bible out of your hands, usually corrupt the translation of our Savior's words, — Search the scriptures. Tliey render it thus, — " Ye do search ;" and thence take away our Lord's command. Now iiear Chrysostom on this text. "He did not say. Read, — hut, Epswan, — search ye the scriptures, since the things that are said of him recpiire much research. For this reason he commands them to dig with diligence, that they may discover the things that lie deep." Hom. 40. in Job. cap. 5.

In his Serm. 53, De Utiiit. Lect. Scrip, he declares that in all lauds, in the east

228 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

and west, ami south, all men read, and reasoned out of the scriptures. On the noted text "all scripture is given by inspiration of God," — he thus reasons: "the man of God could not be perfect without the scriptures. In the place of me, says he, you have the scriptures ; if you desire to learn any thing, you may therein do so. But if he wrote this to Timothy, who was filled with the Holy Ghost, how much more did he write this to us ?" Homil. 9, in 2 Tim. &c. Mentz Edit. Tom. xii. p. 602. Did your priests retain the power of feeling compimction in their seared consciences, or possess the characteristic attribute which lingers, to the last, in fallen humanity, — the faculty of blushing iinikr crimsoned guilt, — assuredly this doctrine of the Greek Father would make them blush, and even writhe under his inflictions!

I cannot resist another extract from this father, in which he answers the objections of sacerdotal deism alledged against the obscurity of the Bible. It is true, no priest has ever been so stupid, as to beheve what he daily affirms, on this point. For every man, })ossessing the least intellect, cannot but know that the Bible, as a book, is plainer, clearer, and more easily understood, than any one of all the canons, rules, and fictions over the breadth and length of poper}^ ! But hear St. Chr^'sostom : after having answered the objection. How can I understand them ? — he thus goes on ; " It is impossible that you, alone, should be ignorant of every thing. For this cause the grace of the Holy Ghost has arranged, that publicans, fishermen, tent-makers, and shepherds, and goat herds, and common, and unlearned men, should compose the books (of the scriptures) in order that no one of the common people may be able to fly to this pretence ; and that the things declared may be understood by all ; so that the artisan, the servant, the poor widow, and the most imlearned of all men, may be profited by the hearing."

A gam : " The knowledge of the scriptures is a powerful defence against sin ; while the ignomnce of them is a deep precipice, — a profound gulph ! It is a great betraying of salvation to know nothing of the di\ane laws ! This it is, which has given birth to heresies; and has caused the corruption of morals, &c." " He therefore, who does not use the scriptures, but entereth" (as your pope and priests do) "by some other way, (namely by tradition,) cutting out for himself a way contrary to the prescribed way, — He is the thief!'' De Lazar, Concio. 3, Paris edit, of 1621.

10. Let me next refresh you out of St. Jerome : "The church of Christ possessing churches in all the world, is united by the unity of the Spirit; and has the cities of the law, the prophets, the gospel, and the apostles. She has not gone forth from her boundaries, — that is from the holy scriptures /" Oper. Tom. v, p. 334 comment, in Mich. lib. i. cap. 1, Paris Edit, of 1602. How completely have your priests and pre- lates "gone forth from her boundaries," when they absolutely reject the scriptures altogether, as " the rule ;" and have built the novel system of popery upon traditions, and the dreams, and visions, of uninspired saints !

11. I close with extracts from St. Augustine : " Civitas Dei, &c. The city of God detests doubts, as the madness of the Academicians : for she believes the holy scrip- tures of the Old, and New Testaments, which we call canonical ; whence our faith is derived ; by which the just lives ; and b}^ means of which we walk without wavering." De Civit. Lib. 19, cap. 18, Tom. vii. Bened. Edit. Paris 1685. Again: — "Licet, si nos, &c. If we^ and he added immediately what follows, or an angel from heaven^ declare unto you any gospel, besides that which ye have received, in the legal and evangelical scriptures, let him be accursed."' Now, note this every one of you. Here, St. Paul, and St. Augustine pronounce heaven's terrific fulminations on your priests^

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONfTROVERSY-. S2§

Gild their whole system, who in common with deists, banish the holy scriptures; ex- clude from theirchapels and altars the gospel of Jesus ; and introduce " a new gospel,'* which Jesiis never revealed, and which Paul and the Fathers never heard of, nor conceived ! See above in Aug. 0,per. Tom. ix. p. 302. Lib. 3. Contra, ix- Liter. Petit. Edit, .Supra.

Again :— »" Who is ignorant that the canonical scriptures of the Old and New Tes- taments, are contained in certain limits : and that it is to he preferred -to all the S2ibse- ■quent writings of bishops ; so that no man can doubt, or dispute about it, Vvheiher whatsoever is written in it, be true, and right, &c." He then goes on, at length, to show that all human writings, aiid councils, are to be amended by this holy standard; in fact, he places the authority of scripture abov« all that is human, and uninspired, ^ee Tom. ix. p. .98. Bened. Edit. Paris 1694.

In fine, he thus writes, — "In things openly set forth in the scriptures, all things are to be found, which comprise faith and moral conduct." De Doctr. Christ. See Tom. iii. Lib. 2. cap. 9.

And so far is St. Augustine from admitting the authority of the church to determine and fix the authority of the holy scriptures, as the Roman catholics do, — that he de- clares that it is in the divinely inspired .'Bible that "we must seek the church." He declares that the holy church is proved not by human documents, but by the divine oracles." And it was impossible that St. Augustine could be guilty, with 3^our super- ficial priests, of reasoning i?i a circle, and thence proving the authority of the Bible from the church. >See Aug. Oper. Tom. ix.341. Ik Unit. Eccles. cap. 3.

If the priests can produce out of his pages, a contradiction to these passages, I shall ■be obliged to them. They will thereby aid me in destroying their doctrine of the unanimous consent. — Thus, fellow citizens, I have redeemed my .pledge given to my late opponents, the priests, that I would, in the proper place, produce eleven o^ their best fathers against their anti- christian rule of faith: — and on behalf of our Protest- £int rule of faith, the holy scriptures.

I am, fellow vcitizens, yours, &c. W. C. B.

LETTER XIV.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATH0I.IC CHtRCH>

Popery condemned by Scripture and the Fathers.

"Fori testify, — that if any man sliall add to the words of the prophecy of this book, God shall add to him the plagues that are written in this book."

Jesus Christ, Rev. xxii. 18.

Fellow Citizens : — In pursuing my argument on the condemnation of the Ro- man catholic church, 1 solicit your attention to another fatal error: it is this:

Eighth : — The impiety of your pope and priests adding the apocryphal books to the sacred canon of scripture, is condemned by scripture, and tlie Fathers. These books, bound up in some of our Bibles, commencing with Esdras, and ending with Mae- cabees, — your priests with an affectation of gravity, impose on their simple flocks, as "•the word of God.'" This I call, unceremoniously^ "•uttering a falsehood in the namt^ and under the very ei/e of the Almighty .'" I beg of you to be atssured, fcllovr

Hi

230 ROaiAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

citizens, that the authors of these Tracts, did never even indulge the tliought of lay- ing claim to divine inspiration. They were not sent of Gotl : they no where affirm this ; their writings have none of the evidence of their divine mission, as prophets : they abound with imtrility, Jilthiness, errors, and glaring contradictions. Let me only direct your attention to the fictions about the angel's grave recommendation to make a smoke out of the heart and liver of a fish, to frighten away devils out of men ! Tobit. ch. vi. 7. and viii. 3 ; and the disgusting fiction about Tobit's losing his sight. And, in the close of Maccabees, the author has not only disavowed all guidance of divine inspir^^ tion, but even apologises for his deficiencies. And his errors are numerous and even ludicrous. For instance, he puts Antiochus three times to death, by three different kinds of death ! See 1 Mac. vi. 16. And 2 Mac. 1. 15. 16. And ch. 9. And, finally, the author was so ignorant of the law of Moses, and the custom of the Jews, that he actually represents Judas offering acceptably, ajid with applause, sacrifices to the dead, — a thing never commanded by the law; and never done by the Jews, while tliey were the faithful people of God. And yet, fellow citizens, this ludicrous error is the only cause and reason of this book being admitted into the canon by the Ro- man catholic priests ! It countenances their prayers and sacrifices for the dead !

Now hear the testimony of the Fathers. Your priests do not even pretend that the Fathers of the Jewish church ever received these books into their canon. All the Jewish saints and fathers, are, therefore, unanimously against them. So are the best of your own Fathers, and saints.

Origen, in his list of canonical books, omits all the apocryphal books. See hi« Commentary on Psal. 1. And Euseb. Lib. 6. cap. 25.

St. Athanasius, in his " Synopsis of the sacred scriptures," gives a list of the can*- onical books, as we have them ; and adds, at the close of the list of the Old Testa- ment, these words, — "There are other books of the Old Testament, besides these, which are not canonical.''^ And having recited the principal books^ of the Apocrypha, he adds, — ToixavTa Kai ra, &c. Thcse, and such like, are not canonical.-'' Synops. Sacr. Script. Paris Edit. 1627.

St. Cyril, of Jerusalem, enumerating the canon, adds, — " but have nothing to do with the Apocrypha." This he wnrote in the close of the 4th century. See Cyr. Cat. Oxf. Edit. 170a

St. Jerome specifics the apocryphal works of the Old Testament, aud certain forged works of the New Testament times, and says, — "these are not canonical, — non sunt canonci — but are called by the ancients ecclesiastical : — " all of which they thought fit to be read in churches but not brought forward for the confirmation of the faith.^^ See Oper. Tom. ix. p. 186. Symbol Riiffini. Paris Edit. 1602. Again, — having enu- merated the true canonical books, he adds, — " Q,uidquid extra hos, &lc. Whatsoever is without these, is to be placed among the apocrypha. Therefore, Wisdom, com- monly called the wisdom of Solomon, and iheBook of Jesvs^ the son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobit, &c. are not in the Canon." See his Pref. to the book of Kings : Tom. iii. Lib. 24. — I refer you, also, to Jerome's Preface to Daniel; he there calls the story of "Bell and the Dragon, mere fables." So also does St. Augustine, in his work, De Mirabil. cap. 32. lib. 2.

St. Cyprian having enumerated the true canonical books, says : " Sciendum est, t^c. It must be known that there are other books, besides these, not canonical, but ecclesiastical, so called, as Wisdom, &c." See his work. In Symbolum.

St Augustine goes all the length of St. Jerome against the apocrypha. His re-

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261

mark on Judith is a specimen :— " The Jews are said not to have received it into the canon of the scriptures ; and it is of small authority to strengthen any doctrine that Cometh into question." De Civit. Dei. 18. 26.

The council of Laodicea, canon .59, and 60, declared the fixed canon of scripture, enumerating all the books of holy writ; and leaving out the apocrypha. See Sacr. Concil. Labbaei.et Cossartii. Tom. i. Paris Edit. 1671.

I am fully aware that your priests are in the habit of supposing three testimonies in opposition to this council of Laodicea, and to these testimonies of the Fathers, against their canon of faith; namely, the decree of the council of Carthage, and of two later Roman councils. These they quote as favoring the apocrypha.

Now, shall I say that this betrays imposture, or sheer ignorance ? Mark the true state of the case. Every one of your priests has access to the Decretals and Canons. The council of Laodicea was ratified and confirmed by the canons of the Roman church. In proof of this, see Decret. p. i. Dist. 16. cap. 11. Nay, it was, also, sol- emnly confirmed by the sixth General council. Canon 2. as Gratian also witnesses ; See Decret. p. i. Dist. 16. cap. 7. Hence the sixth General council became respon- sible, or rather, re-enacted what that of Laodicea had enacted. And now, are your priests so exceedingly ignorant of their own canon law, that they do not know that the pope is sworn solemnly, to observe the Eight General Councils : of which the Trulkme was the sixth ? Hence your pope is sworn ^o sustain the decision of the council of Laodicea, which excludes the ayocnjfha! ! And if you, and he do not, you perjure your souls, and bring on you a mortal sin! The proof the pope's oath and vow to do this, you can see in Decret. Par. 1. Dist. 16. cap. 8. — And, moreover, every scholar knows that it was decreed in the council of Constance, Session 39 : and in ibe council of Basil, Session 38, that " the newly elected pope should take his oath not to violate the faith of the eight General Councils. Here is the fullest and plainest historical evi^. dence given, that in swearing to sustain the faith of the eight General Councils, the jwpe and all yonr priests, are pledged under the penalty of mortal sin, to sustain the faith of the Laodicean council. Hence every pope, and 'very bishop, and every Ro- mish priest, are bound by their oath, to reject the apocrypka ! If your priests, and popes do not, then are they perjured men ! But of truth and verity it is, that the pope, bishops, and priests do cling to the apocrypha ! ! Therefore,, they stand con- victed before the pubhc,and the christian world, as perJwretZ men, 6e/bye God and man!

This is not all. By thus setting up council against council, each of which was sustained by a pope, your priests have ruined and annihilated their infallibility and immutability ! ! Alas! poor Rome! And, yet, this is not all. I have the testimony of Gregory I. pope and saint, against the apocrypha, and against the council of Carthage, held in 397, and confirmed by pope Innocent I. ; and by the other two Roman councils. Pope St. Gregory fiourisbed in the close of the sixth century. He declares that the Maccabees belong not to the canon: — Here are his own words:, — " De qua re, &.C. Concerning which thing, we do nothing irregularly,, if we adduce a testimony from the books which, although not canonical, are i)ublished for tlie edifi- cation of the people," &c. He then quotes from the books 7iot canonical, namely, — the Maccabees, — the account of Elea^cr, 1 Mac. vi. 46. wounding and killing the ele- phant, and perishing under the falling animal. Greg. Mor. Lib. 19. in Job 39. Bened. Edit. Paris, 1705. Hence, St. Gregory, the pope and saint, was perfectly ^tono with St. Jerome, and St. Augustine, in declaring against the ai)ocrypha; and^ therefore, g^amst your popes and priests,;— in $ol.cin.ijly coQ.demning yoijir rul« of iiiith ; whicli

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embraces these human fictions, and additions to God's holy word'! — Inowle^n'e my earnest appeal with the American public, if I have not succeeded by the aid of the Romish weapons, to pull down this, tl^ main pillar of their heathen temple!

I am,, fellow citizens, vours, &3» W. C. ^v

LETTER XY.

•ro THE 3IEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHFRCH=.

Popery condemned hy the Scrfptures and the Fathers.

*^ Though contradicted every da)' by facts^

That sophistry itself woidd stumble o'er,

And to the very teeth a liar proved, —

She cries, — Head tfie smoothest tcay to heaxcn !

Ah ! none return that went witli her: the dead"

Are in her house, her guests in depths- of hell.

She weaves the winding sheet of souls ; and lays

Them in the urn of everlasting death .^" PolloTi.

FelloW" CrTizEiys: — I have now reached v^hat one justly called the gold£5' doctrines of your priests, and the master-pieces of their superhuman invention ; — doc- trines dear to every Roman priest's heart, and fondW adhered to, as the sublimest, and most longed after, in the whole cherished system of Holy Mother, — for the best of all reasons; they bring into the ghostly treasury the steadiest and greatest revenues, in their brisk traffic in "human souls !" I mean transubstantiation, the mass, and pwgatory. I shall devote my attention to each of them, before I retire from the field. What I intend, is a brief sketch of each, showing the public that these are infamoas- fictions condemned by scripture and ev^en by your Fathers. And may I beg you to follow me in this iinportant discussion? I do not war against the pure christianit}' of your forefathers. I war againt the novelty of popery, which your ancient forefathers neither believed, nor even knew.

Why are A'ou so slow to receive instruction, and our warnings against your greatest foes? And who, think you, are they ? I shall answer by direeiing you to a deeply interesting portion of dear old Ireland's history. There was a pure apostolic church n Ireland before my countr\^man,. your St. Patrick, arrived. St. Ihar was an eminent man in it. It was he v.^ho declared to St. Patrick, — "that the pure Irish church of Christ never acknoivledged the supremacy of any foreigner /" For 780 years this ancient and pure christian church flourished. St. Patrick was not a Roman catholic : he and the Irish church submitted to no popery, and to no pope of Rome ! This was the brightest and loveliest period of Irish history. But, hear me, who were the traitors? They were the pope, and Henry II. of England. They conspired the subjugation of Ireland. Henry overran Ireland, and betrayed it to the Roman pope. This nation al degradation and ruin were consummated in the traitorous council of Cashel, in A. D., 1172. Popery, from that year, overran Ireland : her pure christ- ian pastors were driven off, and destroyed: impious priests of Rome ruined your fathers' lovely christian church. And England has held your land in bondage to this day. The pope was the instigator, and Henry II. the tool. The pope, therefore, and the king of England, were the despots and traitors who compassed the ruin of old

ItO»IAN CATHOLIC C0ITTR0VIR3X. 233^;

Ireland;. See Dr. O'llalloian's Roman catholic antiquities^;: and O'J^ii^colV^ Views- of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 85.

Is the spirit of your primitive fathers fled' and gone? Is there none of the pure Irish fan>ilies left to rise up again^it the predominant Roman party_ who have ruined,, enslaved, and beggared your country ? If there be, then hear me. Side by side with you, I war against the gross, degrading, and impious inventions of men; against a ghostly despotism, which has^ riveted its chains on your iinmortal souls; and which your ancient and primitive fathers, in the old world, would have dashed from them: with horror. I wage war against the impieties, fictions, and heaven daring knavery of Roman priestcraft. I war against a system, — not only not found in the Bible, but condemned in it, by the Almighty God, our Redeemer ! I humbly offer you aid. against men who have "traded in human souls;" who have their stipulated pric^ lor every species of sin and crime ; their price of each soul,- — be the man rich or poor. I war against men who profess to open heaven's gale unblushingly, for money : men, who are so destitute of the bowels of mercy, that they will not pray one of you out of purgatory without money ; — men who would let their best friends and neighbors lie in "flaming waves of purgatory," for millions of years, unless they are bought by large sums of money, to do this ! We come as humble aids, to assist you against impostors and barbarous despots,' — compared to whom Mohammed was pure; and Nero, mild and merciful ! You cannot, then, fellow citizens, with any show of reason, ^ or justice, deem me your enemy when I tell you the truth ! Be thi^ as it ipay, I tell you with deep solemnity, that there is a day coming,-r-if not in time, before you die,— most certainly in eternity, and at the bar of our common. Judge, the Lord Jesus, when you and these priests shall know whether I have spoken the truth to you ; and warned you in the name of the Eternal God! To that day I desire, with humble devotion,. to carry forward my appeal to God, and your consciences., I now go on.

Ninth :— rThe doctrine of transuhstantiation is condemned by scripture and tli® Fathers. In this, doctrine unmatched; by dogma of Turk, or Brahmin, your priests aifect with as much gravity, as they can. put on, for the time,, to teach and persuade you to believe what no one of them, in their sober senses ever believed ; — namely, that by the muttering of the few Latin, words, — '•'■hoc est corpus meum,'''' &e., the little wheat wafer is actually "changed into Christ's body and blood, soul and divinity;" and the wine in the qhalice, " into his real blood, body, sonl, and divinity." See Gratiani:Decretum, p. .549, Be consccratione Dist. ii., are these words, — "Alter the consecration of the bread and wine^ the true body and bipod of Jesus Christ are, in reality, and according to the testimony of the senses, (sensuahter,) handled by the priest; and broken, and crashed by the teeth of the faithful." — See also Canones et decreta Concil. Tridenti, Lugd., Edit. 18254 Sess. 13, cap. 4, Trent Catech. De Sac. Euch. Sect. 33. And in section 31. That "holy council" taught that " a whole Christ" is in the- wafer, even his body, bones, and sinews ;" verum Christi Corpus, — veluti ossa^ et nervos, &-c." And my friend Dr. Avei;y,, who spent a wintei;, in Romc^ told me that he once saw two of the priests in that ci.ty, take the wafer, and as they chewed, it, they grinned, and said, — "hear, howl cranch his bones, nerves, and sinews!" I have two copies of this section of the Trent catechism before me, one in Latin, and an ancient English copy. These have the words, — "his body, bones, nerves, sinews," are in the transii^hstantiated wafer. But I am, also aware, and I shall here impart the secret to you, that in Britain and Ireland, the priests, in their newly assumed powei; to change even thq catechism of thqir last holy couDQi.l of Trent, hci,v^>

231 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSr.

actually left out this shocking cannibal phrase, about '■''his bones, nerves, sineii^s" being in the wafer. The above Latin is quoted from the Venice Edition of the Trent Catech. of 1582. page 241. See also the ancient English Edit. p. 212.

Your priests quote tivo passages to prove this monstrous and incredible doctrine. The 1st is John ch. vr. Except ye eat the flesh of the son of man, ^'C. This they take literally. If this be correct, then they must take the other expressions as literally. For instance-, "-he that eatethofthis bread shall live for ever." Of course, if they be correct, then, all, each, and every one, without exception, who eats of the wafer, which is Christ's flesh, shall infallibly be saved; and all who eat it not,— as baptized infants, and thousands of adults, — and among others the penitent thief on the cross^ — even, all these must, according to the Romish doctrine, be damned ! Nay, if we take the words literally, in one part of the sentence, we must do so in the whole. Hence, " he that eats ofthis, yv ill never ^zmg-cr, literally : — ?iever thirst literally." John vi. 35. Of course, if the priests be orthodox— all who have been so happy as to eat their wafer, will bid a glorious farewell to all the trouble of eating and drinking. They will never more hunger, never more thirst! What glorious news for our poor hard working laborers ! Only go the priest, and secure the wafer, — he wiE keep all the wine to himself, it is true, but no matter, in the wafer you have "the whole body,, bones, and nerves, and sinews," — and you will nevermore hunger after eating this r never more thirst ! You will need no more food! You need never go to market ! So monstrously absurd are the doctrine, and the proof thereof! Does the priest soberly believe that his victims are rational beings!

The other proof of "-fAe learned jmests,'^ who are only two hundred and fifty years behind the Protestant world in knowledge, and general literature, is this: "This i^ my body : this is my blood of the new covenant."

This they interpret literally ; and venture to teach that this means that the wafer Is truly Christ's flesh, and bones, and body.

But our Lord says in John vi., '■^lam the living bread ivhich came dozen from heavtn.'* Of course, this must be taken literally^. Hence, in the Romish mode of interpreting, our Lord was most certainly transubstantiated into a piece of reaZ bread; that this piece of real bread had animal life in it ; and that this " animated bread," literally came down from heaven. The priests are bound, in honor and principle, to believe all this, and make the victims of their superstition believe it, if they believe in transubsian- tiation. But this is not alL

Were your priests biblical scholars, — and did they know the- elements of Hebrew literature, they would' know what every Hebrew tyro knows, that the Hebrew and Syriac languages have no term to express the word '■'■ signify.''^ They always, of course, use the word "is." Let any man open his Biblej and see the proof. Here are some instances : "'The seven ears are seven years :" " the seed is the word : " the seven candlesticks are the seven churches:" "the woman is the great city:" (Rev. xvi. 18.) " Judah is a lion's whelp:" "all flesh is grass" "the- lock of hair is Jeru^ salem." Ezek. v. 1, 5.

Now, if the Roma-n priests' interpretation of the sentence, — " this is my body, ^^ be ]ust and correct, — then the seven ears of corn were-con verted, substantially and really, into seven years of time!' The seven cows were really converted^ bones, hides, and horns, into seven years! The seed of wheat was converted', in the hands of the astonished sower, into the pure and real word of God ! The seven candlesticks were changeti substantially into the magnificent and splendid array of seven real churches-

Tkd^tM CATflOllC CONtftOVERSY.- 235

JtK^ah was doomed by this doctrine, to be a yelping lion's whelp! All flesh, human and bestial, — even eaeh one' of our bodies, is, by an unparalleled hocus pocus, become the greeri, long, waving grass! And last, though not least, — a lock of hair, shorn off by the barber, is in the hands oftheastonished prophet, marvellously transubstantiated into a solid, beautiful, walled city, — even Jerusalem ! Verily, we need only give the Roman priests elbow room, in abundance, and eo man will be so stupid, or ungeite^ rous, as to say that the age of miracles is past ! !

I shall not insult my reader's understanding by insinuating that anj man in the exercise of reason, will say that this monstrous doctrine finds any countenance from- reason or the holy scriptures. We do the Roman priest no injustice when we say, that no man has ever suspected them of believing in it any farther than the counterfeiter and issuer of base coin, does believe in his own base manufactory. He believes in it, just so far as it robs his victim of his money, and enriches himself at the expense of the ignoraiii and unwary. So has the public said for many centuries ! He believes in in it just so far as it puts his victim's gold and silver into his own purse ! !

It is worthy of the notice of our learned men, and those who have reformed the philosophy of the schools, that the Roman catholic pope, and priests, who are as for behind, in the improvement of philosphy, as are the Mohammedans, and some of ths Hindoos, avail themselves of defence from the old exploded philosophy of Aristotle. AVhile all the learned and enlightened world reject the absurdities in the system of Aristotle, the Roman priests, enveloped in the fogs and mists of the eighth and ninth centuries, believe more in Aristotle, than in the Bible-: and bring in to the aid of their monstrous doctrines, his savage, and antiquated sophisms ; namely, that "^ there may be taste, where nothing is to be tasted ; that there may be color, without any thing to be represented ; tangibility, without any thing to be touched ; roundness, without any thirtg that is round, &c." And when the progress of science sweeps away the remains of the barbarism of Aristotle; and the false philosophy of the East, — that same lio-ht which scatters the darkness and barbarism of Turkey, and Hindostan, and China, will help to sweep away Romanism from the face of the earth !

The Roman priests are at one with the Unitarian here ; and affect to say that lire same objection which we cherish against this eonversion of a loafer into Christ's- banes, muscles, sinetvs, soul, and divinity, does militate equally against the mystery of trinity. Tl*e cases are infinitely difibrent. In the most Holy THnity there is no contradiction to reason, and the evidence of the senses. The doctrine of trinity holds out the God- head to be three in one sense, and one in another sense. When I say that God is one in essence, and three in persons, I say nothing contradictor}'-*. I can say I have "a soul, a body, and a spirit ;" and yet I am one. But to say that my body is a wafer ; or that a wafer is Christ's bones, sinews, muscles, soul, and' God-head : that a priest makes and creates his Creator, and then eats him, is beyond conception, mon- strously absurd ! It sets reason, and the evidence of the senses; and all gravity utterly at defiance !

Your priests say, "Why is it incredible : Almighty God cmi do it!" Very true, but has he converted it into Christ? The Almighty can annihilate idolaters; has he done it, while your priests are alive !

"But the church of Holy Mother is avrltness that he does it." No, follow citizens ; the t(3stimony of Rome, is the testimony of the " Man of 5/71/"

"But the rent presenc'! of Christ is in the wafer, — it can be no idolatry, tlierefoiw to worship the htst!" The rcai proseiice of God is in all the works 4)fnaturc,heisin

236 ROMAN CATHOLIC COJfTROT£B«T'<K

that tree, in that river, in that stupendous mountain,— would you, therefore, worship, these ?

This doctrine contradicts all the evidence of all my senses. Now, it is just as irmch the fixed and immutable law of his government of nature, that I should be- lieve the evidence of all my senses, — as It is the fixed law of his kingdom of grace,. that I should believe the testimony of his Word. This monstrous fiction, therefore,, seduces you into a violation of God's immutable laws : it makes you infidels against the God of nature ! This is not all of its evil consequences.

If I distrust the strangest evidence of my senses, I must be an unbeliever in mi- racles. If I stood b3^ and saw our Lord raise Lazarus from the dead ; if I believe in your transubstantiatiGn, I could not confide in my senses ; taught as you are, to believe contrary to the evidence of ray senses, I could have no abiding faith in our Lord's miracle. It might seem to me that I saw Lazarus rise ; butlcould not believe it certainly ; the v/afer seems just as certainly ia my senses to be a wafer as that rising of the dead man; yet it is the body and blood of Christ really ! It may seem a resurrec- tion, it may seem a miracle, but I cannot trust my senses : I cannot believe the miracle ! Hence no man v/ho believes the dictate of your priests here, can believe in miracles; nor be a consistent christian.

And this is not all ; the man who does really beUeve in transubstantiation, never can be relied on, as a witness to give credible testimony on any thing. Suppose in a case of murder, a real believer in this fiction is brought to testify. The bench says, *' look on the prisor.er at the bar ; did you see that man inflict the blow that killed the deceased ?" He says, " I did ; I heard him, I saw him do it. That is the identical man." "Take care what you sa}-," replies the counsel for the criminal, — "bring no false charges ; for any thing that the evidence of your senses can make you believe to the contrary, that thing standing there at the bar, may really be a piece of bread !" "Why, sir, I cannot be deceived ; I see him; 1 know him; I feel him; I hear him; and I say, he is the one who murdered ihe deceased."

"No, sir, let me correct you; you firmly believe, maugre all the evidence of all your senses, that the priest's wafer is the very body, blood,, bones, soul and, divinity of Christ! You believe this on the priest's word, in opposition to all the evidences of your senses. Now, my word is as good as the priests' word ; and I say, as solemnly as he says, and as seriously and trul}' as he says, that the thing that you see at the bar is, in fact, a loaf of brown bread! And, sir, if yon believe the one, and profess to deny the other, you are a knave. Hence, on no principle of consistency, can you be a Mut- ness here !" Exit, in silerdio alio !

And, 3'et, unconvinced by argument-, or by ridicule, enslaved minds will doasthei? masters bid them; and will, as in duty bound, believe just as honestly, and as truly, that a bit of a wafer is the body, soul, and divinity of Christ, — as do a nation of the Asiatics, that our world is a great smooth body, as flat as a pancake ; and borne up. by the back of a huge land turtle!

I am, fellow citizens,, yours, &c.

W. C. B.

roma:n catholic co!«?;troverst. 237

LETTER XVL

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAI* CATHOLIC CHURCH,

P&ptry condemned by Scriphi^re and the Fathers.-

*' Men cher Delphhn, sure you will agree,.

That, for a bishop, none so fit as he, ^

Wlio gives tbe king s«ch very good avis-f-^'

Fellow Citizens: — We have I>eay(I the voice of reason, common sense, and scripture, on the fiction of transtibstantiation ; now let us hear the Fathers, — They taught that the bread and wine were consecrated, simply, from a common to a holy. use, — sacramentally to signify Christ's body and blood.

1. St. Irein jeus of the second century, bears ample testimony that this doctrine was unknown to the church, in his days. "All the bread which is of the earth," says her "when it has received the divine invocation, is no longer common bread, hut tht eucharist, consisting of two things, an earthly bread, and a heavenly. Thus, also, our bodies, when they have received the eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of eternal life.'" Contra. Hares. Lib. 4. cap. 18. p. 251. Benedict. Edit. 1710. And Bellarm. De S. Euch. Lib.^. cap. 2. This ancient Father, it is obvious, hekl the true apostolical doctrine, that the bread was still earthly bread, and a symbol of the heavenly food^ after invocation.

2. St. Ignatius gives no countenance to your priests, — ^^'Eva aprov &c. Break- ing ONE BREAD, whicli is the medicine of immortality, the antidote by means of which we shall not die, but live forever." Epist. i\d Ephes. Oxf. edit. 1708. Again ; — " If any one is without the altar, deprive him of the bread of God." He says not, " the flesh of Christ and his divinity." Again; — "Do you, then, resuming long suffering, re-establish yourselves in faith, which is the flesh of Christ our Lord ; and in love, which is the blood of Christ.'' Epist. Ad Trallesios.

8. Gelasius /., the pope who wrote, in 492. Having noticed that the sacraments are divine things, by which we receive the body and blood of Christ, he says ; — " Tamen esse, &c. However the substance, or nature of the bread and ivine ceases not to exist: and assuredly the image and similitude of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in the ])erfurmance of the mysteries.'''' Gelas. In duab. Nat. in Christo contra Eutych. This strong and most decisive testimony of a pope against the re- volting fiction of the mass, does of course meet with op])osition from your po})et:. But your own writer Dupin exhibits the certain and conclusive evidence of the au- thenticity of this part of Gelasius' writings, by /our arguments. SeeDupin'sNouvelle Biblioth. 5 cent. Edit. Utrecht, 1731— Fincli, pp. 242, 243.

4. St. Hilary wrote thus : — " In fide, Sz,c. For the sacrament of the heavenly bread is received in the faith of t]K> resurrection ; and whosoever is without Christ, shall be loft f>)sliiig for the food of life." P. 531. Edit. Paris, 1652.

5. St. Cyprian, — "Nam quia, &:c. For since Christ carried us all, and since h-c bore our sins, we see that the people is understocHl by the water ; and that the blood of Christ is shown by the loine.'' Epist. Ca?cil. Fratri, Go, p. 153. Oxf. Edit. 1582.

6. St. Ambrose says, — " In comedendo, &c. In eating and drinking the things ofTered to us, wo signify the flesh and the blood. You receive the sacrament as a sinuUtude; it is thefgure of the body and blood of the Lord: you drink the likeness

238

ROMAX CATHOLIC C05TR0TER5T.

0/ Aw precious blood.'^ De Sacram. Lib. 4. cap. 4. Paris Edit. 1690. How sensibly aad thoroughly does St. Ambrose oppose your priests' tictions i

7. Ttriullian wrote after this manner, — "Acccptura, &c. The bread which he had taken and distributed to his disciples, he made his body, by saying fA/^ is my hcdyj that is, — the jigure of my body. He then goes on to notice llie words of Christ in John vi., and shows, in our Lord's words, that the phrase is to be taken not corporaUy and fleshly, but spiritually. See Advers. Marci. Lib. 5, p. 458. Edit. Paris, 1675; and De Resur. Cam. cap. 37. p. 347.

8. St. Theodoret says, first, in his Dialogue II. in the name of the ill informed Eranistes, that "the symbols after invocation are changed and become another thing, &c." He then corrects him, and gives his own mind thus, — " You are taken in a net that you made yourself. For the mystical signs do not, after consecration, depart from their own nature. For they remain in their former substance, fgure, and form, and may be seen and touched as before.'' Paris Edit. 1608, in Latin.

9. Eusebius says,— IlaAi;' yap &c. For again he gave to his disciples the sym- bols of the divine econom}', and he commanded them to make the image of his own bod3^" Again, — "He commanded them to use bread as the symbol of his own body." See Demonst. Evang. Lib. 8. cap. 1. Paris Edit. 1544.

10. Justin, the Martyr, thus wrote in 150, — ''Onitevow &c. I also affirm that the prayers, and the praises of the saints are the only perfect sacrifices acceptable to God. For these only have the christians undertaken to perform ; and by the commemoration of the wet and the dry food, in which ive call to mind the sufferings which the God of gods suffered through Him whose name is blasphemed, &c." See his Dial, ivith Trypho the Jew ; Paris Edit. 1515. p. 345.

11. St. Cyril, of Jerusalem, writes: — " E;/ -ijtw &c. In the type of the bread is given to you the body, and in the type of the wine is given to you the blood, that you may be a partaker of the body and blood of Christ; and one body and one blood •with him.'" Catech. Mystic. 4. 1, p. 292, Oxf. Edit. 1703. Again : — " revofievoi &c. For they tasting, are not ordered to taste of the bread and the wine, but of the anti- type of the body and blood of Christ.'' Cat. Myst. 5. 17. p. 300, Finch, p. 202.

12. Clemens Alcxandrinus is full, and explicit against your priests, and their novel figments. He wrote thus in A. D. 220 ; — •< YL-ah &c. And then he said the bread that I will give you is my flesh : but flesli is irrigated by blood ; therefore the wine allegorizes the blood. ^^ Again, — "Thus the word is frequently described allegorically as food, and fiesh, and bread, and blood, and milk." — "Nor let it appear strange to any one, when we say that milk allegorically describes the blood of the Lord. For does not wine allegorize it?'' See his Paedag. Lib. 1. cap. 6. p. 104. 105. Paris Edit. 1641. He has many similar expressions declaring the bread, and wine to be the mystical or solemn sacramental symbols. See p. 100, and 156.

13. St. Athanasius, upon that passage of scripture, " Quicunque dixerit, &c. whosoever shall say, ^"c", writes full}^ against your priests' impostures. Having quoted the words uf our Savior respecting ''eating his flesh," he proves that this means not carnally, but spiritually. " Our Lord," — says he, — " spake both of the spirit and of the flesh, and made a distinction; between his spirit, and his flesh, that believing in what was visible to their eyes, and in his invisible nature, they might learn that the things which he said were not carnal, aaoKiKa but spiritual." He then adds a potent fefijtation of the fiction of the priests. "For, for how many would his body have sufficed for meat, that it should become the nourishment of the whole world ?"

ROilAJf CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 239

Again, — " the flesh he spoke of was heavenly nourishment, and spiritual food from above."' And he adds that Christ " draws them away from the corporeal sense, and teaches them to take it in this spiritual way." See the Paris Edit, of 1627.

14. Origen is as fully and decisively against the priests. "KaiovK &c. It is rK)t the matter of the bread, but the words spoken over it, which profit him that eats not unworthily. And these things I speak concerning the typical and symbolical body." Comment on Matth. Rouen Edit. 1668. Again; — "There is in the New Testament, a letter which killeth him who does not understand spiritually the things there said. For if you take this according to the letter, — Except ye eat my flesh, and drink my blood, — THIS LETTER KILLETH !" Homil. 7. ou Lcvit. 10 ; Basil Edit. 1571. Once more ; "If, as these affirm, he had neither flesh nor blood — of what flesh, of what body, and ofwhat blood, are the bread and cup, (which he delivered,) the images ? By these symbols, He commended his memory to his disciples.'" Dialog, iii. contr. Marc. Basil Lat. Edit. 1571.

15. St. Chrysostom in one place, holds the doctrine of Consubstantiation with Luther; — "Christ prepares for us his body, not only in faith, but in very deed.''"' " We have become one body and one flesh with Christ. " Chrys. in Matt. Homil. it/? In another passage he opposes this, and also Transubstantiation. For instance :— "If Jesus did not die, ofwhat are the things we perform, the symbols?" Same Homily. Again: — "As before the bread is consecrated, we call it bread ; but when the grace of God has consecrated it, by the priest, it is freed from the name of bread, and is reckoned worthy to be called the Lord's body ; although the nature of bread remains in it," &c. Chrys. to the monk Cassarius.

That this treatise is genuine, we have the testimony of Peter the Martyr, and the arguments, at length for it, in Dupin's Nouv. Bibl. Tom. iii. Utrecht Edit. ]73I.

16. St. Bernard in Serm. 5. in Psal. says, — " Quid est manducare, &c. What is it to eat his flesh, and to drink his blood ; but to communicate with his passion, aiid to imitate his conversation in the flesh." Willet. p. 510.

17. St. Jerome writes : — *'In typo sanguinis, &-c. As a type, or symbol of his blood, Christ offered not water, but wine." Tom. ii. Lib. 2. Advers. Jovin. p. 90. Again, — " Because the flesh of our Lord is true meat, and his blood is true drink, in an exalted and spiritual sense, — ;iuxta avayMynv, — we have only this good in this life, if we eat his flesh, and drink his blood, not only in the mystery, but also in the read- ing of the scriptures." In Eccles. cap. 3. Tom. v. p. 24. Paris Edit. 1602. — Onee more, " I believe that the Gospel is the body of Christ. I believe the holy scriptures to be his doctrine ; and when he says, he who does not eat my flesh and drink ray blood, (although this may be understood of the mystery,) yeA the word of the scriptures, and the divine doctrine is more truly the body of Christ, and his blood If, at any time, we go to the mystery, whoever is faithful, understands that if he falls into sin, he is in danger ; so if at any time, we hear the word of God ; — and the word of Christ, and his blood, be poured into our ears, and we are thinking of something else, how great is the danger we incur!" Tom. vii. p. 420 : in Psal. 147. So com- pletely does this father show his ignorance of the novel fictions of your priests, that he believes in the body and blood of our Lord, as purely spiritual in the gospel, and in the eucharist ; — not carnal, in the hands, and mouths of priests !

18. Finally, St. Augustine gives this admirable exposition of "eating Christ's flesh," — in opposition to you. " If a passage is })receptivc, and either forbids a crime, or enjoins usefulness, or charity, it is not figurative. But, if it seems to command a

S40 ROMAJf CATHOLIC CONTROVERSr.

ifcrime, or forbids charity, &c., it is figurative. Unless ye eat the Jlesh of the son of man, and drink his blood. Here he appears to enjoin wickedness. It is, therefore, figurative, teaching us th-at we partake of the benefits of the Lord's sufferings," &x:. Be Doctr. Chr. Tom. iii. Lib. 3, p. 52: Bened. Edit,

Again,"— so far from believing that the bread and wine are converted into the divinity, he says, — ""■ How shall I put forth my hand to heaven, and lay hold of him wtio sitteth there ? Put forth yoni faith, and you will have laid hold of him." Tom. lii. p. 630. Again, — " This is the word of Good, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. To do this is to eat the meat which perisheth not. Why do you prepare your teeth and your stomach? Believe only, and you will have eaten." Tom. iii. p. 490 ; Tract 25, in John vi. Lastly, — '* When the Lord was about to give the Holy Spirit, he said that he was the bread which descends from heaven, exhorting us to believe in him. For to believe in him, is to eat the living bread.'' p. 494. Again, — "It seemed to them a hard saying, when he said — except a man eat my 'jflesh, and drink my blood ! They received it foohshly ; they thought on it carnally ; they supposed that the Lord was about to cut off" little pieces from his body, and give them to them." "But he taught them saying— it is the Spirit that quickeneth : the flesh profiteth nothing ; my words, they are spirit, and they are truth. Understand spiritually what I have spoken. You are not about to eat this body which you see : nor to drink that blood which they shall shed, who shall crucify me. I hav* recommended to you a -certain sacrament, which, if spiritually understood, shali quicken you." In Psal. 98. Also Tract xi. in Ev. Johan. L ii. vi.

Had St. Augustine lived in our times, and among the most enlightened Protestants, no language could he have employed more clear, and decisive, in condemning the monstrous fictions of popery, and in <;onfinning our Protestant doctrine of the holy Supper.

The Liturgies of Clnysostom, and Basil, universally used in the Greek -church, condemn this novel doctrine. Thus in the former it is said, — " In remembrance oi' this coirimand of our Savior, we offer to thee thine own, out of thine own gifts ; we -offer thee this reasonable and unbloody worship. &x;." Thus they call the bread and wine after invocation, gifts ; thus precluding all idea of change into real fl«sli.

In the Liturgy of Basil we have these words, — " Laying before thee, these symbols cxf the body and blood of thy Christ, we beseech thee, &c." Goar. Euch. Graec. Biblioth. patrum. Tom. ii. fol. 1624.

The Liturgies of St. James, and Mark use the same word "gifts," when speaking of the bread and v^ine. The Ethiopic Liturgy, used in the chur-ch of Abyssinia, after tlie prayer of consecration, says, — "Now, O Lord, M^e, celebrating the memorial of thy death, do offer thee this bread, and this cup, &c."

Cyril, the patriarch of Constantinople, in the 16th century, thus expressed the views of the Greek church, — "In the eucharist, we do confess a true and real pre- sence of Christ; but such a one as faith dfers us, not such as a devised transubstan- tiation." Cyr. Respons. cap. 17. p. 60. Lond. Prot. Journ. vol. iv. p. 144. Finally, Metrophanes, the patriarch of Alexandria, thus expresses the sentiments of the Ori- ental churches : " We call the Lord's supper a sacrifice, but a sacrifice that is spiritual and commemorative ; s]9mii«zZ, as having nothing carnaZin it; commemorative^ as be- ing performed in remembrance of the sacrifice once offered on the cross. This is taught by St. Chrysostom, and the whole church, saying, This is done in reraembranoe of what was done then." " We never believed that Christ was bodily present in the

HOMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. ^41

fflysteries." See Metroph. Conf. Cath. et Apostol. Eceles. in Orient. Lend. Prot. Journ. iv. 145.

To the ample testimonies of the christian world against your priests, we solicit your candid attentron.

How long will you suffer yourselves to be imposed on ? Is there the form of a rational being, but yourselves, who can believe that an impious, God-despising priest can create his Maker? What ! Create the Almighty out of a little flour and watet? The most degraded of the heathen, made his god out of the trunk of a stately tree. One part he cut up, and made fire of it, to cook his food ; of the other part he made a god ; and he bowed down to it, and adored it ! This was infinitely degrading, and contemptible ! But your priests sink you all beneath the infinite degradation of €ven these pagans! He makes his god, and your god outof a little flour and water! He actually makes the idol of his, and your adoration out of a little wafer! And after you have bowed down to this bran idol, and on your knees adored it with pray- ers, and with incense ; and after you have carried it about through the streets, as you do in Catholic lands, and compelled, by violence and arms, others to commit the damning sin of adoring the hran god, also : — you then actually eat it up ! Did you ever hear of the most brutish pagan eating his gods ! He might worship animals and vegetables! But brutish as he was, even his leek and his onion that he worshipped, he would not eat! But your priests, like the hero of Pope in the Dunciad, take a long race, and jump the deepest into the abyss of abominable idolatry!

And what of the god is not eaten up, is put into the Pix, (box).. And if some of the god falls in \he form of crumbs, the dogs pick up these parts, and pieces'of the god! And these dogs have the god in them. Remember the instructive story of the Lady's lap dog, which suddenly swallowed th^s wafer as the priest was giving it to its mistress ! The little fellow was actually put into a Nunnery, and kept as a holy personage, — as holy certainly as any of Ms sacerdotal compeers — no one doubts it ! And when full of days, this little dog which had the god in him, died, he was buried in holy ground! Moreover, the vermin, such as worms, and mice, and rats, have entered the Pix ; and eaten the hran god ! What a sublime god ! What a ghostly elevation of sentiment! Your god eaten up by men, and dogs, and worms, and mice What! Can he not take care of himself, then ! How can he take care of you? If he cannot save himself from the devouring throats of beasts iind reptiles, how caa he ever save you from death !

Had this unparalleled doctrine of Rome been obtruded on the faith of the most de- graded of the pagans, how would they have blushed for human nature, disgraced and insulted by beings, — men shall I call them? who invented and. imposed on you, fellow citizens, for the sake of gain, this monstrous fiction of transubstantiation !

I am, fellow citizens, yours respectfull}'-,

W. C. B.

P. S. I have the pleasure of announcing the conversion of another R. C. priest. Lately, the Rev. John Bur k left the Romish church, and joined the Episcopal churcli in Virginia. The Rev. Mr. Peixota, lately left the church of Rome, and joined the Lutheran church in Pennsylvania. And, now, the Rev. S. B. Smith, many years a prieet, has united himself with the Presbyterian church, in Philadel})hia.

W. C. B

22

242 R0MA5 CATHOLIC CO.XTROVERST.

LETTER XVII.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMA>' CATHOLIC CHCRCH,

Popery condimn-'.d by Reason, Scripture, and the Fathers.

The verv origin of the word Mass establishes the identity of poperv and infidelity: Itk , MissA est: Go : our unbloody sacrifice now oftered, is se>'t to heaven and accepted !

Fellow Citize>'3 : — Having paid our respects to transubstantiation. I go on to its cognate doctrine, and observe in the next place. —

Tenth : that the 3Iass is condemned by reason, scripture, and the Fathers. As many of my readers have never seen ■• the ludicrous play of a grand mass, in pontifi- calibus,'^ I intend soon to devote a letter to a graphic painting of it. My present aim is to niter its condemnation from these three testimonies, from which hes no appeal. - First, Reason condemns it. The Mass, in Roman style, is the offering up, in sacri- fice, the wafer, converted by transubstantiation, into the real flesh, and sonl, blood, and- divinity, of Christ. This, the priests with an ill affected gravity, contrive to make you believe, is c reaZ sacrf^ce /or the quick and the dtad ! This same '• body and divinity" are offered up : yes I " the divinity" is offered up in sacrifice I The divin« nature of our Lord was the altar which made his true and onl}^ sacrifice of the human nature to be of infinite value. But the Roman priests take " the divinity and sonl as well as body of Christ," in his hands, and offers all of them in a sacrifice I This, reason revolts at : — this, reason pronounces a horrible blasphemy ! Moreover, all men, possessed of the least grains of common sense, are fully convinced that a ma- terial body cannot be in millions of places, at once. "l.Tolle spatia, &c., take away from, bodies," says Augustine in Epist. 57, — ••their existing in one place, at one time, and they no where exist." But the Mass assumes this principle without proof, that the one human body of Christ is in heaven, and in all parts of the earth, at once : — that it is in glory, and yet it is daily and totally eaten up, and devoured by a million of Romish months, everj' day ! And the next moment it is as ready to be eaten up again, as ever! It is at once visible, and invisible ! Divisible, and indivisible! It is all here in the priest's box, and it is not here, but elsewhere ! It is one whole, and yet in a million of bits, in a million of different mouths I It is contained in heaven, and yet not there contained ! It existed formerly, and yet it is daily made, by the priests muttering of the words, — ^'hoc est corpus.^^ It is one, and a whole human bod}', in small bits in a million of different stomachs, and yet it is altogether external of all these same stomachs I It is to be made daily, and vet never to be made J In a word, our Lord, according to the doctrine of the Mass, while sitting at the first table, was at the same moment, in the mouth, and the stomacliof each of the apostles. While sitting, he took his own perfect body, head, and all, into his own hands : and while sitting, he broke himself into pieces, and with his hand, still sitting, after h« was broken, he gave himself to each of his people : and was eaten by them all, while he was yet sitting, and talking to them. And after being eaten up by eleven men, he walked out, and made the intercessory praj'er, while he was the same mo- ment,-^in the stomachs of eleven different men I And finally, after being eaten and digested by these eleven different men, he was crucified, he rose, and ascended to heaven !

EOMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 243

All these unparalleled absurdities the Roman priest teaches his victims : and actu- ally commands them to believe them, — "on pain of damnation!"

Second: The holy scriptures condemn the Mass. It is a fundamental doctrine of liome, that the mass is a real, propitiatory sacrifice, offered up to appease the wrath of God, for the dead, and the living. The priests first create our blessed Lord out of a little wafer : and then offer up this new made hran god as a real sacrifice, to appease the wrath of God ! And they worship with solemn adoration and incense, this god in the wafer.

The scriptures pass a sentence of double condemnation on the mass. First : as a horrible idolatry, at which every pious man shudders. The priests and their victims worship a newly made wafer god ! Now, the Bible says, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." The worship of the host, and the mass, is not a whit more justifiable than the idolatry of the Jews, or the Pagans. The mass, is as degrading, as impious, as God-despising, as God-provoking, as the mon- strous idolatry of the Jews in worshipping f^e golden calf! And in point of atrocity, it comes the nearest of any sinful devices, to that of human sacrifices ! For if we may believe the priests, they use real human flesh, and real human blood in the mass !

I beg you and your priests to hear how this abomination of the mass is condemned by, first, the Old Testament. You know that our blessed Lord, afterthe flesh, was a Jew, and so were his disciples. And he came to fulfil the law, and not to break it. This you admit. Now, then, you teach that our Lord converted the bread into his otvn flesh, really, and ivithout deception ; and the wine of the cup into his oivn real blood, — that is into human Jksh, and human blood, without any imposition. And hav- ing done this, he made his disciples, who were all Jews, — -eat this human flesh, and drink this human blood! Here your priests represent our Lord, as an impostor, de- liberately breaking the law of Moses, which prohibited the use of the blood of beasts, — infinitely more that of a human being. May I direct your attention to Levit. xvii. 10, "Whatsoever man there be among you, that eateth any manner of blood ; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among the people." And, moreover, your priests represent our Lord as having broken a noted law of Moses recorded in Numbers xix. 11, which prohibited a Jew from even touching a dead body of a man; if he did, "he was unclean seven days." But, with these laws of Moses before their eyes, your priests do in the mass, — Oh I most horrible, represent our Lord and his disciples not merely " touching a dead body," but absolutely edlmg living human flesh! Yes! to crown the climax ofsatanic impiety in the mass, your priests make the Lord, and his disciples, and all the " pimple feithfal," to be absolutely guilty of cannibalism ! In the name of all that is sacred, — how long will you, fellow citizens, permit these impostors to make cannibals, and idolaters of you !

Second : Let your priests hear how the mass is condemned by the Now Testament.. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the apostle contrasts the daily, and ever repeated sa- crifices of the Jewish church, with the one sacrifice of our blessed Lord, once offered for us ; and theuce shows the imperfection of the former ; and the infinite perfection of the latter. The whole weight of the argument of inspiration, rests on the divine fact of the perfection of the one, and never to be renewed sacrifce of Christ. Take this away, as your Roman priests do, and you destroy the whole force, and Ijcauty of llie apostle's divine argument. "This yian," says the ai^ostle, "^Aerhchad giJerQd qnjj

244 R0MA5 CATHOLIC CO?f TROTERST.

sacrificefor sin, forever sat down on the right band of God." '-By o>'£ sacrifice he hath perfected, forever, them that are sanctified." Heb. x. 12. 14. And St. Peter says, " Christ hath suffered once for sin." 1 Ep. iii. 18.

But in a heaven daring manner, in the very face of all these divine testimonies borne to the truth of the one, perfect, and never to he repeated sacrifice of Christ, your priests pretend to offer up Christ, daily, in his "real body, soul, and divinity/' a sacrifice for the sins of the quick and the dead. Now, we ask thera, was our Lord's sacrifice perfected, at his death ; or was it left imperfectl If imperfect, it was worse than none; it was a mockery of an unclean, and spotted thing, offered to God! You w'ill not, — ^5^ou dare not openi}' avow tliis blasphemy, which would make even Satan blush! If it was perfect, — then it is uLterh'- impossible, nay, even blasphemous to suppose that you can renew it, and repeat it, and make it acceptable to God for the quick and the dead I

Again; supposing for a moment, that 3-our priest's mass is "a propitiatory* sacri- fice," it must be, either the same as our Lord*s atonement : or. it must be a continua- tion of what he began on the cross; or, it must be a renewal, and reiteration of it. It cannot possibly be the same as Christ's; any more than xhe first Lord's Supper, is that of our day. If it be the continuation of what Christ began ; — then our Lord must -have left his worii incomplete, imperfect, and, therefore, utterly useless I If it be a reiteration, and renewal of w^hat oui- Lord did on the cross, — then your priests are placing ff^« perftctly finished icorJc of Christ, on the sam^ footing as the imperfect, and ever renewed sacrifices of beasts, in the ceremonies of the Mosaic law : and, thence, it can be no more availing in its efficacy than the blood of bulk ! This they will not dare openly to avow. The Bible declares, Rom. vi. 9. 10.. that "-Christ being raised firom the dead, ditth no tnore.'^ '• He died unto sin once.'' "By one offeririg he hath jjerfected, for ever, them that are sanctified.'' ''After Christ had ofi'ered om sacrifice for sin, he forever sat down on the right hand of God." Heb. x. 12. 14.

This, your prie^s seek to evade by an extraordinary distinction. It is this :— There is one bloody sacrifice, not to be repeated: but we offer up "the unbloody sacrifice of the mass." Here, in your painful and disgraceful ignorance of God's holy Word, you contradict divine revelation: and deny wb-at God has declared. There can be no propitiatory sacrifice without blood r — there may be sacrifices of prayer and praise; but there can be no propitiation without blood. " The unbloody sacrifice of the mass" is an impious and diabolical invention. God has declared if. and all the puny rebels of Rome cannot gainsay it. Hear his own awful and eternal words: — '' It is the hlood that maJceth an atonement for the soul.'' Lev. xvii. 11. '■'•Without shedding of hlood there is no remission.'' Heb. ix. 22. •• An unbloody sacrifice," such as that of the mass, we, therefore, pronounce, to be the wickedest of all the inventions to which the devil, and the- pope of Rome have ever yet given cur- rency !

Third: — The Mass is cond'tvaned oy the christian Fathers. These writers knew neither the name, nor the thing, — of mass. They called the holy Supper of our Lord, '' the gift," '' the eucharist ;" and more generally, as St. Jerome does, ''the myster\-." And, with them, this was synonymous v^nth a symhol, b}- which solemn and invisible t'ningswere represented by outward, and visible elements. See St. Jerome: Evagr.: Tom. iv. Again: St. Jerome calls it "the table of the Lord." and speaks of "-the bread," and the "cup of the table of the Lord.*' Here he confirms two points-.- 1st. That the cup vras given to all; as well as the holy bread. 2d. That the holy Supper

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROYERST^ §4S

©four Lord, was, in the belief of these Fathers, a feast upon a sacrifice ; and not ♦' a sacrifice ; not an altar/^ See St. Jerome, Lib. 7, De Ordin.

In like manner, Damasus, Epist. 4, calls it, "the table of the Lord;" not "an altar," not " a sacrifice." This was Paul's designation of it; and our Lord was not sacrificed at, or on "a table ;" but on the cross.

St. Augustine calls it "the Eucharist," — the thank offering. C. 88. And Willet's Synops. p. 579. And that eminent Father, in Libr. Ad Fratres in Erem. when speak- ing of the prodigal son's return, and the fatted calf being killed, says, — "He slew the fatted calf, when He renewed in the sacrament of the altar, the memory of his passion, in his mind, — memoriam passionis, &c." Thus Augustine makes the Eucharist a sacrament, — not a sacrifice of the altar ; a commemoration of his passion and death. I shall offer one memorable sentence more, from this father, against your priests. "Hujus sacrificii caro et sanguis, ante adventum,, &c. The flesh and blood of this sacrifice of our Lord, before his coming, was exhibited in the type of the sacri- ficial victims : during his actual suffering, it was presented indeed, and in truth ; but after his ascension, it is celebrated through the sacrament of his commemoration.''^ Aug^ cap 20. Lib. Contra. F. Manichaeum, Turet. vol. iii. p. 601,, So decisive is this emi- nent Father against the modern fiction of the mass.

St. Bernard thus writes, — "Sicut Christus, &c. As Christ is daily offered up,, while we do show forth his death ; so he seemeth to be born,, when we faithfully represent his nativity." Bern, in Vigil. Natal. Sem. 6,. Can any thing be mora decisive against the sacrifice of the mass X If Christ be often sacrificed, as the priests, say, — "then," says St. Bernard, "is he often born!'' In the Lord's Supper, there^. fore, St, Bernard advocates a holy sacramental remembrance of him ; and by no means a sacrifice of him.

The Decretals are positively against your mass. Thus, in Decret. p. 2. Caus., 1, Qu. 1. cap. 72, Gregory calls it " the communion ;" he never dreamed of it being called a sacrifice. Again, in cap. 63, it is called, — ^'- Sac r amentum pietatis.,'' the sacra- ment of piety, — not a sacrifice. In cap. 12., Gelasius, it is called " the mystery." In cap. 5, it is named, " the sacrament of the body and the blood of the Lord.'^ These were the names, and the sacred meaning, and use of the Lord's Supper^ before the revolting modern fiction of the mass^ I beg leave to give another extract from the Decretals^ — " Quod factum, &c." That which was 07ice done is done in our memory, every year.'' Deer. Par. 3, Dist. 2, cap. 51. And in cap. 53, we find these words : — " Quod nos, &c., that v/hich we do, is done in the remembrance of him."

Pope Gregory says:-^" Sine intermissione, &c. Without ceasing, our Redeemer- immolates a sacrifice for us, in dtmonstrating, or showing forth to his father j his incar^ nation, &c. See Greg. Moral. Lib. i. cap. XO. This pope had not conceived, as yet, any thing even like the figment of the modern mass !

St. Chrysostom thus opposes the mass: — ''Tovto yap ifec," "For, do this, he says, in remembrance of me. We do not perform a different sacrifice, as the high priest did then ; but always the same : or, rather v/e make a memorial of the sacri- fice." In Epist. ad Hebr. cap. 10.

Justin Martyr, in A. D. 15Q, thus wrote:—" On ^£r, &c. I also atfirm that the- prayers, and praises of the saints are the only perfect sacrifices acceptable to God. For these only have the Christians undertaken to perform ; and by the communication of the ivetfood, and the dry, in which we call to remembrance the sufi'c rings, in which tU^ God of gods sullered &tc." Dial. Cum Tryph. Judeuo, p.. 3-15., Paris JEd.it. 1515^

23*

246 aoM.^^r catholic eoNTR(yVERBr.-

Clemens x\Iexanclrinus in lilie manner, thus wrote :— " Er* yow, «fec. Our earthfy altar is the assembly of such as join together in prayers ; having, as it were, a com- mon voice and mind. For the sacrifice of the church is the word ascending as incense from- holy seals; their sacrifices, and their whole minds being open to God." Stromatum. lib. 7, p. 717, Paris Edit. 1641. These were the offly saerijiees then known, in the primitive, pure, and apostolical church.

Tertullian, in one of his books, shows us how utterly ignorant he was of the mass, both as to name and thing. "Namque quod non terrenis sacrificiis, &c. For we must not think of appeasing God with earthly sacrifices, but we must offer to him spiritual sacrifices." " Thus, therefore, spiritual sacrifices are meant; and a contrite heart is shown to be an acceptable sacrifice to God." See his book Advers. Judseos. eap. 5. p. 188 : Paris Edit. 167.5.

Lactantius, in like manner, had no conception of the modern Mass ; or of any ghostly sacrifice of wafer, and wine, and water! See his Book Be Veto- Cultu. Lib, 6. Tom. i". p. 509: Paris Edit. 1748, — "Duo sunt &e. There are two things which should be offered to God"; a giO', and a sacrifice ; a gift should be for ever, a sacrifice for a time, — in temfns.'" And having shown that no gifts nor sacrifices can nov/ be given to God to propitiate him, since Christ has died, he adds in explaining the nature of 02/r gifts and sacrifices as christkns, — " Therefore to God is to be offered, — incor- porale, the incorporeal offering, which he makes use of. The- gift is inlegrity of mind: the sacrifice is praise and a hymn."

I have thus far been insensibly led on, in the examination of the mass ;■ and in con- trasting primitive purity of doctrine, with this revolting figment of Romish priestcraft. I shall close this Letter with a few miscellaneous remarks on the mass.

Although the Mass is sustained by neither reason, nor scripture, nor the early Fathers, — it is yetmightily sustained. It is sustained by the whole posse of priests from the pope, down to Viear Power, and Padre Levins. And in spite of rhyme and reason, they will cling to it, until the whole system tumble in ruins. It is the grand specifi.c tocmivert every thing into money. "Whither tendeth the doctrine concerning the mass being a propitiatory sacrifice for the dead," — ^says Dr. Barrow, vol. vi. p^ 233., — " but to engage m-en to leave, in their wills, good sums to offer on their behalf!" *' By this, the priest makes an irresistible appeal to- the dying wretch, of every class^ overwhelmed with all the- vices and attrocious pollutions, ini which popery steeps its abused victims; and- in v/hich it- entertains them in the deepest sleep of moral death, imtil its convenient hour comes, — that is to say, the fittest moment for making the most lucrative speculation on the- soul of the dying wretch! For it is then, under the exquisite tortures of conscience, and the merciless goadings of priestcraft, that he will eagerly purchase deliverance from the pope's hobgoblin flames, — on any terms, and for any sum of money, and fbr any laads,— especially when he knows, he can carry none of them with him!

It is a curious feet, and it ought to be more generally known, that the old Mortmain law of England, and which stands unrepealed in the statute book of our state to this day, was imperatively called forth by sacerdotal rapacity, and the incredible success, of the priest-s^ -in seHing their purgatorial flames! By this lucrative speculation, they were laying field to field, and domain ta domain ! Had it not been for the interven-. tion of this law,, prohibiting such bodies from receiving such bequests, the priests would, probably, soon have possessed the landed property of all England! They-

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSr, 247

would soon have made the rich exchange of the dark flaming waves of ptirgatoTyr for the beautiftil domains of England !

The priests have invented masses admirably adapted to suit every body, and all times. There ar'e the occashnal masses, and the ordinary masses; there are high masses, sung by the choristers, with the aid of the deacon, &c. ; and there are the low masses, in which the prayers are merely rehearsed. The masses for the dead, de- signed to relieve, and finally, to bring out souls from purgatory, are the most conveni- ent, and profitable, because they are the best paid ! For who would not give all he has, and even leave his wife and children to beg, — if he can only bribe — what is no easy matter, — a luxurious, indolent, and stvariclous priest, to set his poor soul out of purgatorial flames ! The splendor, value, and efficacy of masses, are purely in pro- portion to tlie amount of the cash paid. The most magnificent and earnest mass, being the best paid, is v/hen the Chapelle ardente is erected. Thatig, when a representation of the deceased, the new inhabitant of purgatory, is set up, amid the blaze of was candles. Then, when the gold and silver are heard to tinkle in the coffer; a solemn absolution is pronounced, forthwith, on the poor wretch in the flames. And, forth- with, at the simple nod of the priest, as he pockets the money, all the demons, and the devil himself,— so the priest says — quit their hold ; and the pure soul of the lately oppressed wretch, is in a moment winging its flight to heaven, to the bosom of Abra- ham! How amazing is the power of gold in Rome !

But, so far as we can penetrate the priestly secrets, our "dealers in human souls,"" and the traders in Purgatory flames, have the candor to admit, that this class of Ro' man redeemed souls, are not admitted exactl}^ into the same place where those, who are saved by grace alone, sing the praise of redeeming love. For those persons cannot possibly join, with any kind of good grace, in the same heavenly song. They can, sing only, in truth, of what saved them. They cannot sing of that in which they had no interest, and from which they had no benefit. They can, with no kind of truth, or honesty, sing of any thing else than the singular praises of priests, silver, and ptirga-^- tory ! And in no other possible form can the chorus be framed, than in this, — '' Wor- thy are the priests, and the silver, and purgatory, to receive our most cordial jjraises, ajid hearty commemorations forever !

I have only to add, that, to accommodate all persons who have the means, and a taste for this ghostly merchandize, with the priests, there are masses to be sold ami said for cattle, for strayed beasts, for stolen goods, and for travelers, going a journey,, that they may have "■ priestly good luck.^^ These are styled votive masses. Verily^ ^ the poet sang, —

" But Inymen most renowned for devilish deeds, J^ilborecl iit distariyo biill behind the priest!"

PoUuIi. I am fellow citizens, yours, &c.

W. C. B.

248 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

LETTER XVIII.

to THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Popery condemned by Reason, Scripture, and the Fathers^

" One is led to imagine that the Pope is no other than the incarnation of the ancient idol Mammon, and that the priests are his tax gatherers.'^— McGaviiu

Fellow Citizens: — I have at length, arrived with you, at Purgatory; and if you have no fears of entering into the priestly fabric, I propose a thorough investiga- tion of it. It is the temple of Mammon incarnate ; wherein his Holiness, the genius of the place, and the worshipped idol, has erected, before all the world, his "traffic in human souls ;" — and where he deals in purgatorial flames, and "souls of men;" sur- rounded by his money changers, and his " tax gatherers, the priests."

That some, although few of even your priests, have believed in purgatory, I am rather disposed to admit. For I find a few instances of even your priests, in Ireland, actually bequeathing all the little money they had, — (one really left £500 sterl.) — for masses for their souls — it seems to be the only evidence, that such men can give, of the sincerity of their faith in it. But as it respects the great mass, nearly all the body of the priesthood, from the pope, down to the humblest priest, there are few in America, and almost none in Europe, who ever supposed, for a moment, that yoiii priests believe in their own purgatory. For my part, I cannot think so meanly of their intellects, as even to insinuate that they do believe in any such thing. It is a difficult matter enough, to many of them, to believe in even a heaven, or a hell, — not to mention a purgatory! Your priests can tell you the names of many a pope, who made heaven and hell, and a judgment seat, the subject of their merriment ; and ^of another, namely, pope LeoX., who used to call Christianity "a pretty and profit- able fable, withal!" And an author of no mean note, quotes from some of your old writers, the following instructive anecdote of an eminent cardinal of Rome. One day his eminence, disposed to be talkative, began to " pose" his chaiplain, and try the extent of his profound, theology. " How many masses, I pray you," said he gravely-^— *^will it take to pray a soul out of purgatory?" The chaplain was struck dumb at the weighty question* After a painful silence, during which he had rummaged every comer of his brain, and exhausted his knowledge of the Fathers, he frankly told the truth, — a thing not usual in Rome, — that he could not tell his eminence: that it was prodigiously beyond his depth."

"Well, I will tell thee !" said his eminence, with a condescending air, — while the godly chaplain was all eye, and ear, to receive the awfully important discovery; " /f will take as many masses to relieve a soul out of purgatory, as it will take snoiv halls to heat our oven !" See the Preservative against popery p. 113. 114. Glasgow Ptot. chap. 76.

In tracing the history of purgatory, like the other prominent and peculiar cere- monies of your priest's church, we find it imported from the pagans. We disco- ver it many hundred years before the birth of Christ. Nay, oq the pages of Homer, Plato, and Virgil, we discover the heathen fiction. I refer to the Odyssy, Lib. 12, and Virgil, ^neid Lib. 6; where, in the former, the ghosts of Elpenor utter their sor- rows : and in the latter, Palinurus utters his ; and where the ceremonies, used to relievt

ROaL\N CATHOLIC COI^TROVERST. 249

them, as described by these great poets, are remarkably similar to those of the Roman catholics, used to relieve the Roman ghosts in the improved model of purgatory.

This pagan fiction of purgatory, was unknown to the true christian church in the Jirstjive centuries. The man is no scholar, nor at all read in genuine history, who will risk his reputation in affirming the contrary. I admit that a few individuals, philosiphers, and monks held this from early ages; and that these men were nominal christians. For, it is a painful fact that when Christianity mounted the throne of the Caesars, in the person of Constaniine the Great, paganism became unfashionable, and unprofitable ; and Christianity became of course, profitable to men of rank, and to philosophers. And these " great" men when they cameinto the church, did not " put off the old man" — they did not strip off paganism, and its pagan tenets. They put on the mask of the hypocrite, over the pagan man! A thing, by the way, done by millions in Europe, and perpetuated to this day. Hence with paganism, the rites of this system, and its doctrines found their way into the early christian church. But, as a systematic tenet, purgatory was not tolerated in the Roman cailiolic church, until the days of pope Gregory, the great, or, the end of the sixth century.

It is true, Origen, Jerome, and Augusnne have left some wild speculations on it ; which indicate that they had been occasionally staggered by the extravagant specula- tions of the baptized pagan philosophers, who had crept into the church. But we shall- examine the Fathers presently.

I showed in a former letter, that the leading rites of "Holy Mother" were founded in fanaticism, and by the visions of fanatic "saints." This was emphatically til© case with purgatory. As soon as pope Gregory was known to favor this wild, pagan fiction, every monk's cell began to team with visions, apparitions, and miraculous disclosures, — all designed to give a divine sanction to the purgatory of the heathen; and to baptize it, as a christian reality. "The flames of ^tna and Vesuvius," says Archbishop Wake in his "Discourse on Purgatory," "were thought to be kindled on purpose to torment souls. Some were seen, in vision, broiling on gridirons ; others roasting on spits; some burning before a fire; others shivering in water; and not a few smoking in a chimney." Nay, says he, the way to purgatory was found out; it was situated in the centre of the earth ; and one way to it, lay through Sicily, another^ in Pozzoeto ; and another v.as found out in favored Ireland ; namely the mouth of St. Patrick's cave !

During the seventh and eighth centuries, there were mighty disputations about its locality, and the species of its torments. The disputants, wholly taken up about the circumstances, gradually wrought themselves into the beliefof the main fiction. Yet even in the bosom of Rome, many opposed the ridiculous folly. In 1146, Otto Fri- eingcnsis, in Chron. lib. 8. cap. 2(), thus writes, — "That there is in hell, a place of purgatory, wherein such as arc to be saved, are either troubled with darkness, or decocted with the fire of expiation, some do affirm.'^ See Morn. Exer. p. 252. This conveys the fact that all did not then believe this popish fiction. " And even pope Adrian," says Mr. Gavin, "confessed that thei-e was no mention of it in the scripture, or in the writings of the Fathers." See Master Key, vol. i. p. 16G, <^^c. And an an- cient Latin writ(;r gravely tells us that the Jesuit Cottonus was so puzzled foi- a text of scripture to confirm it infallibly — but which he never could discover, " ut ab ipso de- mone, &c. that he did not blush to implore from the devil, a passage of scripture most apt to establish it." Rut he got no answer! For even the devil himself, it seems, could find no proof of it from holy writ !

250 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTKOVERSr*

But, like every Other enormity of Rome, designed to advance the power of priestcraft, and pour in immeasurable revenues into the pope's treasures, and the priests' purses, it was sustained by all the weight of the priesthood : and was, finally, established by the council of Florence in the year 1430. And therefore, it is, properly speaking, only 403 years old ! And lest your priests should venture to call this the invention of heretics, I shall here, give a quotation out of their famous writer, Johannes Roffen, quoted in Polyd. Virg. De Invent. Rerum. Lib. 8. cap. 1. "Nemo certe, &c. No one true believer now doubts of purgatory, whereof, notwithstanding among the ancients, there is very little, or no mention at all. The Greeks, to this day, do not believe a purgatory, let who will, read the commentaries of the ancient Greeks. And the La- tins did not all of them together, receive the truth of this matter, but by little and little. Neither, indeed, was the faith either of purgatory or pardons, so needful in th% primitive church, asnoiv it is." See Poly. Virg. De Invent. Rerum, Lib. 8. cap. 1. — And Morn. Ex. p. 251.

This is from two of the most candid Romish writers that ever wrote. For, besides admitting that purgatory and pardons are modern inventions, and recent innovations ; they frankly assign the true reason of the invention. In primitive times, the holy, and good men did not live the luxurious, and proud lives of Roman tyrants, and ghostly despots, wallowing in pride, crimes, and luxuries, beyond bounds ! Now, the court of Rome " needs" the revenues of purgatory, to sustain their pomp, and the infamous ■course of their lives !

In the progress of time, the monks, and friars have greatly improved upon this lucrative fiction. Mr. Gaven in his Master Key of Popery, vol. i. p. 166, &c. has given us much light on this matter. And he was well able to do it. He had been long a Spanish priest, and had been deeply instructed in the system of this ghostly bank- ing business: and he knew the whole craft of adapting purgatory, and its " apart- jnewts," to the greatest advantage. He was converted from popery to Christianity, in 1715,

The priests and friars, says he, have distributed the dungeons of purgatory into eight apartments ; corresponding to the eight classes, into which they have divided society. And this division is shrewdly made to increase their gain ; which is always the only, aiid all absorbing object of these holy despots! There is an apartment for each according to their wealth and rank. For, assuredly a king, or a gentlemen would rather endure a more rigid, and hot fire of purgatory, and pay higher to get out of it, than to be crammed in, among coblers, and beggars, even in a less hot atmosphere ! ! Hence, says Mr. Gaven, they place the poor people in the Jirst apartment, where the fury of the fire is the least. In the second, they put gentlemen, gentlewomen, and tradesmen's wives ! In the third, which is hotter than either of these, they dispose of the laxlies of quality ! In the fourth, — hotter still,-— are placed merchants, and trades- men. In the ffth, which is very hot, indeed, they put noblemen. In the sixth, which is amazingly hot, they arrange the grandees, to be properly scorched. The seventh, which is terribly fierce in its flames, contains princes. And the eighth, the superlative degree, the deepest, darkest, and hottest of all, contains kings! Each of these has a tariff of prices nicely, and accurately adjusted by the ghostly financiers. And, what displays a shrewd policy in this novel trafic, there is power lodged with the disinterested, and holy priests, to change, cit any time, the lodgings of these people., That is to say^ should a poor rnan, or a tradesman get rich, — he can buy the priest's interesty for a suitable suni; fo traflsfer his poor dead ancestor into a more genteel aparU

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 25l

iiient, in purgatory ! He can buy the priest's influence with *' the court of heaven/' to transfer the soul, for instance, into that of " the gentlemen." And should he grow very rich, and rise in rank, he can buy the priest's prayers, to transfer him even into the apartment of " noblemen !" It is true, the elevation will make thQ poor soul feel hotter flames : but men must pay not only money to the priest, but also bear pains, t» be fashionable, and to be in genteel and noble company in purgatory !

This is quite an important branch of the ghostly trade in those lands, where all ranks are completely priest-ridden ; as in Spain, Italy, and Austria. Mr. Gaveii gives us instances to illustrate this. "A cobler's wife, ignorant and proud, discovered that her father was among the beggars in purgatory. She implored the aid of a friar, of the Franciscan order to elevate him. "How many masses can you s-parefor it?'''' said the priest. She said ^t^^o. It was too little. " He is among the beggars, — even the lowest." The lady wept ; and promised him more money, as soon as she got it. And the quantum being duly fixed, and paid, the "holy" priest graciously transfer- red him to the fourth apartment. The poor soul, no doubt, was unspeakably mor© tormented ! But then, his daughter after this, boasted that she was the daughter of a rich merchant ! See Gaven vol. i. p. 166, &c., Glasg. Prot. vol. i. chap. 77.

Could I find room, I might give my reader anecdotes to illustrate the good account to which the priests convert their purgatory. In Ireland they have Penny a Week Societies, called Purgatorial Societies. And those v\^ho pay into this "charity" a penny a week, are entitled when they die, to so many masses. And thus, by paying before hand, and their kind friends paying for them after they are dead, they get th© better chance of being, probably, sooner out ! At any rate, as the priest gets all th© proceeds of "this charity," he receives by this ingenious scheme, double pay! See a cc^y of "the Constitution of a Purgatorian Society," in Glasg. Prot. vol. i. ch. 77.

The appropriate sale of these purgatorial fires, for cash payments, has brought im- mense weahh to Holy Mother; and filled, to overflowing, the coffers of men, bound by the holiest oaths, to their vows of perpetual poverty !

And they have been rigidly exact, and shrewd in the collection of these wages of their perjury and damnation! They have grinded the faces of the poor! They have taken from the poor widow her last mite, and the very garments, and the last mor- sel from the weeping orphan! Their cunning has had no bowels of mercy! Yet, occasionally their knavery has met its match : and they have sustained losses from men more shrewd, though not more wicked than themselves.

A certain heir of a profligate father was long importuned by the disinterested priest to pay for masses to relieve "his poor broiling father!" Tired with his importuni- ties, he bade him go on, and relieve him. An apartment in the castle, was arranged for him ; and the son remained by the devout priest, to witness the masses, and watch the holy process of deliverance. At each proper pause, and the close of amass, down went the gold. The priest went on: and the young lord still counted out the gui- neas! Masses must be over by twelve. It was now eleven. "How comes he out?" said the youth. "We have him nearly all out," — says the priest, as he melo- diously chanted the mass; with a sublime devotion, quickened by the music of the descending guineas! "Hold on," cries the youth, "we must have him out before twelve !" A large heap of gold now lay on the table. " Is he not out yet ?" cried his lordship. "Patience; my good sir, your father was a tough old sinner,'* says the grave priest: "he has been pretty deep in the fires, audit needs many masses to bring him up !" Down went more money : and another mass was chanted ; and the

SS2 ROMA?f CATHOLIC CO-NTEOVEBSt

smoke oi the incense ascended. At length the priest, stispecting that he could get no more money, exclaimed, "He is out: he is fairly on his legs I" "Glad am I of it," says the 3-outh; "and now being on his legs, let him shift for himself: for he had a pair of good heels, when he was in this world." And saying this, he swept up all the money ; and wishing the astonished and confounded priest a good morning, he left him to plan how to be more watchful in all fumre barterings of the kind i

The anecdote of priest TAom of Dublin. I have heard related by an Irish gentleman. 1 have, since, seen it published in the Glasgow Protestant vol. i. ch. 75. And the Editor of the Philanthropic Gazette, published it in Oct. 27, 1819; and assured the pubhc that he was responsible for the truth of it. A landlord in Publin called on one of his tenants for the rent. The poor woman apologized for not being able to pay it; and informed him that she had appropriated it to " a hvly use.^'' "In short," says she, "the holy praste came along the other day. and says to me, 'have you heard from your husband?' " "Saj-s I — and how can I, when he is dead, — and sure be is !" " Oh ! yes — but have you not heard the great news ? A mighty crov, d were pass- ing over the bridge of purgatoiy to heaven; and, och! and ill luck to it, — it fell do\\-n. and a mighty ntunber fell on the wrong side — and your husband is one of them ! And nov,-, I am come to get your share of the money to help to build up the bridge." "And sure am I," continued she, "I could do no less than give him all the money I had, — for he assured me it would be an expensive job to rebuild it 1"'

I have the pleasure of saj'ing that the gentleman had this impostor brought before a magistrate —-who whined out, as he reluctantly restored the money to the poor widow, — "rhat heonl}^ wanted the use of the money for a few days, an'^ played this trick to obtain it, — and that he was coming, at any rate, to restore it."

I shall only add here, that there are hundreds of respectable gentlemen in this city, NVho have witnessed, at an Irish catholic funeral, what is called the auction for the soul. After getting all he can, at the mass, the priest takes a plate and goes round, in the house, and among the crowd, and out of doors assembled at the funeral, call- ing out, " Who will give a leetle more to help the poor soul ? Will none of you have a lectk more pity? Will not one of you give us more? Remember the soul of your poor neighbor now in purgatorj^!" And thus he continues to dan, until his own, and the people's patience is completely exhausted. And no wonder he is zealous in this "charity" for "the poor soul ;" for, all this money goes into his purse, for his ovvti use!

In this happy country (which may God mercifully preserve from the withering blight of priestcraft) we know nothing of the practical evils of this, and the other parts of the popish sj-stem. Ask our enlightened travellers, in Europe, and in South Ameri- ca ; ask our bighlv intelligent Naval officers, who have been there. They vrill tell you what they have seen and heard, a mere tithe of which I am not able to disclose, I present the following specimen from which we may form some idea of the jugglery, and practical absiurdities, with which the fiction of purgatory has been inseparably- connected. It is copied from a paper stuck up in the churches of Madrid, in Spain, three years ago.

"The sacred and royal bank of piety has relieved from purgator^^ from its establisliment, 1721, to November 1825, 1,030,395 eonk, at an expense of £1,720,437 11,402 do., from Novimber 1826 to Nov. 1827, 15,276,

1,041,797 souls. Total expense : £1,725,713.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 253

** The number of masses calculated to accomplish this pious work, was 558,921 : sconsequently each soul cost one mass and nitie tenths, or thirty-four shillings and fourpence."

Behold ! on the one hand, the economy of the Roman church! Souls brought t® heaven Deo nolente, autvolente, v/hether God will or not, at the rate of seven dollar*, and thirty -five cents, and a half, each! And on the other, behold! the amount of money brought into the priest's hands, namely; seven miUions, three hundred and thirty one thousand, four hundred and twenty two dollars, and forty cents f And all thisr in Madrid alone, and for purgatory merely, and in a hundred and live years ! Who can form an estimate of the whole amount plundered by these ghostly robbers, from the people, through the Roman catholic church, by this and all the rest of the basest and the most diabolical of false pretences ? If a culprit in our criminal courts, is sent to the States' Pr'-Mon for plundering his neighbor out of a few hundred doUars, under pretences, and by forgeries far less atrocious than those — 'what do the Roman priests not merit, at the judgment bar of the nations, for the countless sums they have plundered out of the pockets of their insulted and wretched victims !

May I be permitted to beg yoar very candid attention to this sore and alarming grievance, enacted daily before your eyes.

I am, fellow citizens, 3^ours, &c. W. C. B.

LETTER XIX.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Popery condemned by Scripture and the Fathers.

" Pope Gregory the Saint, saw the soid of Pascasius hailing in the hot baths of St. An- gelo !" " Bishop Theobald heard a naked, siivering soul crying oat of a lumn of ice ; and prayed it out by vieUing its icy prison !" " St. Bernard never could decide whether the pains of purgatory we.e injlre, in ice, or something else." Greg. Dial. IV. 40. — Hottino-er, VI. 1366.— Bern. 1719.

Fellow Citizens: — I shall now go on to show the condemnation of purgatory, First, reason and scripture condemn it. Here, let me observe, that we do all adn it a purification of the soul, by afflictions, as it were, by fire, under the grace of God. "Thou hast sent a fire into our bones;" "we have gone through fire and water." These are the instrumentaL causes ; but, as the meritorious and efficient cause, "the blood of Christ purgeth us from all sins." Heb. ix. 14.

This is the only purgatory admitted of, by the primitive church,, and by us. And to this purpose we quote Origen on Levit. lib. 9. " Without doubt we shall feel the unquenchable fire, unless we shall now entreat the Lord to send down from heaven, a purgatory of fire unto us, by which worldly desires may be utterly consumed in our minds."

But the Roman purgatory is a part of hell, and is in the future world, and is entered after death. Here all that enccr, do finally reach heaven, after they have been purged from their "venial sins," and "■ have satisfied the temporal punishment for their mor- tal sins." From this they are relieved by solemn masses, and the euffrcigcs, or vows of the church. See Canons of the Council of Trent Scss. 25.

23

254 R0aA5 CATHOLIC CO^TTROVEEST,

The texts of scripture pressed in for mere show, to sustain this i'mpious, but lucra- tive fiction, are these. Matt. xii. 32. "There is a sin that will not be forgiven Lo this world, or the world to come." Now, say your profoundly learned 'ogiciansy *'this implies that other sins may be forgiven in the world to come." This is a false conclusion; he is speaking only of this sin and of no other; and it is utteily absurd to draw from a particular premise, any such general conclusion. To settle the point, lei Matthew, in ver. 31, and Mark iii. 29 explain their own expression, — ''He hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation." And in the words, — "io this world and the world to come," or more literally, in this age, and the age to come,''' our Lord seems to reprove th2 idle traditions of ths Jews, that in " the age to coiae,^^ or the days of Messiah, "grace would be much more liberal; and reverse more rigid decisions." No, says our Lord, this sin will not be forgiven in this Judaic state, nor in the new dispensation of Messiah. That is, in the words of Christ, recorded by Mark, — " it will never be forgiven." But after all, what has this text to do with the purgatory of your friests ? They must be conscious that what it speaks of, and their purgatory, are two perfectly diSerent things. This text speaks of ^'■forgiveness of sin.'' Now, purgatory has nothing to do wdth "forgiveness." It is noplace of " forgiveness." The priests themselves declare it to be a place of suffering until th© victims have, by these torments, given siil the leqnixed. satisfaction ! How improper is it to appeal to such a text !

The next text pressed in by you is, Matt. v. 25. 26. " If thou be cast into prison ; verily, thou shalt, by no means, come out thence, until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing!" Here the "learned priests," find purgatory, not hell, in the prison; the "pay" is human suffering: and "venial sins" are "the farthings!" But, they have not yet proved that it is purgatory, and not hell, that is here meant. And, again, they leave this point unproved, that this infinite debt ever can be paid. But the finally impeniteni never can pay ir. Therefore, they never can get out ? This is the expla- nation given by all judicious expositors : and that by your own Jerome. Hear bis words: — "Semper non exiturum esse, &c. He will never come out, because h^ will always he paying the last farthing ; while he pays the eternal punisJivient of his earthly sins.'' Tom. v. p. 684, in Lament. Lib. 1. cap. 1. Paris Edit. 1602.

There is another text, on which they lay the greatest stress; 1 Cor. iii. 13. — 15. " The fire shall try ever}-- man's work," — "if any man's work shall be burned, be shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire." There is no allu- sion here, to any future, middle state. The apostle speaks of different preachers building on the foundation laid ; his doctrine is his " works" here spoken of. Now, it can have no reference to purgatory: for, there, you say, men are tormented in their souls ; but this text says, " the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is." Again, this fire tries the work of every man; as well those who build gold, as those who build stubble. But, by your own confession, every man does not go to purgatorv' : the pure enter heaven, and the atrocious men- dying "in mortal sins," go to hell. Finally, it is not affirmed here that "a manis saved by fre," but " he is saved as by fre." Hence it has no reference whatever to the purgatorial flames; but to that purification, which is effected by trials operating on his soul, as it were by fire.

But their Herculean club by which their unique Romish logic levels all oppositioii, is taken from 2 Maccab. xii. 43. &c. "He sent the 2,000 drachms to Jerusalem, to be laid out in sacrifices for the dead. It is a pious and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins." This is the form in which Bellarn^ine

HOMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 255

<|\lotesit. But he is guilty of perverting the Greek of the original writer. It runs thus—" He sent 200, not 2,000 drachms, to Jerusalem, to buy sacrifices," " pro peca- to,"foreiD,— or a sin offering. Thewords,— " promortuis," "for the dead," is a sheer forgery of that writer ! Maccabees, it seems, sent money for the purchase of victims for a sin offering. But in reference to the writer's recommendation "of praying for the dead, &c." it is of no more weight than a sentence from Voltaire, or Pope Hilde- brand ! The book was not written by inspiration: the author apologizes for his defects in the close of it : and the Jews never received it into their canon, and this, Bellar- mine has confessed; and what is unspeakably more to the confusion of ail your Jesuits, St. Gregory the pope pronounced the Maccabees "ea: librisnon canoncis, not canoni- cal books," See Greg. Mor. Lib. 19. in cap. 39, Beati Jobi. Benedict. Edit. Paris 1705.

It is manifest, I trust, to every unprejudiced mind, that there is no one solitary passage in all the holy Bible, which can be pressed in to give any countenance to the Roman fiction of purgatory : that there is no one solitary sentence in it which can be tortured even to utter the most distant allusion to it ! Hence the scriptures are utterly against it. Besides, the Bible declares that " Christ hy his one offering, forevtr perfected them that are sanctified.^'' And "there: is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved, but by Christ's name." It is the one, great, uniform doctrine, in scripture, that '■'■tht hlood of Christ washes aivay all sin.'' But this doctrine of purgatory sets up a rival to Christ's atonement; and teaches, with infidel audacity, that millions enter heaven by the merits of their "own torments and prayers for the dead." Hence it is as opposite to God's will, expressed in the Bible, as is the deadliest infidelity of Voltaire, and Hume !

The following texts I shall merely set down, as condemning your doctrine, Eccles. ix. 10. Eom. viii. 1.—2 Cor. v. 1. and ver. 10. Rev. xiv. 13.

And, here, I might call your attention to many extravagant absurdities, in the doc- torine of your priests' purgatory. Bui I shall mention only a few things to prove how- much it is abhorrent from reason, and scripture. First:— li is founded on the suppo- sition that God Almighty, after having forgiven us all our sins, does yet punish and torture us for them ! Let it be distinctly understood, that you teach that no one goes into purgatory, hut those whose sins are pardoned ; for when a man dies under mortal sin, or is unpardoned, he is doomed to hell. Now, here you teach that, after God has. forgiven uy, and while Christ loves us, and the Holy Ghost comforts us, — we are yet sent into ineffable tortures for thousands of years ! ! Can any man in the exercise of his reason, with the Bible before his eyes, believe that your god who presides over your purg.itory, is really the compassionate God of our salvation?

Seccnd:-^Your priests in their purgatory, represent God as punishing those whom he loves, with horrid tortures, of inexpressible flames on the soul, merely for the pu-. nishmenVssake. They admit that guilt is taken away, they admit that those in purga-. Lory have their sins all pardoned; and that they "are in a state of per/cc^ grace.'* These pains are endured as a punishment, (tremendously severe,) for venial sins, and something or other, called "-temporal jmnishment due for shi, — and, — "the crime oC punishrneiit!" " Cum realu culpa3, culpis suis remissis." These I quote from Bel- larmin , Do Purg. Lib. 2. cap. 1. sub fine. Now, when guilt is removed, is not pu- nishment removed? And when these men in your purgatory, "«re pardoned and in a state of perfect grace,'' can any man under the sun, tell us what the ''crime of punish- ment" means? It either has no meaning ; or it represents the merciful Father of our jBouls, as torturing his own pardoned children, in the flames, (or the mere sake of piu

256' ROJfA.V CATHOLIC C0>-TR0V£R5T.

Bishing them! ''Cum reatu culjpa!'"' See Dr. Sherlock's Vind. of his Preservatne against F'Tjery, p. 71. 72.

Third: — This doctrine of purgatory, in addition to its ineflabie absurdities, repre- sents your rriests as men cljolutely destitute of the bowels of humanity, — as unspeak- ably more c, j.tl than savages offering up hunuin sacrifices ! I take the evidence from their ovnx statements. Here are thousands of their own "beloved flocks," their for- mer kind, and obliging neighbors; their very " dear friends,"' " rolling in the hottest, and most horrid flames;" all of them "in indescribable tortures, and agonies." And, yet, O monsters ! they refuse to pray them out : even although, by ;heir own confes- sion, they can, by a word of their lips, or by a mass or two. and a little brief prayer, g«t them free from their agonies i Unless the stipulated exaction oi money he, paid down, they will not spend one breath. — they will not be at the cost of even a cheap wafer^ and a few masses, to pray out their dearest friends, or one individual cf their "very dear fli>ck 1" They whine, and cant, and hagg-le about a few coppers, v-nile their "beloved friends," "ar whom "they feel so much," are "broiling in the fiercest flames!" May the mercy of heaven deliver me, and you, my fellow citizens, from the jaws, and fangs of these Romish tigers, compared to whom the red lion of Africa is tender mercy. He devours the bleeding, lacerated body : tliey devour substance, and body, and soul, at once I

J^ma^Zi/ ;— PuR&ATOHY is condemned by the FaiherSc

1. Jr.^tin MartyT taught thus : — " ^f.Ura h &c. Afcer the departure of the soul from the body, there is instantly made a distinction between the just and unjust: — the souls of the righteous are brought to pi.radise with the angels : the souls of the \^'icked to places in hell. Respons. ad Orthodox. Quest. 75 : Usher p. 121.

2. Laciantius says : — ^'* Let no one imagine that a soul is judged immediately after death, for all aie detained in one common custody, till the time arrives, when the supreme Judge examines their merits. Then those whose righteousness is approved, shall receive the reward of immortality^" Czc. He then notices the doom of the wicked. He thus taught the Limhis patrum, but he had no idea of a purgatory. Tom. i. p. 574, De Vit. Beata. Lib. 7. Paris Edit. 1748.

3. Hilaiy, in 358, says : — " Futuri boni, &c. There is nope of future gco:l, when* departing from this body into the entrance of the heavenly kingdom, all the faithful, shall be preserved in the custody of the Lard ; being placed, mean time, in the bosom of Abraham ; the approach to which is forbidden to the wicked by the intervening gulph." On Psalm 2, also on Ps. 120, p. 978, Paris Edit. 1652.

4. Cyprian is full and expUcit in the tesamony that he never heard of modern purgatory. In his Book De mortalitatey section 2, he says : " Ejus est, &c. It is for him to fear death, who is not wuling to go to Christ. It is for him to be unwilling toi go to Christ, who does not believe that he begins to reign with Christ," &c. Thus he represem? death as " our going to Christ :" and " all who live by faith, when they di-^ go to Christ." And quoting the words of Simeon he adds: — -'This proves and wit- nesses that the servants of God then have peace, — then enjoy free and quiet rest^ when, being drawn from these storms of the world, we seek the haven of an eternal seat, and security ; when halting paid the penalty of death, we arrive at immortality.'* Again, in section 11, he says, — "The righteous are called to a refreshing; the ud-> righteous are dragged away into torment : safety is quickly granted to the faithful \ hut punishment to the wickedv" See the Oxford Edit. 1682; or the Edit, of Psme^ lius of 1593, which I use.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 257

5. Tertullian, so far from believing in these tormenting fiames to- purify God's people, or even pitying the dead, says; — "Christum, &c. We injure Christ, wheu we do not bear, with fortitude, die departure of those who are called away by him ; as if they were to be pitied ! 1 desire, says the apostle, to be received, and to be with Christ. How superior does he show the desire of the christian to be! If, therefore, we impatiently grieve for any who have obtained this desire, we show that we are unwilling to obtain it!" If this Father had believed in your purgatory ^, he would, with you, have pitied, and mourned for them, in the flames! If he had believed in your purgatory, he would not have thus united our departure at death, with, our being immediately v^ith Christ. Tert. De Patientia. cap. 9, Paris Edit. 1675.

6. Gregory Nyssen says: " SLrrnep dvp &.c. As by a certain abuse of speech, we call- a bay of the sea, an arm, or a bosom, so it seemeth to me thai the word signilies the exhibition of those immeasurable good things, by the name of a bosom, into which all men that sail by a virtuous course through this ^jresent life, when they loose from hence, put their souls into a good bosom; or as it were, into, a haven free from dan-, ger." Dial. De Anim. et Resur. Tom. ii. p. 651, Paris Edit.

7. Gregory Nazianzen taught,—" 12j /J^Ar^ov &c., — that it is better to be corrected. and purged nov/, than to be sent to the torment there, where the time of punishing is, and not of purging." Orat, 15, in Plag. Grandinis: and Usher's Works against Popery, p. 123.

8. St. Basil thus expressed himself,—" O-uro,- h auov &c. This is the time of repent- ance,— the Either life after this, is that of retribution: this, of woridng ; that of rewarding." In Proem, in liegul. See Usher, p. 123.

9. S., Ambrose taught that death "is a certain haven to those who had long been tossed in the sea of life."—" It makes not a man's state worse; but such as it findetli in every one, even ?uch it reserves unto future judgment : and refreshes with rest.'*' '^ It is a passage trom,; corruption to incorruption ; from mortality to immortality; from trouble to rest." De Bono Mortis, cap. 4.

10. An ancient Greek Father, usually bound up with Justin Martyr's works, says : "M£ra<5£&c. But after the departure from the body, a separation of the just and unjust takes place. The righteous go into paradise with angels, unto the vision of Christ; and the souls of the wicked into hell, &c." Q^iiest. et Resp. ad Orthodoxos, p. 437. Finch, 206.

11. Ju.-tin Martyr writes:—'' Ta. k &c. When we assert that the souls of the unjust are in existence after death, and are sensibly tortured ; but that ine souls of the good are happy, free from punishment ; we think we sang the same things that the poets and philosophers have done." Apolog. fro Christ.. 2, Paris Edit. 1515. TIius he believed in tivo states only, — heaven and hell. He lived in A. D. 150.

12. Cyril o. Jerusalem, says — '< 'O m^reojp &c. He who believes, in the Son of God is not judged, but is translated frora death to life. The just, indeed were tried through many years, but that wliich they obtained by the diligence of along life, Jesus freely confery on us, in one hour. For, if you believe, you shall be saved, and transferred- to paradise, by him who therein introduced the thief." Cat. 5, Oxf. Edit. 1503.

I do not conceal from you that the priests who can read Greek, may 11 ud out a passage in this Cyril, somewhat favorable to modern popish errors. But it is com- fortable to reflect that we can produce you two credible witnesses, that Cyril was not deemed by the prinritive men, quite orthodox af(cr liis later vagnries. " Cyril's faith was suspected." Ruiuuus and Jerome observe that lie often changed hisVaiih, gi^tl^

^.v

258 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

GommuDioQ." Dwpin denies that he did change his faith, but these two Fathers bad the best means of ascertaining this. See Dj pin's Eccles. Hist. 4 cent.

13. Cyril of Alexandria speaks thus decidedly; — "^Asivyap &c. For I think we ought to decide it, as being highly probable that the souls oi^ the saints, vrhen they depart from their bodies, are commanded unto God's goodness, as unto tb€ bands of a most dear Father; and do not remain on the earth, as some unbelievers have ima- gined, until they have had the honor of a funeral ; neither are they carried, as the souls of the wicked are, unto a place of immeasurable punishment, that is into hell; but rather fly to the hands of the Father of all ; — our Lord and Savior having first prepared a vray for us." la Johan. Evang. Lib. xii. cap. 36, Tom. iv. p. 1069, Paris Edit. 1638.

14. Chrysostom writes thus, in opposuion to purgatory : "The kingdom of heaveD is like unto a man that is an householder. The man that is the householder, is Christ, to whom beaven and earth are as a house. But his families are celestial, and terres- trial ; for whom he builds a house, with three chambers, that is hell, heaven, and eajrth. The combatants dwell upon the earth; the vanquished in hell; and the con- ffuerors in heaven." Homil. in Math, xii,

15. St. Athanasius wrole thus : — -'- Ovksuti &c. That is not death that befalleth tht just ; it is a translation ; they are carried out of this world into eternal rest: they go as o'lt of a prison, from their wearisome life, to the good things prepared to them." De. Virgin. See also Usher, p, 121 .

16. St. Jerome, in Epist. 25, comforting Paula, on the death of her daughter^ mentioas only the two states, — " hell, and its eternal fires, and glory to which believ- ers are instantly conducted by angels." See Usher, p. 123.

ir. St. Augustine, in some parts of his w-orks, seems rather inclined to go witb- Origen, as if he inclined to waver respecting the eternal pains of hell. In his Tom. vi. p. 222, Enchir, ad Laur. he speaks of it being "not incredible that there is a cer- tain purgatoriaa fire after this life," and "it may be inquired v-hether there be such or ikins', &c." H^nce, being douhtful, it cannot be supposed to have been, with him, an sirtiv-ie of faith. But, notwithstanding the idle blunderings of your priests, and a sciolist who lately ihade some quotatior.s out of Augustine, it is manifest, that this eminent Father, in his best, reflecting moments, goes decidedly against purgatory. Hear his words, — "After this life there remains no compuncti-on, or satisfaction." Again '.—There^ is all remission of sin ; here, be temptations to sin ; here, is the evil from v^hich w^e desire to be delivered ; but, there, (in the other state,) are none of these." Again,—" We are not here without sin ; but we shall go hence without ain." Gee Homil. 50.. Tom. x. Enchir. c. 115. Perkins, vol. i. p. 607. folio. More ^ecide-hy still speaks he in his book De Peccat. Merit, et Remiss. Lib. 1. cap. 28. *' jT/ier? is no middle jdace far any, he must needs be with the devil icho is not ivitk Christ.'' Again,- — " The catholic faith resting on divine authority, believes ihejirst place the Jcingdom of heaven : and the second, eell ! A third we are v/holly igno- rant of." Again, — " There is no place for the amending of our ways, but in this life ; for after this life, every one shall receive according to what he seeketh after in this."

18. St. Bernard in Epist. 266, says, " What is it to thee, and thine earthly vestures, that bein^ about to go to heaven, thou hast the more glory to put on instantly ?■'

19. In like manner the venerable Bede speaks in the most decisive terms. Here are his words, on Psalm vi. " Here only is the"place for mercy; after this world., there is place c- ri^T,' /or jtt5?ice."

Sl<?MAN CATBOilC CONt&OvKftST. 259

20. Anselm Oil 2 Cor. v. ssys of (be pardoned,-— " Instantly on their leaving th« flesh, they do rest in heavenly faith"

21. Epiphanius asserts that;— "The saints are in honor; they rest in glory; and their depariare hence, is into perfection." See Adv. Hseres. 78, in the end : Perkins^ vol. ii. p. 569, folio.

22. Olympiodorus says,— " E;' 'w Jc &c. In whatever place, therefore, v.hetherof light or of darkness; of evil doing, or of virtue, a man is taken at his death, in that doth he remain : either in light with the just, and with Christ : or with the wicked, and the prince of this world." Expos, of Ecclesiast. cap. xi. ; Usher, p. 127.

I shall close with two remarkable testimonies against purgatory. 1st, The council of Aquisgran, now, Aix la Chapelle, thus decreed : — " Tribusitaque, &c. By three modes are the sins of men punished : by two in this life; and one in the life to come." The f 1^0 *' are by compunction and repentance; and by God's corrections. "The thirds in the other world, is awful and tremendous ; wlien the Judge shall say, "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, with the devil and his angels." See Aquis. Capit. Concil. Ad Pipinium raissa; Lib. 1. cap. 1 ; Usher, p. 129; and Labb. Concil. Tom. ix. 844.— Crabb. Concil. Tom. ii. 711. Edgar's Var. p. 466.

2. At the council of Basil, in the year 14.38, the deputies of the Greek church, gave in their solemn dissent from the Latin church's purgatory. "Hup&c. A purgatory by fire," said they, "that is temporal, and shall have an end, we have neither recerv- <iA from our doctors ; nor do we know that the church of the East receives it." They added, — ^-"No small fear doth trouble us, lest, by admitting of a temporary fire, both penal and purgaton;, we shall destroy the full consent of the church T* "Hence we never have ulh-rmed, nor will we at all ever affirm it." S. Senens. Lib. 6. Bibl. Sanct. Annot. 259. Also Martin Crusius, In Turco Gracia, p. 186, Arch. Usher, against liofery, p. 182.

The crafty Latins did, indeed, cajole, and entrap the Greek deputies, to admit, " for the sake of peace, and unity," a kind of half purgatory ; namely, without firt. But the Greek church did, with indignation, reject this union, and the belief of Ro- mish purgatory. And to this day, do all the churches of the East reject it. Usher, p. 132.

Can any thing, therefore, equal the audacious impudence of Bellarmine, who fjterraits liimtcif to say,— "that all the ancients, Greek and Latin, from the apostle*' days, did eonstantly teach that there was a purgatory." De Purg. Lib. i. cap. 15.

But it *."■ ])leasant to find virtue enough in some of ^^our own writers, to give this Jesuit the lie ! Thrte of them declare that "in the ancient writers, there is almost jfo mention of purgator}'-, especially in the Greek writers. And, hence, the Greeks believe it not antil ihis day." I refer you to Alph. De Castr. Cont, Hier. in Indulg', Lib. 8.— J. llriFens. Luth. Confut. Art. 8— And Poly. Virg. De Invent. Rer. Lib- 8. cap. 1. — tij-hcr, p. 124.

Thus, amid the diversity of the opinions of the Fathers of the primitive ages, we- j)erceive in the most certain and distinct manner, that purgatory was utterly unknown io them! He ace, as it wants the unanimous consent o[ the Fathers, your priests are- bound in honor, to reject and condemn it as, — in fact it is,-— an im})ious, and diabolical invention. If they yet sustain it, without the wmaimous consent, tlicn do they lak« incredible i);.ins to make us believe that they are knaves, and that they deem all their victims to be utterly void of understanding!

And, my fcllovf citizens, ycu will readily admit that, in view of the whole argu-

360 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

ment on purgatory, I cannot give you, and the priests a better advice than that ot"' g«od old archbishop Usher, " Those of you, wha bUndly foUov/ cardinal Bellarmine, may do very well to look a head, lest, while you are seeking for ■purgatory^ you may stumble into hell !"

I have, thu.5 finished my argument on the condemnation of popery, by Reason, Scripture, and the Fathers. And I rest the decision with the enhghtened American public.

I am, fellow citizens, yours, &c..

New- York, November 5, 1833. W. C. B...

P. S. It is somewhat "ominous," that the date of this Letter, falling out, in the usual course, has happened on the famous day of the celebration of " the discovery af the popish gunpowder plot, in Great Britain! May Alm.igbty God preserve our republic ; and grant that, as a nation, we may never need to celebrate any such day of national deliverance ! Amen.

W. C. B.

LETTER XX.

TO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP, AND THE LORDS BISHOPS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, IN THE UNITED STATES^

*' Sicelides Musse, paullo majora canamus, Nou oraries arbusla juvant, humilesque myricse."

Virgil.

Reverend Fathers:— It is not unknown unto you, that we and your learned priests cf New York, have been discussing the doctrines of your church, until they retreated from their defence, and abandoned the cause of "Holy Mother," to the no small grief and scandal of the "simple faithful." We ner.t, in continuation of the discussion, addiessed ourselves to the members of your flock. " The condemnation of Popery by Reason, Scripture, and the Fathers,"— -has been uttered before the American public : and no one of your priests has opened his mouth to assign a rea- son before the people, vv^hy popery should not be sentenced, in pursuance of the ver- dict found and declared. I leave it to the public to pronounce the sentence. Before I close, I beg leave to make my appeal to your ears. Reverend Fathers. And, in as much as every section of the churches, is on a perfect footing of equality in this glo-.- rious, free, and happy lepublic; and in as much as my office is as high, and as honorable, in my church, as yours is in your church, — I shall speak as one ^^ ho feels himself on a perfect footing of equality ; recognizing j^our superiority only in years, and in that exdush)€ly. And I do it under the perfect consciousness that your tenets and principles, — and mine, are all open to the inspection of our fellow citizens ; while to Almighty God alone, are we all accountable, as the only Lord of the human con- science.

Now, in the first place. Reverend Fathers,-— the call on you is loud and impera- tive, for a general Reformation in your church. The religious tenets, and morals, patronized and sustained by you, are those of the dreary times of the dark ages. Bet- ter men, and men invested with higher offices in your church,, than any of you, Fathers, have felt the necessity of a Reformation. Gregory VII. in the eleventh

^.OMaN CATaOLIC CON'fROVERSY, 26^1

century, deplored the errors and the vices of tJie Church. In the Lateran Council called in 1215, Pope Innocent iii. deplored in a moving mannerr the wretched state of Holy Mother. "It is time," said he, "that judgment begin at the house of God. For all the corruption which is in the people, chiefly proceeds from the Clergy, since, if the priest who is consecrated, sins, he causes the people to sin, facit deiinquere populum, &c." Again, — "Perit fides, &c. — faith perishes, rehgion is disfigured^ liberty is confounded, justice is trodden under foot, heretics" (v/e know what he means hy heretics) "spring up, schismatics gather strength, the wicked rage," See Sac. Concil. Labbaei et Coss. Tom. xi. p. 134. Paris Edit. 1671.

These complaints were repeated in the first Council of Lyons, in 1245, Pope Inno- cent IV. stated as his first reason for calling it, — ^" the various excesses of the Clergy J^ The same were repeated in the second Council of Lyons, in 1274. Church discipline' and ''the licentiousness of the Ckrgy'^ called aloud for reformation. See Delahoguey Tract. De Eccles. Append, 2. p, 447. and Dupin Tom. x.

You all know the fam.ous speech of Dr. Chancellor Gerson, delivered in the Coun- cil of Pisa, in 1409, before Pope Alexander, lie thus introduces Holy Mother apos- trophising the audience;' — "Ah! wo is me ! Unhappy me! From what a height of dignity am I dragged dov/n, by the hands of the wicked ! How is my beautiful com- plexion changed, and the splendor of my countenance obscured, &c." This is equal to the language of Luther, describing the noted old "Mother of Babylon." And lest you may suppose that Dr. Gerson meant this to be the evil doings of the "heretics," he goes on to enumerate the cause; namely, the vile archbishops ignorant of, or despising their superiors; and simonical clergy, ignorant and vicious. He holds up "the warlike," and carnal prelates to execration. "From what roots," he exclaims, "can I believe these evils to have sprung? From the ahoviinable pollution of the Clergy!" "Those to whom marriage is forbidden, that they may attain to angelical purity,** (yes, verily, to angelical purity /)-—"■ 1 behold polluted with immoraUty, and uniting impure deeds, with impure words, filling their stomachs with feastirgs, and (ikilled in getting drunk ; and snoring over their cups,— these, and a thousand other ills have been inspected hy me/" Gers. speech, in Comic. Pis. 1409. See also Mansi Collect. Concil. p. 414.Venet. Edit. 1784, and Finch p. 90,

And not only so, but even the popes were deposed in theCouncil ofPisa as '' schis-^ mattes, notorious heretics, entangled in the enormous, and infamous crimes of perjury^ and violation of promise." And this is excelled in its manly force and accuracy of delineation, only by your histqrian Baronius, when describing the three rival popes in ]044. He calls them ''the three headed beast, who fif^id issued out of the gates of hell!" Baronii Annul. Tom. xi. A. D. 1044. This festering evil, by the very laws of corruption, went on waxing worse and worse. Even yoiir holy Council of Trent was avowedly called for this, among other reasons, — " to 'procure a reformation of the dergy and the christian people," And the Legates rehearsed the same reasons, and avowed that "the evils which oppress the church surpass in number, the sea-sand; and cry out even to heaven!"

I speak of things well known to you all. Reverend Fathers. You do know that your standard historians record, how the bishop of Bitonto, in his Oration, on a Sab- bath, before the Trent Fathers, said — " Q,uibu3 enim, &c. With what monsters of baseness, with what a heap of pollution, with what a pest of iniquity, are the priests and the people corrupted in the imly chu? r-li of God !" You know tlj.it F.lar George, pf Lisbon, in his Oration, on the first ^abbfithofLcpt, befoj-e these Fathers, dcclart\\.

^2 S,034AN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

that '* the children .of Holy Mother, had fallen into the hands of robbers, oppressire rulers, impious prin.ces, and infidel prelates /" 1 refer you to Labb. etCossart. Concil. Tom. xiv. 7.3.3, 734.

Bnt no reformatioD has been ventured on : no nerve in all your ranks was blessed with courage enough, to turn the river in, to cisanse the Augean stable ! And as cor- ruption by the fixed laws of nature, always waxes worse and worse, when left to itself^ — what, in the name of all that is sacred, must now be the state of things ia Holy Mother of Rome ) In our republic, it is true, your church presents the aspect of, in some degree, a comparative purity, and correctness. But your priests dare not come out to defend and practice your doctrines, as in the Roman caiholic churches abroad. For this less offensive state of things, — you, and I should, in justice, say, we also ars indebted, exclusively to the potent influence of American ofinions, and American morals!

And. Skcond, you cannot possibly be ignorant, Reverend Fathers, that the deplo- rable state of 5 our churches in point of knowledge and morals, is of necessity altoge- ther, produced by certain doctrinesj tenets, and rites of your church. I have establish- ed the fact by sufficient evidence, and also by the confession wrung from the reluc- tant lips of your priests here, that the J^rs? and grand fundamental tenet of the Romish thurch involves deism,^as necessarily as^ cause does effect. Youboldl}'-, and unblush- ingly deny the holy scriptures to be the only rule of faith and practice.' You sit in judgment on the holy Bible, and pretend gravely to give it all the authority it has, or can have. You sit in the temple of God ! You do usurp God's throne, by tradi- tion, and your church's aiilJiority,. — even as does the deist, by his unenlightened rta- 3on. Hence the pestilent morals of deism pervade your church throughout !

Contrast, I implore you, Fathers, the state of your flocks, and that of all Roman catholic lands, in point of knowledge and intelligence ; in point of virtue and sound ■aaorals, with those of the same class, in society, among those whom priestly iutolft' ranee is pleased to call heretics, — thereby meaning good Protestants. Is there a man who has eyes, or who can connect three ideas in his mind, who does not perceive the astonishing dife^ence between the two classes, — -Roman catholics, and Protestants,*— in all lands? Compare Spain with England, Ireland with Scotland, the TJiii^ed States with South America? It is not owing to any inferiority, by nature, in the Spaniard and the Irishman. These are-^especially the Irishman, a noble minded, warm hearted, and generous race of men. They are deteriorated purely, and alone bytheparalizmg and infernal influence of popery! And you act on principle, yon know. Wlienever a nation becomes an illumined, and moral people, — forthwith is the cruel and savage 3'oke of civil, and ghostly tyranny broken off, and dashed on the ground. Hence the pope detests knowledge and sound morals, as he detests the loss of power and of gold !

Now, Reverend Fathers, — ho%v long will you permit wicked men, and profligate shepherds to prey on the flocks? How long will 3/ou allow a simple and unlettered people to be abused by priests putting such question? as they do, unblushing'lj^ to them althe confessional? How long will you allow them to corrupt the 3'Guth, and maidens, and married v/omeo, by pouring in tneir ears, ideas which virtue and modesty cannot listen to without horror; and which can be breathed by none but sacerdotal libertines, and other cognate minions of vice, so far gone in conformity to the image af their Father, that they do all his damning service without even a blush !

Yesj Fathers, we possess copies of these questions, in Latin, French, and Spanisht

E0MA5 CATgOLiC CONTROVERSY. 263

Vfhich these priestly libertines are permitted, by you, to put to young females, and married women, in our land, weekly, and daily ! Were I to set them down m English before my readers they would be horror stricken ! Yet, the reciting and teaching these most obscene questions, in the ears of wives and maidens, forms a part of your religion ! The reciting of these corrupting and loafhsome questions forms a part of the daily instructions given to Protestant young ladies, in the nunnery- seminaries of your church !

In the name of the Most Holy One, 1 call on you. Reverend Fathers, to put a stop to this pollution ! I implore you to banish the shocking abominations from the con- fessional, and from the land! Can it be wondered at that in Europe, monasteries and nunneries have been, even to a proverb, denounced as so many Sodoms and Gomorrahs ! The most, if not all of you, are foreigners : and you, therefore, have had the best opportunities of knowing this to be a fact beyond denial ! You know iChat I mean ! I appeal to the Memoirs of Scijno Be Ricci, now before the public !

But your very standard books of morality, Reverend Fathers, are full of corrup- tion. The order of Jesuits, you know, has been revived especialW for the purpose of overrunning this heretical government and republic ! Regiinents of these papal sub- jects and household troops are pouring in upon us ! And their standard works of Jesuit- ism— so often condemned in Europe, are put into the youth's hands in the popish seminaries here. Now hear a specimen of these books used in the Jesuii .schools.

I have referred to them, once and again. But as these moral writers are the order of the day, with you ; and as they are the manuals for Protestant young men and young females, whom cruel parents abandon to the fangs of Jesuits, I shall quote a few, again.

"A child who serves his father, may uecretly steal as much as his father would have given a stranger for his compensation! Escobar, Theol. Moral, vol. iv. lib. 34. p. 348, Precious instruction for our sons ! Hear again, — " Sen/anls may secretly steal from their masters as much as they judge their labor is worth, mor® than the wages which they receive." Cardenas, Cbr. Theolog. Diss. 23, p. 474. To this agrees Tabern as; and also Lud. MoHna, Tom. ii. p. 1150. This b.st writer says, "De bonis, &c. They may secretly abstract something of their master's goods, providing they have asked, and been refused: and provided they, can do it without injury to themselves, and their shame," &c. Hear the instructions to a thief, "x4l man. is not bound to restore what he has stolen in small sums, however large may be th« total." Tamburinus Explic. Decal. Lib. 8. p. 205. Next, hear what a good wife binder a Jesuit confessor's hands, may do, — *' A woman may take the property of ber husband, to supply her spiritual v/ants; and to act like other wornen.^' That is, to pay her priest for putting to her these infamous questions at the confossioKal! See Gor- donus, Tlieol. Moral. Univ. Lib. 5. \). 826. But I beg leave to refer my reader to a world of similar quotations in Secrcta Moniia of the Jesuits, Appendix, Princeton Edit. And to Paschal's Provincial Letters, vi. viii. ix.

Now, I put it to your consciences. Reverend Fathers, whether such doctrines, and the licentious questions put at the confeseional, and the easy rates of absolution, and pardon of sin granted to those who confess, and pay the church's dues, have not pro- duced the present ai)palling state of morals in the Romish church. And v.^ith all thin impiety, deism, and immorality, in your communion, in popish lands, are you grave, or in jeat, when you actually affirm that there is no salvation out of your Roinan catholic church? As it is really impossible that you can be in eamest, I toll yow

■264 ROMAX CATHOLIC COPTTROTERSY.

gravely, Reverend Fathers, that you do carry your jests too far, when you persuad« your simple victims that all Protestants are damned ! !

But. THIRD, — Vv e have already demonotrated that your succession from St. Peter, and the true church, is utterly cut off: I beg to refer to my Letter VIII., &c. : that you have lost the succession of the ministry, which became utterly aud finally cut off at the Council of Trent, when the church of God came out of "Holy Mother," and left her "as a cage of unclean birds;" that you have lost the jjiire doctrines of the gos- pel, and the holy ordinances of Christ : that you have substituted a sacrifice and an offering of, as you say, human flesh and blood, called the ?na^s, instead of the Holy Supper; and a human device of anointing with chrism, instead of the baptism of the Lord : and have, moreover, added five rites, — such as marriage, holy orders, extreme auction, &c. ; which you have very facetiously honored with the title of sacraments.

Now, ReveTend Fathers, the most serious doubts are entertained by good men, whether your church of Rome be not, in verity, a perpetuated branch of paganism f ■Conscious that such grave inquiries are very congenial to your grave habits, I shall soon resume this theme.

I am, Reverend Fathers, j^ours, &c.

Not. 19, 1833. W. C. Brow>'Lee.

LETTER XXL

to the lord archbishop, AyO THE lords bishops of the ROMA::^ CATHOLie CHURCH, ly THE U?"ITED STATES.

The Romish church a perpetuated branch of ancient vaganisvi. " Hail, holy Pantheon ! house of all our gods !"

Reverend Fathers — I introduced a very grave subject in my last; such as is, in all respects, ver}- befitting your Reverence's devoutest investigation. May I beg A'ou. to follow me in the serious inquiry ?

It is certain that neither 3'ou, nor we, can find your church in the holy Bible. Hence you have been compelled by complicated, and mortal errors, to reject the holy scriptures, as the rule of faith: and betake yourselves to traditions, to keep yourselves in countenance with your interminable load of ceremonies and rites ! Pardon me, I err. We do find her in the Bible; but on the wrong side of the holy pale of Christ's true and pure church. We find her in Revelations, ch. xvii. ; and in 2 Thess. ch. ii. But, if we cannot find you as a true church in the pages of Lhe Bible, we can find your whole system in the field of paganism ; cnl}- under a nevr nomenclature. It i» baptized paganism.

Let us approach one of the pagan temples, then. Fathers, one of your cathedrals. What a harmony I "\^^2at a consistency! ^Vh£t a fair sisterhood! WTien we enter a pagan chapel, the first thing we find was " holy water, and a priest sprinkling it." "The Amula," says Montfaucon, "was a vase of holy v>^ater, placed by the heathens at the door of their temples, to sprinkle themselves with." This is exactly what you have ordered to be placed in your chapels I The true church, follovv-ing the com- mands of Christ, has no such thing.

The next thing which strikes us as we enter a pagan temple, is the cloud of smoke

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from the burning of incense. This is exactly the same in your chapels! In the heathen temple, you could see, in their large apartments, a number of altars, all blazing, while the curling volume of smoke ascends in a cloud ; so it is exactly in your cathedrals ! A number of altars are reared, and are smoking with incense. In the heathen temples, the images stood in rows, all around, as in the Pantheon : or, as in other temples, the conspicuous image of the idol, the genius of the place, stood alone. So it is exactly in your temples! The Pantheon of Rome, in olden times, the house of all the gods, is now the temple of Mary^ the mother of God, and all the faints.' The whole form, and the idolatry, are the same to the very letter; only new names are given to the idols. The Mother of God, has the place of Jup-iter, •'the father of the gods." Of old, every pagan could find his own god, here, and v/orship him : even ao, now, every one of the simple faithful, from ail countries, can find his own patron saint, and worship him, in the temple dedicated by pope Boniface to St. Mary, and all the saints ! !

In the pagan temples, the images and paintings were black with smoke. Even se are the idols in your old temples. When Dr. Middieton saw the " holy image" of our Lady in the temple of Loretto, he Vv'as amazed to find her as black as the image of ancient mother Proserpine, or, of an old negress !

In the heathen chapels, lamps and torches v/ere kept continually burning before the faces of the idols, and at the altars ; and near the dead. This vs'as so peculiarly apart of the heathen religion, that the primitive christians opposed, and ridiculed it. " They light up candles to God,"— -says Lactantius, — " as if he lived in the dark : and do not they deserve to pass for madmen, who ofier lamps to the Author and Giver of light? In this, your church copies tho pagan model exactly! Each altar, and each image has its lamp, and candle ! And wliat an array of wax candles you light up to the dead, to illumine their path through the dark valley ! But it must be their naisfortune, not your fault, that these magnificent wax candles do not move, and travel through the valley of death, with them !

Let us, in imagination, pass farther into the interior of the heathen temples. We behold their votaries on their knees, before their Jupiter, or Mars, or Venus, beating their breasts, and performing their holy evolutions. Enter a Homish cathedral, and you behold the same. Near an altar, a priest kneels, and goes through his canonical gestures, and contortions, and evohuions I At another, or near the favorite idol, an- other kneels, or some humble votary, praying, — "O holy Mother, by the rights of a mother, command thy Son to hear us !" While the priest repeats this in tlie canonical Latin, "O fclix puerpera, nostra plans scelera, jure matris, impcra Rcdemptori!"

There is another shocking piece of conformity, too striking to pass unnoticed. TJie pagans offered up human beings, — human Jiesh, — htman blood, on their altar! Now, Reverend Fathers, if \vc are to beheve your solemn word, and that of your priests, the wafer and the wine arc, in transubstantiation, turned really into Christ'' s very body, bones, nerves, muscles ; and the ivine into his real blood, which Jloived in his veins! This is either most certainly so, or, you utter an imposing falsehood before the world. Unless you utter falsehood, then, you do offer up daily, and weekly, hinnan Jlesh, and human blood, in sacrifices of the mass! That is, if you utter truth, 3'ou yourselves, do a« really offer up human sacrifices, as ever did, or do the heathen ! And you njake your victims of imposition eat this hitman Jlesh, and drink this human blood! In the name of humanity, and of common sense, Reverend Fathers, will 3'ou persist in such literal conformity to paganism, as to perpetuate human sacrifices! Will jou persi«

24

266 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST.

in making the simple faithful cannibals, as were, and still are the heathens ! Speali^ the American public demands an answer.

In evxry heathen temple, the priest, in his outre vestments, was attended by a little bjy, in a white, fantastic dress, wiih a little box, or chest in his hands. This contained the incense for the akar. This was too pretty a part of the show, to be omitted by your church. Hence every one has seen a little boy, clothed in a surplice, — yes, a surplice,\ike a young Astyanax, strutting near his father Hector. The youth bears, with solemn grimace, the sacred utensils, and the incense pot; which the priest, with a number of ludicrous grimaces, and gestures, swings around the altar, exactly as the pagan priests, in every respect, did. See Middieton's Letter from Rome, p. 1.36, &c.

How ingeniously, and industriously 3'ou have copied, and even exhausted the pagan ritual! I have discovered another prominent feature of your pagan model. It is well known that the priest has a little box, called the Pix. In this is kept hi« ivafer god ; into this he puts what of the wafer god is left, after communion. This lie carries about with him, to be always ready, " to prepare a sinner for dying," and give him a bran god passport to heaven, by laying it on his tongue ! Now, I was pretty confident that this .was borrowed : for the Roman priests are by no means geniuses, or remarkable for their own inventions! I discovered, lately, the origin of this, in Mr. Hope's Collection of statues, and antiquities. There is in that collection aa Eg3'-ptian Pastophora holding the god Horus. And in a London publication of Januar}', 1833, we have a description of it. "A Pastophorawas an initiated woman, who, in the religious processions of the Egyptians, carried the god Horus, in a box before the people, and presented the idol to the adoration of the multitude.^' Here we have, at once, the origin of the Pix, with the god in it; and of the carrying it about ; and abo the elevation of the host, to the adoration of the admiring Roman catholic mobs ! It is purely pagan !

My learned author adds, that "the language of Clemens of Alexandiia, one of the Greek fathers who lived in Egypt, who mentions the females called Pastophora, (Pacd. 3. 2.) with respect to the lifting up of the covering of the box, and the direc- tions of the Roman canon of the Missal, are curiously similar. The " discooptrit calictm,'' of the Mass Book, would seem to be almost a literal translation of Clemens'

Greek sentence, whith is, as follows : " O.Xr/ov f::avacTt\.\ai rov KaTa-srtTaTf.taTOS c»g 6si^Dv Tiv

Qcov." That is, — " Having drawn the veil aside, a little, as exhibiting the god." See Prot. Journ. of Lond. Jan. 1833. p. 44.

The processions of the heathen through the streets, carrying their idols, dressed out in flaunting display, with the votaries bearing wax caudles, or flambeaux in their hands, have been faithfull}^ I should say, slavishly co})ied, in all Roman catholic countries. To see one of the processions on Lady day, and the overgrown ruddy faced priests waddling along, in all their motly dresses, like so many well fed buffoons, with grave men, and even magistrates, and even delicate ladies, with long wax can- dles, at noon day, in their hands, — does actually remind one of the days of pagan Rome, and the ceremonies of demon worship throughout all pagan lands!

The ancient temple of Romulus was sacred to that Roman hero god. Here infants were presented by the ancients to be cured of diseases by this god, " who was gracious to children." Itis remarkable that this temple at Rome, is now dedicated, says Mid- dleton, to the christian hero god, or saint Theodorus, who had been exposed when aa infant, like Romulus, and who hke him, cures their diseases. When the Doctor

ROMAN CATHOLIC COKTROVERSY.

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visited this church, he actually saw a dozen of well dressed females, holding their sickly infants hefore the christian Romulus, — saint Theodorus! ! Here we actually have a wicked superstition perpetuated from the founding of Romulus' temple, to this day, by the Holy Head of the Holy Mother Church !

Even the cruel superstition and lacerations of the priests of Bellona, and the vota- ries of Isis are kept up, under the pious care of 3'our Holy Father! In their proces- is used to lash, and cut their bare backs. The only music they used their lashes, and the suppressed groan of the victims, atoning their ^heir own tortures ! Your sect of the Flagellantes, or the Whippers .1 to the letter. Besides, at the season of Lent, in Romish countries, .hejleshbj disciplinarians, march into the chapel: at the tinkling of are extinguished, their backs laid bare, and their whips are ap])lied 036, by the modern votaries of Bellona. Nothing is heard, in the canonical hour sacredly devoted io self lorture, but the cracking of hip! It is not to be understood, however, I believe, that the blows eir backs. The wise ones know, that they can make as much noise 3t the flesh ae well mortified, by applying the whip to the benches! ;' beneficial, and might contribute speedily to bring to their senses, ippers" and " holy disciplinarians of the unruly flesh," ifhislloli'- 'ct the edict of the judicious and wily old emperor Commodus, which "compelled these Bellonarii to lash and cut themselves in good earnest ; and not feign it merely, and impose on the people."" This point of holy discipline, I beg to refer to you. Reverend Fathers. And bishop England can carry the projected model of improvements to Rome, when he returns to his Holiness to complete his schemes, ©n our country's subjugation !

Even the water idolatry of the pagans has been kept upby j-our church, where she has flourished gloriously. The ancients, and also the modern pagans — you know, held certain rivers holy. And to wash in them, was equal to the purifying fire of your lately invented purgatory : and to be drowned in them, did forthwith oj^cn up a pathway to immortal glory !. Now, who has not heard of St. Patrick's Purgatory, an island in Lochderg, in Donegall county, Ireland? "To this lake and island im- mense multitudes are sent, annually, by the Romish priests there, to wash away their sins, precisely in the same manner, as is done in the Ganges, and in India ! Sec a similar description to this, in the Glasgow Protestant, ch. 54.

You have left few important parts in the pagan rites uncopled; and especially have they met your pious and devout imitation, whefi they could be rendered useful lo the gain of the priestly craft. The ancients used the sprinkling of holy water not only on men, but on beasts. They sprinkled their horses, as Middletoix has shown, in the Circensian games. From this is borrowed the Roman annual festival in January, at Rome. All who v/ish "good luck" to their horses, asses, and mules, bring tlicm up to the door of the convent of St. Anthony, near St. Mary's the Great- There stands a holy priest clothed in his sacred sur))lice, armed with hie consecrated brush, and his tub of holy water, waiting with a soleni grimace, the approach of ITis brother cattle. As tlu^y come up, he souses them with his salt brine ; and in return for his " Benediction of the cattle,^^ receives for each a sum, projiortioned lo the '/.eal or ability of the devotee. This, says Dr. Middleton, " ])rocures a revenue sufR- cicnt to keep no less than fifty idle, lazy, fat monks, for a whole year!" Letter from Rome, p. 14L

265 ROMAi^ CATHOLIC CO.XTROVEKS?^

Thus I have traced ihe origin of yourprcminent rites, ceremonies, and customs. I ought to have added that the pope bears the very title, and office of the great officer of the pagan rehgion, in Rome pagan, namely, ?ontifex Maximus, the cJcirftsi •pontif. This, true history declares to be his genuine founder,— and by no means the humble, and holy St. Peter, who would absolutely have been shocked into a fit of holy zeal against the impious sycophants, had he been hailed Pontifex Maximus, or our lord god the pope Peter. It is well for you, Reverend Fathers, and his " holiness of Rome," that the choleric apostle is not alive, nor among you. For, if he were, be vv'ould let you feel the "temporal sword" about your ears; as manfully and sharply as he exercised it in "cutting off the ears" of, by far, your betters, in olden times!

Thus, I have shown, I trust, to the American commnnity, that, at the rise of what» Rev. Fathers, 3'ou affect to call the Roman catholic hierarchy, — conversion had become a very different thing from what it was in the days of the holy apostles of our Lord- In their days it was a devout and holy "turning from idols, to serve the living God."' But in the early popes' days, it was a conversion from Christianity to the service of an innumerable rabble of saint-gods ! The Romish chrisiiGns so called, to use the words of McGavin: "instead of converting heathen to the fRith, ictre, by ihe ivjluence of the latter, turned from the faith, and converted to heathenism !''' "In point of fact," adds he truly, "idolatry is as palpable at Rome, at this day, as it was in the days of Nero !"

I am. Rev. Fathers, }-ours, &c.

" W. C. B.

LETTER XXIL

TO TITE LORD ARCHBISnOP, AND THE LORDS BISHOPS OF TEE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, IN THE UNITED STATES.

Picture of ihe Mass. Mummerv worthv of laushter, and'of tears!

Amphilochlus.

Reverend Fathers : — In my last, I traced the origin of your chief tenets, from paganism. The least degree of acquaintance, with your system, and with the reli- gion of Greece and Rome, will satisfy any man of the correctness of my positions.

I propose as a kind of appendix to this inquiry, to give a picture of a High Mass, in Pontifcalihus ; and our readers will be the better enabled to judge whether the show be christianlike, or pagan, in its every feature: or, rather, whether it does notactually out-pagan every species of paganism !

" Spectatum admissi, risuni teneatis, amici ?"

The Mass includes almost the whole of the Roman catholic worship. Its inventors have lavished their genius in the device of the most singular antic gestures ; and an endless routine of ceremonies ! Hence going to Mass includes nearly all a Roman catholic's religion, and piety. It is the grand test of discipleship ; and,^ the evidence of wearing " The mark of the beast in the face, and in the hands !"

Now, were we to view the Mass as a comparatively innocent innovation, a mere

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 2(39'

idle ceremony, a show to gratify overgrown boys and girls, we should not here notice it. But it is that which you. Reverend Fathers, have substituted for the one only and perfect atonement of Christ/ It is a damning innovation, in as much as it is the substitute of our jB/e5sec^ i^eJeemer's perfect righteousness.' It takes the entire place oi the one and only blessed Savior. And it excludes "his finished work of satisfac- tion on the cross," as completely as does the Koran of Mohammed exclude our Lord from the mosque I And our proof ef this strong assertion is this : — The Mass as. you solemnly profess it to be, is, " the offering up of a sacrifice of human flesh and human blood, for the sins of the quick, and the dead to pacify God?"

And this substitute of our Redeemer's atonement is not only an anti-christian idola- try, and superstition, as we have in former Letters shown: — it is a curious show, at which grave christians cannot but smile. And thus it exhibits " a mummery worthy of laughter, and of tears !"

The Mass, as viewed by a spectator, seems to consist of five divisions. The frst we may call the robing of the bishop in his pontificals, — which must afford a highly intellectual, and:a purely spiritual feast of soul, to the spectators, — worshippers, shall I call them ?

The bishop enters the chapel in a woolen pontifical cope, which has its tail borne up.. by a chaplain: and going to the altar, he kneels down and says the "introibo, — I will go in, &c." He then walks to the place where the Paramenia (or robes and ornaments) are laid, and seats himself; surrounded by the proper quota of chaplains and deacons; one of whom acts as his prompter, to tell him what to sa}'- : and to point, with-his finger, to the place in the book where he is to read. Near them, lie the various, solemn paraphernalia, and sacred vessels.

The attendants having duly put on their sanctified copes and surplices, the bishop rises, and taming towards the altar, says the Lord's prayer secretly. Then crossing himself from his brow to his breast, he says, '^ God be my helper, &c." And whil the choir responds, he turns towards the altar, between two bearers of wax candles,., and says, " the Lord be with you, &c., and other prayers. Then gravely laying aside his pZwyJaZ, or cope, he takes the ornament called hh planet, approaches the altar, and sits down, while the psalm of the hours is being sung. During the ringing, the holy sandals are brought out : one deacon lifts up the corner of his cope, while another takes off the holy man's shoes : then uttering certain pra^^ers, he at last saj^s, " Shoe mo with the sandals of gladness!" And the dutiful deacon then puts on the conse-. crated sandals. And so he answers this fervent prayer !

Then standing up, he says, " O Lord, strip the old man oft' me !" The scutiferus, or shield bearer, answers this prayer, by stripping him of his flowing cope. Then looking on his hands, he says, " O Lord, give virtue to my hands!" This grace is an- swered by another deacon bringing a basin and water to wash his hands, while he sits. The towel and basin are held by the most honorable and exalted layman, who throws, himself on his knees, and pouring out a little water into the basin, he sips and tastes it. Meantime another of the ghostly menials is taking oft" the holy consecrated rings from the bishop's fingers ; and then the distinguished layman, rendered in mortal by this honor allowed him, with the aid of a deacon, washes the saintly bish(i])'s hands, dries them, and carries back the basin and towel to the crodcntia.

Thus the bishop's feet being shod luith the gospel preparation, by the pious act q[ putting on sandals ; and the old man being put off, by devoutly pulling off his old woolen cope ; and having washed his hands in virtue and innocence, by getting the»k

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270 ROMAN C^THOmC COPfTROrERST.

washed tn tvntcr^—^he approaches the robes, and prays: '* O Lord, put on me the helmet of salvation, &c." At this signal, the paramcKta, or robes and ornaments are all brought forward, with aanctiraonious bowing and grimace, — fifteen in number.- The bishop approaches, bows, and kisses five of them, — namely, the amictus, the pi.:toral, and the cross, the stole, and the pall. All these the deacons receive frone the chaplains, one by one, and put upon the bishop.

And, first, with edifying solemnit3% they take the Amictus^ and having all kissed it, they put it over the bishop's head, and fix it on him. His head being thus armed with the shield of salvation, he stands up and prays: "O Lord, clothe me in white,- &c." Upon this they put on the white surplice. Then he utters another prayer, while all the people look on him with w=onderful piety and edification, saying, " O Lord, gird me with the girdle of faith, &c. On this, in answer to his devout prayer, the ghostly menials lake his girdle, and place it round his holy corporation, and buckle it in front. Then addressing the cross, the bishop thus prays, — "Deign, O Lord, to fortify me, &c." On this the deacon, in the due exercise of his sacred functions, takes the cross, and holding it usp to the bishop to be kissed, hangs it round his neck, so as to make it rest on his holy breast.

Nest, the bishop in following up his devotions, says to the stole, " O Lord, give me the robe of immi3rtality, &c." The deacon, whose office it is to answer this prayer^ now puts on the robe, nicely adjusting it, as any mantua maker's maid would do, on Lis sacred person. Next, the saintly man prays, — as he looks on the tunicella, or little- coat,- — "Put me in th« coat of jocundity, and clothe me, O Lord, with the garment of joy, — tunica jucunditatis, &c." Here they put it on him, fitting it with mantua- maker like exactness, to his holy neck, and holy hands. He next prays, — " O Lord» ek>the me with the garment of salvation, &c." Here they put on him thedalmatick, ©r episcopal vestment, with tasteful niceness. The holy man next fixes his devout eyes on the gloves, and prays. — " Circumda mauus, Domine," &c. Clothe my hands, O Lord, with the purity of the new man," &c. On this, the deacon, whose ©ffice it is to answer all these devout prayers, first kisses his right hand, and puts a glove on it, then kisses the left, and puts a glove on that; and so he clothes his hands with heavenly purity !

This being over, the bishop prays another new prayer, saying, " O Lord, thy yoke is easy," &c. On this, the spiritual menials who are illuminating the congregation by all this sublime play, take the bishop's ornament called "-the planet,''^ and put it ©n, bringing it back, so as to give his arms free exercise. The pall is next brought ; the deacon takes hold of it by the cross on the right side : and the sub-deacon by the cross on the left side, and hold forth the cross in the middle, that the bishop may kiss it : tnen, while he mumbles a prayer or two, they put it round his neck, making part of it on the left shoulder to lie double : and the whole is so tastefully, and so lailor- like put round his neck, that his arms are not hindered.

Then comes the putting on of the three thorns with their jewels. This, none but tke sanctified and initiated can well describe; the ^rs^ thorn goes into the breast of the pall: ihe second into the cross on his left shoulder : and the third vnio the cross behind. And these thorns, by the orthodox dressing, must not go quite through the cross ! It is a matter of deep concern to be orthodox here !

After this, the bishop, speaking lo the mitre, sslvs in way of prayer — -"Mitram, Domine, &c. Put on me, O Lord, the mitre, and the helmet of salvation," &e. Here he sits do v/n : and the dutiful and busy deacon devoutly puts the mitre on the

ROMAN CATnOLlC CONTROVKKST.- 271

bishop'e head; the sub-deacon as devoutly holding up the glaring baubles, and rib- bons thai hang from it. The bishop sitting, prays, *' Decora cordis, &c. Decorate vrith virtue, O Lord, the fingers of my heart, and body," &c. Here the deacons, in •oQsummating his devout prayer, put the rin^s on his firtgers. Next, the gremial, a rich piece of silk held by two priests, between the bishop, and the people, when he says the maas, is laid on his lap. This done, he prays to the manipuhim, or the cloth which is on the left arm, at mass — saying,— "Merear, &c. May I be worthy,- 1 pray^ O Lord, to carry the manipuhim, with a mournful spirit," &c. Upon this, the said, cloth is put across his arm.

At this stage of the sanctimonious manoeuvre, the incense is prepare-J in the proper vessel, with about one dozen gesticulations, and contortions. Then with a nicely ar- ranged procession, the bishop comes to the steps of the altar, and makes a full halt». Here the deacon takes off his mitre, and religiously combs back, and smoothes down his hair. Then follows the confession of each of this holy confraternity. The bishop bowing reverentially to the altar, begins the confession of his sins. The deacon kiss- ing the bishop's left hand, goes up to the altar, with the manipuhim, and the gospel ©pen in his right hand. The bishop next, with suitable prayers, goes up to the altar, and kisses it with deep solemnity, and also the book of the gospels. Having next ap- proached the horn of the epistle, he takes the incense pot, puts incense into it, and causes the cloud of smoke to cover the altar. And this religious, and very edifying service is done thus :— -having adored, with profouud reverence, the image on the cross, he whirls the pot of incense three times round it : then he whirls the pot tivice round the image, and sacred relics, on the right : and then around those on the left, as often. Next he gives three holy swingings of the pot, round the image and relics, near th& c</rner of the epistle : and as many he gives to the horn of the gospel. He then delivers- the pot to the deacon, who swings it round the bishop himself, and smokes him effectually i

After a number of other edifying gestures, and motions, the bishop is lifted up by the arms, as if he were suddenly become paralytic ; and being on his legs, he as sud- denly gets well. And standing sturdily on his legs, he says the *' Gloria Deo, Glory to God,^' &c., taking care, in the most orthodox manner, to join his handson his breast^ at the word, God. While the choir sings a hymn, he has his mitre and gremial brought to him : they arc again taken off him, as the hymn ends. He is again helped on his legs by the activity of the sturdy deacons ; and he cries out to the people,— " Pa.r- vohiB, Peace he unto you ;" and he keeps his hands before his breast, until the edified and devout audience reply, ^^ And with thy spirit.''^ He then says, "Let us pray," and then he goes on with his prayer in Latin, to console and edify those who do not understand a single word of the mummery !

After an incredible number of similar gestures, the burning of incense, and kiss- ing of the bishop's hands, and bowing, and reading what they call the gospel, and after the bishop has been again perfumed with incense smoke, and has stood up without mitre and gremial, — he sits down to listen to a sermon. The preacher, nov/, comes up, and on his knees adores the bishop, kisses his hand, and asks liis blessing. This he freely gives by making the sign of the cross over him. That finished, with much gesture and bowing, the preacher gives the bishop his absolution, &c., &:c.

Second: The bishop or priest sings five psalms : then uncovers, combs down his hair, and washes his hands. Next comes the sprinkling of lioly water,: and singing the introitus, as the bishop approaches tho altar. After a great many gestures, again

272 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTEOVERST.

airoitly performed, there is much chaunting. A Unen cloth full of pictures is carried as a canopy over the bishop, by four sturdy ecclesiastics. Here again follow incense, and chaundng. There is the gradual, and the hallelujah : and the tractus, — so called from the long, drawling tone, and nasal twanging of the priests affecting much sorrow, as they sing it.

The third partis the consecration, more properly so called. The gestures, and par- ticularly the bowings, and adoration here are not easily recounted. The sub-deacon puts on a long veil ; lakes the fatin with two choice hosts, or wafers, and the chalice ;, and covering them, with the veil, goes up with them to the altar, following the bishop. Another brings the wine and water. The bishop now puts on his episcopal ring and mitre, and comes to the altar. At the altar, his mitre is taken off; and he adores with lowly bowing to the altar. The deacon now takes one of the hosts, and touching th& patin and chalice with it, inside and outside, makes the sub-deacon taste of it. The other host he offers to the bishop, who takes it with both hands, and holding it up before his breast, repeats the prayer, " O Lord accept it," &c. This is called the Offertory, from its being offered to God; and from the people's making, an offering of gifts to the priests.

The priest before lie offers the host washes his hands a second time. In the interim, the deacon throws over the altar a clean linen cloth called corporale, or palla, because they say, it covers Christ's body. The chalice is also covered with another palla, or eorporak. The deacon having presented the patina, with the host upon it, to the bishop, also presents the chalice, in which the piiest mixes wine, and water, and con- secrates it. In the consecration, the water only is blessed by the priest when mixed, not the wine, becausQ the wine they say> represents Christ, who needs no blessing... The host is placed on the altar, between the chalice and the priest, to intimate that Christ is mediator between God, (who, they say, is represented by the priest,) and the people, which the water in the chalice, as they say, represents. The priest again, perfumes the altar and sacrifice, three times in the manner of across; bows himself, and kisses the altar, and repeats very softly the prayer which they call secreta ; though this prayer is said in silence, yet the conclusion of it is uttered with a loud voice Ptr omnia secula seciilorum. Then follows what they call prcefatio, which begins with thanksgiving, and ends with the confession of God's majesty. The minds of the people are prepared with these words. Lift up your hearts. The answer to which is. We lift them up unto the Lord. Then is sung the hymn. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God, &c. Heaven and earth is full of thy glory. Then follows the hymn Hosanna, and next the canon, v/hich is also called Actio, (because it is a giving of thanks) which is; uttered with a loud voice. The canon, besides thanksgiving, consists of various prayers for the pope, cardinals, bishops, kings, all orthodox christians, gentiles, Jews, &G. These, also, are particularly remembered for whom the sacrifice is to be offered, and their names rehearsed. Prayer is also made for those that are present at mass; and for the bishop himself. Then mention is made of the Virgin, the apostles, evan- gelists, and martyrs. Next, after many crossings, follows the solemnity of the conse- cration of the host, by the pronouncing aloud these words, ^^ Hoc est corpus meum:''' This is my body ; to which the people answer. Amen. The priest now falls down on bis knees before the consecrated host, and worships it, offers prayers to it, and, rising «p, he elevates it, that it may be adored by the people. Then after seven several cr©«sings o[ihehost, and chalice, this part of the mass is concluded with prayers for th®

ROMAN CATHOLIC C0:»7TR0VERST. 273

dead, and the people's offerings of money to the priest, as a reward for his prayers in behah"" of their dead friends, for their delivery out of purgatory.

The fourth part of the mass begins with the pater noster, and some other prayers. The sub-deacon delivers the patina covered to the deacon, who uncovers it, and de- livers it to the priest, and kisses his right hand. The priest kisses the patina, breaks the ^osf over the chalice, and puts a piece of it in the wine, to show that Christ's body was not without blood. Then the bishop pronounceth a solemn benediction. Next is sung the hymn Agne Dei, that is, O Lamb of God, that fakest away the sin of the world. Then the kiss of peace is given, according, as they allege, to the- apostle's commands, Salute one a^iother with an holy kiss.

The fifth, and last part of the mass, contains their comviunion. The priest, or bishop communicates first himself. He takes the one half of the host for himself, the other half he divides into two parts, the one for the deacon, the other for the sub- deacon. Next, the clergy, and monks communicate; and after them, the people ; but they have only the consecrated wafer allowed them, and put in their mouths, the cup being withheld from them, and drunk by the priests, or clergy alone. The priest holds the chalice with both hands, and drinks three times, pretendingthereby to signify the Trinity ! The whole is concluded with what they call post-communion, v.hicb consists in thanksgiving, and singing of antiphonies. The priest then kisses the altar,. and removes again to the right side of it, where having uttered some prayers for the people, and blessed them, the deacon wuth a loud voice, cries. "J^e, missa e£f," that is^ ''Go in peace, the host is sent to God the Father, to pacify his anger." See Steph. Durant de Rit. Ecclesia?. Innocent III. de Myst,.Missre. Bernard.de Oiific. et Gabriel. Biel. de Canone Missae. See also Dr. M. Geddes' Works on Popery, vol. iv. p. 206, &c.

Such, christian reader, is a faint outline of the chief parts of the wass. To coej,- prehend the imposing puerility, you must see it. I repeat nothing of what we said of its idolatry, and outrageous insult offered, by it, to the one holy, and all perfect atone- ment of our blessed Redeemer ! I now speak of it as a splendid compound of impo- sition and quackery, and childish inventions, played off, upon an ignorant, gaping assembly, by large, and bearded youths; each of whom, as a sophomore, is taught to strut his boyish parts on the ecclesiastical stage of the consecrated, theatre ; and to go through his ghostly pantomiriie, without laughing outright! And who are each of them nearly ready, as hopeful, bearded boys, to be transferred to the yrmjor department, to study the first elements of logic, and common sense ; and con over the primary parts of the gospel theolog}'!

I appeal, from you, Reverend Fathers, to the enlightened, and highly intelligent American community. And I beg them to decide whether the mass be not wholly the invention of Romish priestcraft, throwing completely into the shade, all the idol- atry, superstition, and ghostly manipulation ever known, or ever heard of, in Greek and Roman paganism!

I am, Rev. Fathers, yours, &.c. W, C, B,

274 ROMAN' CATHOLIC CO.N TROVERS F.

LETTER XXIII.

TO TRZ LORD ARCHBISHOP, AND THE LORDS BISHOPS OF THE F.OMAW CATHOLie CHURCH, IN THE UMTED STATES.

On tilt Idolatry and Superstition of Popery.

'• Confounded be all they that serve graven images; that boast themselves of idols: '.vor- ship Him, all ye gods!" Ps. xc. 7.

Revere.vd Fathers : — In tracing, by the light of scripture and history, the true ©ligin of your church, its doctrines, and rites; and in demonstrating irs pagan pater- nity, it would be unpardonable to omit the most striking and irresistable demonstra- tion of this, set glaringly before all eyes, in its idolatry and superstition- There is a six-fold idolatry which I charge upon you. Fathers, and your church of Rome. And, before God, and the enlightened American community, I offer to make good this charge. First, your worshipping oi images. Second, your worshipping of saints. Third, your worshipping of relics. Fourth, your worshipping of the cross, — the wood of the cross. Fifth, your worshipping of the host, or the consecrated wafer. Sixth, your worshipping of the sacrament, under the name of St. Sacrament. Your Reverences will, of course, patiently hear me on each of these, in order.

By idolatry is meant the ascribing of divine honor of latreia, to idols and other objects, and the worshipping of God by images. If there be meaning in words, this is condemned and prohibited by the law Ox God. " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,"-— that is, as all admit, for religious uses and worship. *' Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them," — that is, in adoration offered to them, or before them." And, Reverend Fathers, the reason is obvious, why your Trentine council crowded this precept out ; and why others of your writers cram it into a corner, not, if possible, to be visible, or to stand out openly, as a eommandment. Hence the third commandment is your second one. I beg leave to quote other passages of God's law : '' Cursed be he that maketh a carved image ; or molten image, which is an abomi- nation to the Lord, — and setteth it up in a secret corner; and all the people shall say amea!" Deut. xxvii. 15. This doctrine pervades the whole of the Old Testament. And even your own Apocrypha utters the following words on your ears: *' Cursed i« the idol that is made with hands, yea, both it, and he that made it." Wisdom, ch. xiii. and xiv. Iri the conclusion, the author of this portion of your "sacred canon," says that the honoring of abominable images "is tlie cause, the beginning, and the end of all evil ; and that the worshippers of them are either mad, or most wicked." And you cannot be ignorant, Fathers, that this same '^canonical book" of your church says, — '* The painting of the picture, and the carved image with diverse colors enticeth the ignorant, so that he honoreth and loveth the picture of a dead image, that -hath no soul." Now, it is quite manifest that this sensible wTiter must have looked often into a pagan temple; — if not, in a shrewd vision, into a Popish chapel, and seen the paintings, and statues of the worshipped saints ; and flaring, paity colored robes of the "adored bishops and priests!" He adds the following bold and Thundering denunciation: read it. Fathers, and let all your flocks read it. They that love such evil things, they that trust in them, they that make them, they that favor them, they that honor them, — " Shall feel a judgment worthy of God,'" — even, — tx-» treme damnation upon them.'" — Wisdom,, ch. xii. 26, 27; and xv. 4, ^.

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In a word, it is the one grandj pure, and siniple doctrine of the Bible, that we *' Should worship the Lord our God ; and serve him alone.''' And the second grand item is this, — Thou shalt not make, nor lise paintings, and images, to worship God by them. " Take good heed, for ye saw no manner of simihtude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb; — " hst ye corrupt yourselves, and make unto you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male, or female P* Deut. iv. 15, 16.

Reverend Fathers, is it possible that you can be ignorant of these passages of God's holy word ? Can bishops possibly be so ignorant, as not to know that Almighty God has uttered this against the pagans, and against you, their too faithful descendants ?

Some of your more sober writers really have tried to defend your system o^ idolatry > "We do not worship figures, these painted saints, these statues: we v/orship God, through them."

How deeply yon are dyed in paganism ! This v/as exactly what the heathen said, — "We do not worship these statues, but our gods through them." "But I beg two replies to this your defence: Ist. In addressing a saint through his statue, it is supremely absurd to say that you worship God through that statue. You pray ; not to God, hut to a dead man, or a dead woman! In praying to, and adoring a dead man, you are as guilty of idola<;ry, as in praying to a stump of wood, carved into a Madonna! But, 2d. God has prohibited in the most positive terms, the use of image?, in his pure and spiritual worship. He has not only said : " Me 07ily shalt thou wor- ship; and have no other God before me:" but he has also uttered the most solemn command " notto'make any graven image; nor to bow down to it, or before" it, in his worship,

Ag-ain, the champions of your renovated paganism say "We are not idolaters; we distinguish between latreia, and douleia : the first, and highest worship, we render to God only : the latter, or the lower, we may, and do apply to the creature." To this we reply, that these two words are used reciprocally, both by sacred and classic writers. The Hebrew word, to serve God, is rendered sometimes by latreia, and sometimes by doultia, by the Seventy. See Exod. iv. 23, and xxiii. 25. In these texts they use latreia to express the holiest service of God. In Deut. xiii. 4, and many other places, they use the word douleia to express the same divine service. And, Rev. Fathers, if you will look into Laurent. Valla's Armot. in ch. iv. of Mat- thew, you will perceive that he proves beyond gaiasayiug, that these two words have no difference in their meaning, and application to divine worship, This also i» admitted by your own Nich. Sarrar. in Litan. 2, Quest. 27. And by Mouline de Novit. Pap. L. vii. cap. 13. I have only to add here that St. Augustine is considered the one who first coin<^ this distinction, where no difierence exists. But like your- niAva, — Fathers, and your priests, he was no Greek scholar, as he himself frankly cawfesses in these words; "Ego, quid Gra^cas lingua) perparum assecutus sum, ef jyropc nihil.'* Aug. Cont. Petit. Lib. ii. caj). 28. Cent. Fauyt. Lib. xx. cap. 2L And this is not all ; that good Father never intended the distinction now used in the popit^h 6©nse. He actually confesses that both the terms belong only to God : "The one, — says he — "is due to him, as our Lord ; the other to him, as our GckI." And you are well aware that St. Paul, in describing his own character and oihce, calls himstdf, tbulos, a servant of Christ. And surely, he did not thereby give Christ the inferior worship.

Farther, to establish our pohu beyond the gainsaying of every Romaju writer, let me

276 ROMAN CATHOLIC CO.XTROVERSY.

only say that when the devil tempted our Lord, it was not the higher order of worship, the latreia, that he demanded ; nor did he himself pretend to be God ; he would have been content with "a little religious worship, a little prostration;" just exactly such as you exhibit in bowing down to idols. And yet Christ says to him,' — " Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." You need not, — you cannot reply to this, by alledging that it was the devil that demanded the ivorship : but that you profess to demand worship to sainVs images. To this I reply, by reminding j^ou of St. Paul's words in 1 Cor. X. 19. 20, that what "the gentiles sacrificed to their idols, they sacrificed to devils.'''' Your idols. Rev. Fathers, are just as much devils, as are the idols of the Gentiles. And if Christ refused the " lower worship," as you call it, lo the devil; then- is every christian bound to refuse your "lov/er worship," to your nev/ly baptized ^^ devils. '^^ I crave pardon, He v. Fathers, if I have not spoken in plain enough and sober terms, to 3'ou.

The more grave of your writers now admit, that it is a vile species of idolatry to make Images of God the Father, and of the Holy Spirit. And well may they do so. For it is impossible to represent in visible materials, the invisible God. Every image of this nature, does represent the Deity infinitely different from what he is. Hence these images are designa4;ed by divine inspiration, " a lie." For they utter the most glaring, and most pernicious FALSEHOOD, that can possibly be conceived. Rom. i. 25. "They changed the truth of God," the true representation of the infinite and omni- present one, " into a lie, and worshipped, and served the creature, more than the Creator."

But you insist on making, and adoring images of Christ : and you carry this into practice to such an extent, that these images, and those of the Madonna and the child, are as numerous in your chapels as the Jupiters, and Venus, with her Cupids, were in tire pagan temples of old. Now, any image you can make of Christ, must exhibit an imaginary countenance, and features; no man, or church on earth, has retained his true likeness. As portraits, or statues of him, therefore, what you show off", are actually mere fictions; mere impositions; and they are, like all idols, a lie. Besides, no christian in his sound senses ever did, or ever will worship the manhood of Jesus Christ. We worship him exclusively, and only, as " i/ie eternal Son of God,'' ot '■'the Great God our Savior.'" And in this character, in which we do worship him, no image, no painting, no similitude, ever can be made of him. A few rude materials of straw and dust, can never represent the invisible, eternal, and omnipresent Deity! To worship an image of a man, whichyouare pleased, without reason, or propriety, to style a " Christ," is the grossest idolatry ! And according to the above argument, it is doubly "a lie!''' First, as to his manhood: and second, as to his Godhead! Hence our answer to your vulgar reason, in behalf of using images, — namely, that they are "picture books," — " the instructive books," to lead and guide the illiterate and vulgar into truth : — " and that they exhibit, at one view, what it would take vol- umes to express." Yes ! they are the illiterate man's picture books : but they mis- lead, and impose on him most scandalously. They are the infamous tools of a reckless pagan priestcraft, to crush intellect, reason, knowledge, piety, and if possible, the pure christian religion! Yes! — "They are the books of the unlearned." And be it so : — but whoever saw a man in his senses, fall down, and worship, and pray to "-his books,"" out of which he was reading!

I beg leave to extend my remarks also to the images of your saints, — namely.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 277

dead men ^ and dead women! Do you pretend to worship their dead bodies, or their living souls? Not their bones, and dust surely ! If so, avow it openly. But how can you pretend to make an image of a soul, now in heaven ! Do you believe that these rude, material images represent the invisible soul ? No ! Then, surely, they resemble not the body of the deceased: for you have lost the true likeness of St. Peter, and St. Paul, and ten thousand others of your adored saints. And I am sure you will all admit that these images represent not the human soul. Here, then in both cases your images are an utter " lie !" And, of course, they convey to the minds of your illiterate, and degraded victims, the very falsest impressions which can, even by Satan, be conveyed to mortals!

\ Image worship, and image use, in chapels are, therefore, not only without authority from God's law, but absolutely against the very spirit, and letter of it.

The man's intellect must be only a single, visible point above rationality, who can persuade himself (a thing which none of you, Fathers, nor any rational man, in the ranks of the priesthood, ever for a moment believed,) that St. Peter, or the Virgin, can be every ivhere present, to hear their million of votaries! How can the saints, I pray you, hear a million of different supplicant?, in all parts of the world, at the same moment ? If they cannot ; and if they need to he told by God that such a one is, that moment, 'praying to them^ then they cannot, withoiu God, do any thing for them! Nay, even if God told tbem, they could not listen, or attend to a million at once ! And I put it to you, if, in that case, it be not infinitely more proper, to refer all the intercession to our Lord Jesus, whose infinite merits can certainly admit of no addition, and of no human, or angelic help : and to go directly to God, who only can hear, and will hear ; and can help, and ivill help, those who come unto him through Christ, Why seek helpless aid, when we have omnipotent aid, at hand!

An instructive anecdote is recorded in the history of the ancient house of Gordon. A faithful, old tenant had got into difficulties ; and could not pay his rent. He went, first, to the under, and then to the chief factor. They spoke roughly to him, and would make, or accept of no compromise: the loss of his cattle, and the failure of the crops, were nothing to them. They demanded the full rent, under the pain of being- imprisoned, and all his goods sold, and his family turned out of doors. In his cala- mity, he resolved, in despair, to make his way to tiic Chief. He pressed into the very presence of the Duke, and implored his pity, and interposition. His grace no sooner heard him, than he kindly offered him all the relief he solicited. As he showed him, on his departure, the paintings, and statues in the chapel of the castle, honest John Gordon asked his Chief "what was the use of these gaudy figures?" Now the Chief was a papist ; and he reproved John's ignorance very heartily; and chid him for not knowing that these "were St. Peter, and St. Paul, and the Holy Virgin." "And what can ye possibly do wi' them a'?" cried the plain Scottish Protestant. "Why, John, I pray to them to intercede for me with Christ, and his Father!" "Ah ! gudc, my Lord, ye're a' wrong. Saving your presence, it is vtter vanity, and worse ! Trust to no saint, ray Lord, but go directly to God himself, our Savior. I luive tried it just now: these small fry bring no aid : in my own case, — ye see it. I fiyst tried little Sandy Gordon; and I tried mciklc Sandy Gordon, but a' would lui' do: but wlien I came to your own good Lordship, I got the whole desire of my heart ! 1 beg you, my Lord, to go and do likewise." And the honest man's well timed, common sense in- struction was effectually blessed. Tlie family record says that his Lordship was

25

278 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

awakened, and finally by God's grace converted, and he was the first of that distin- guished long line of that noble Protestant family of Scotland.

The subject of images, you know, Fathers, has, in your fierce agitations, absolutely deranged the unity of Holy Mother church. You cannot be ignorant that the sen- timents of your sect, are of the most opposite, and discordant nature.

There are three conflicting opinions in your church; and I beg leave of you to ask, to which of the three factions, in your Unity, you and your priests belong? Or, are you as much distracted on this point of idolatry, in these States, as is your broken, and distracted sect in Europe ?

Bellarmine, and Juenin, you know, divide the popish sj'stem on this topic, into the following three classes. The frst class use images, but do not worship them. That is, they allow the Komish superstition, but reject the idolatry of it. According ta these, the image has neither sanctity, nor power; they worship the holy One only before the presence of the image. " They honor the images only as the Jew did the Ark, or the christian, his Bible." This marvellously refined superstition character- ized the system of popery, as held out before Protestants. It was professed by Bossuet, Juenin, Gerson, Dupin, Challoner. But as Edgar observes, " they were prudent in publishing their opinions at a due, and respectful distance from Spain, Portugal, Goa, and the Inquisition." See Bellarmine on this, Lib. ii. 20., Juenin, Instit. vol. iv. p. 414. Bassanus, Edit. 1773. And Edgar^s Var. p. 402.

The second faction, in your church, patronize both the idolatry and superstition of Romanism. They offer the Zoifjer worship, — the douleia, to the images and paint- ings. This faction is numerous. It boasts of Bellarmine, Baronius, Sanderus, Estius, Godeau, and Spondanus. This, sa3^s Bellarmine, was the doctrine of the Nicean council. They held that "images are holy, and communicate holiness?"/ They also enacted the curse on those who used pictures only, to assist their memoryrand not for adoration! Bell. Lib. ii. 20. 21. &c. And Labbeus vol. viii. 700. The council of Trent, which met after the Reformation, professed to follow the Nicean fathers. But, such were the force of light, and the influence of literature and philosophy, shining on them from heretics, that the Trentine fathers have been constrained to present a less pagan, and a more rational view of the :ubject, than that of the Greek council. By the Trent canons, the " worship of the holy images," is made to dwindle into ^'honor and veneration.^^ Dupin ii. 636. Lab. ii. Tom. xx. p. 171.

The third faction in your church, carry out their theory into the grossest idolatry of paganism. They give the same worship to the images and paintings which they give to the originals ; that is, they give the same solemn adoration to the images of God, and his Son, as that rendered to Almighty God, and to Christ himself. To the image of Lady Mary, they give hyperdouUan, or intermediate worship; while that of the saint receives inferior, but still truly divirie homage* This is the system of Aqui- nas, Cajetan, Bonaventura, Carthusian, Turrecrema, and the Schoolmen. See Bell. Lib. ii. 20. Aquin. iii. 25. Edgar, p. 403.

Pope Adrian, and the Nicean council, pretend to find proof of this very gross idol- atry, in the existence of the cherubim over the mercy seat; and in the brazen serpent. Is it not vamazing. Fathers, that the infallible pope, and these Greek fathers did not happen to discover that these were neither the images of saints, nor the objects of worship ? The cherubim were in the Most Holy place, and never were seen by thi people. And it surely did not require very profound knowledge of the Bible to disco- ver, that, when the brazen image was made an object of worship by some besotted

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY, 279

Jews, it was forthwith dashed into fragments, by one who '* acted rightly in the sight of God." 2 Kings, xviii. 4.

I am. Rev. Fathers, yours, &c. W. C. B.

LETTER XXIV.

TO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP, AND THE LORDS BISHOPS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, IN THE UNITED STATES.

On the Idolatry and Superstition of Popery.

" With crucifixes hung,

And spells, and rosaries, and wooden saints. Like one of reason reft, he journeyed forth, In show"

Reverend Fathers: — With your permission, I shall present to the American community, some specimens of the peculiar and gross idolatry of the Romish church. And, through you, I beg my readers to be assured that lam giving specimens of idola- try,— not of tiie dark ages, — but of such as has been perpetuated from antiquity down to our time ; — of idolatry practised in our land, in our cities, and in our own days, as you, Rev. Fathers, very well know. And you can assure them past all doubt, on their inquirie--? made of you, that all I speak on this matter, is the simple unvar- nished truth : that it is all exhibited in yourbooks; sustained by \'Our ghostly power, and practised at your bidding, by the supple priests, and minions of antichrist. I have spoken of your idolatry in the use and worship of images, in my last. I pro- ceed to exhibit your idolatry in the worship of^ saints. I select promiscuously.

Thomas a Becket is an illustrious saint in your calendar, to whom you pay your worship. So great was his saintship's influence in heaven, for about 400 years, that your *' simple faithful" said actually more prayers, and offered more gifts to him, than even to Jesus Christ ! I beg to repeat what I formerly had occasion to quote from bishop Burnet, that "in one year, there was offered on Christ's altar, in his church at Canterbury, about £3; on the Virgin's altar, about £63; and on Becket's altar, upwards of £832 ! Next year, the amount of prayers and donations stood thus: — On Christ's altar, — nothing ! on the Virgin's £4, and a few coppers : on Thomas a Becket's, upwards of £954! ! Now, here is a specimen of the prayers which your victims offer up to this knave, who justly fell for the crime of high treason against his lawful sovereign ; but whom you make an inferior g-ot/. "May this communion, O Lord, cleanse us from sin, and by the intercession of blessed Thomas a Becket thy martyr, make us effectual partakers of this heavenly remedy." Rom. Cath. Missal for the use of the Laity, p. 8,5. Again: Tu per Thomie sanguinem, <fcc. Do thou by the blood of St. Thomas, ivhich he spent for us, — quern pro 7iohis impcndit, grant that we may ascend whither he has ascended.'*

In Scotland, in A. D. L551, it was taught as salutary doctrine, by the po])ish priests and prelates, that the Lord's prayer be uttered in devotion to the saints. Sec Fox, p. 1274. Willet, p. 384. To this day you utter Pater nosters to them !

Your homage to saints is admirably arranged. Lucian in his Dialogues of the heathen gods, iatroduces the god Mercury as complaining to Jupiter, with a ruefu^

250 ROMAN CATHOLIC CO>-TROVERST,

countenance, that he had too many offices, and too much work assigned to him : that, as a god, he was killed outright with work and toil I Now, you have been more judicious than the ancients: you select a potent host of saint-gods ; and hence none of them, except the holy Virgin, has got too much work. St. Dennis lakes care of France: St. James, of Spain; St. George, of England : St. Andrew, of the Scot- tish men; St. Patrick, of the Irish; St. David, of the Welch: St. Nicholas, or Santa Claus, besides taking care of the sea, watches over all good Dutchmen; and is, more- over, the patron of all young females, who wish to be married I St. Anthony, the Abbot, presides over Ji re and inflammations ; hence in these, and in fires, you implore him, "O St. Anthony, graciously defend us from fire I" St. Anthony of Padua, again, preserves his votaries from water, — "■ O holy Anthony, keep us from drowning 1" St. Barbara takes charge of the faithful in time of thwider, and utiT, — " O holy Bar- bara, pray for us : and keep us from thunder and war I"' St. Blass cures all disorders of the throat: and to this saint you hare recourse when hoarse, or laboring under colds :• — " O holy St. Blass, pray for us, and cure our throats I" St. Lucia takes care of the eyes: and all those who want to have good eves, or diseased ones cured, must pray to her: " 3Ierciful and kind St. Lucia, prav for me and cure my eyes I" St. Agatha cures sore breasts. St. 3Iargaret presides over midwives. St. Ramon, — nobody can tell who he is, — but on the ghostly calendar, he is declared to watch over married ladies vrho are in that state in which all good ladies wish to be, who love their husbands. St. Lazaro is his kind assistant ; for he takes them ofi' St. Ramon's hands, at the moment when their labors begin. St. Polonia has the care of the human teeth : and all who have the tooth ache, or who want good teeth, devoutly adore St. Polonia ! St. Domingo cures /ei*crs^: St. Roque wards oSthe plague .' See Tovrnsend's Travels in Spain, vol. iii. p, 215; Cramp, p. 35.9.

This is a very small specimen; but you have saints to preside over all diseases? and over all cattle. There is a saint solemnly stationed, you know, over the geese and 'poultry : and others over less important matters and animals : all ai"e kindlv provided f3r !

In some instances, our Lord is represented in your prav^rs, as mediator tcith the sai7its, to obtain from them what their votaries ask. For instance, under the name of St. Wenefride, \'ou have this prayer drawn up for your victims: " O blessed St. Wenefride, hear the prayers and receive the humble supplications of thy devout pil- grims, and obtain, by thy pious intercession, that God will be pleased to grant us a full pardon and remission of sins ; that we may increase and persevere in God's grace, and enjoy eternal life with him in heaven. This ire leg of thee. O llessed Virgin, end martyr, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.'' Here she is put in the place of God, the Father; and she is implores! to grant the favor /or Christ, the Intercessor's sake ! This is copied from a book published by the papists in Britain, in A. D. leflT. See Glasg. Prot. vol. i. chap. 47.

The following is the praver used at tJie consecration of images, by pope Urban '\ III. taken from the Roman Rituale. " Grant, O God, that whosoever, before this image, siiall diligently and humbly, on his knees, worship and honor ihy Son, or the\irgin, or the saint," (as the image may be,) '* he may obtain, by his, or her, or their merits and intercession, grace in this life, and eternal glory in the next I"' Now, we ask in the words of an eminent writer, — ■' if this be not idolatry of the grossest nature, let the church of Rome show us wherein the worship of Jupiter and Apollo was idolatry."

One ^Tord more in reference to the common band of all the saints; — each of them.

KOWAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 281

individually, is invoked as a god : and the Almighty is implored for the sake of their merits, to grant all blessings. Here is a specimen of the whole, or All-Saints, taken from " the Roman Missal, for the use of the laity,'' London edit. 1813. " Oramus te, &c. We beseech thee, O Lord, by the merits of thy saints, whose relics are here •, and of all of the saints, that thou wouldst vouchsafe to forgive us all our sins. Amen."

The Holy Virgin is your great goddess and queen of heaven! The foUowiug is from " the Hours of the Blessed Virgin,'' Paris edit. 1553 ; and it is remarkable only for this, that pope Sixtus IV. has solemnly granted as you well know, 11000 years pardon of sins to all who devoutly say it before her image! — "Ave Maria, hail most holy Mary, mother of God, queen of heaven, gate of paradise, mistress of the world," &c. Again, from the Roman Breviary, Sep. 8, Lee. 6. "Perte, &c. By thee w^e hope for the pardon of our sins : and in thee, O most blessed Lady, is the expectation of our rewards." The following I copy from " The dtvotion of the sacred heart of Christ, with the dtvotion of the sacred heart of Mary." ]2ili London edit. 1821. This book is surpassed in authority, w^ith you, only by the Missal.— For Friday, — *'I revere you, O holy Virgin Mary, the holy ark of the covenant; and with all the good thoughts of all good men, on earth, and all the blessed saints in glory, ,o bless ^nd praise you injimtely ; for ihat you are the great mediatrix between (! and man, obtaining for sinners, all they can ask, and demand of the blessed Trinity!

Millions of such prayers arise daily from the baptized paganism, which you are pleased to call your church. And yet, after all, these are not the most offensive, or blasphemous. I appeal to the pages of one of your saints, which I have repeatedly quoted; and beg leave, again, to quote, in order to sustain this heavy charge. I allude to St. Bonaventure, whom you worship on the 14th of July, — a day sacred to his service. — "Jure matris, &c. By the rights of a mother, order thy beloved Son', our Lord, &c. impera filio tuo, &c." Cor. Beat. V. Tom. 6. Roman Edit. 1588. Again, — " Ora patrem, jube natum, — "O felix puerpera, &c. Pray to the Father, command thy Son." " O happy Mother of God, atoning forour crimes, by the rights of a mother, order thy Son, the Redeemer, — nostra plans scelera, jure matris impera Redernptori ! !" I have thus given the original, that all may judge of the translation I give. See Hist. Sec. Char. August. De Com. B. Virg. And to crown the climax of the most shocking and revolting idolatry, compared to which, that of Greece and old Rome was tame and moral, — for they never placed their Venus, or Diana, or any female deity, above their Jupiter, — your Sciini Bonaventure has written "ilie Pt^aher of the Lady Mary," in which he lias adapted the psalms to the worship of Mary; by inserting instead of J.ord and God, the ntTme of Mary, and our Lady! Here is a specimen , — " In thee, O Lady, do 1 |)Ut my trust; let me riever be confounded." Ps. Ixviii. opens thus: — "Let our Lady arise, let her enemies be scattered." Psalm xcv. thus opens, — " O come, and let us sing unto our Lady : and ujake a joyful noise unto the Queen of our salvation!" One instaure more ; the llOth Psalm op(uis thus, — "The Lord said unto my Lady, sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine ene^' mies thy footstool !"— And yet. Fathers, you giaveh/ coll yourselves christians ! Nay, you affect to be the only yure, apostolic church! *' O judgment, thou hast fled to brutish beasts; and men have lost their reason !"

But, even all this idolatry, horrible as it does appear, is not the worsl ! You pay adoration to the relics of the saiius. You venerate old bones, old chains, ohl ^armoQi^, aa:l the coals which burned cerlaiu saints! Yes! to use the words of

^•?^ .

283 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.,

bishop Hall, Works, folio, p. 630, who quotes the idea out of Erasmus, you have amozig youj worshipped relics, " St. Francis' cowl; St. Anna's comb ; St. Thomas' shoes; St. Joseph's breeches; and a piece of the Virgin Mary's green petticoat!" These you devoutly venerate ! Verily "to be grave defies all length of face!" You religiously venerat-c, in certain of your churches, in Europe, to this day, says bishop Hall, St. Martin's boots: St. George's scabbard: St. Crispin's paring knife; f.he parings of St. Anthony's toe nails ; and the tail of the ass which carried our Lord ! In France they have ybwr heads of St. John; and in Rome, says Dr. M'Culloch, Jiue pilgrims arrived with a budget of relics, for the faithful: among which each of them had afoot of the ass, which carried our Lord into Jerusalem! Popery Con- demned, vol. i.

But the cross, even the wood of the cross, is in great request among you. No chapel is thorouglily consecrated, unless it have a bit of the holy timber.

Now, I particularly beg your attention to two things relative to this affair. 1. You adore the ivooden cross itself 2. You render it not the inferior, but the svperior ado- ration ; that is, latria ; which is precisely the same as that which, you admit, dees belong to Almighty God- This doctrine is sustained by the highest authority of your church. St. Thomas Aquinas says, — "If we speak of the very cross, on which Christ was crucified, it is to be ivorshipped imth divine worship, &c. " We both speak to the cross, and pray to it, as if it were Christ crucifed on it.'''' P. 3. Q.u. £5. Art. 4,

" TAe Roman Pontifical, revised and published at Rome,'''' in 1595, by order of pope Clement VIII" ,, contains "the order for the processional reception of the Emperor." Here are the words I allude to; — " Crux legati, &c. The cross of the legate, because latria is due to it, shall be on the right hand; and the sword of the Emperor on his left." Folio copy, p. 672. Finch, p. 289.

The following are the prayers offered up to the ivooden cross: — "O crux, &c. O cross, only hope ! hail ! In this glory of thy triumph, give an increase of grace to the pious ; and blot out the crimes of the guilty."' "Exalt, of the cross, Sept. 14." Again, on the feast of St. Andrew, Nov. 30. you teach your deluded victims thus to pray, — " O bona crux, &c. O good cross, who hast obtained comeliness and beauty from the Lord's limbs, receive me from men, and restore me to my Master." And this adoration of the cross may be seen in our cities, on Saturday in P-assion week. The priest uncovering the cross, says, "Ecce lignum, &c. Behold the wood of the cross!" Then the chorus sing out, " Come let us adore!" And all fall down and adore the wooden cross ! In another part of the ceremony, he proceeds to the middle of the altar, and uncovers the cross totally, as he cries aloud, — " Ecce lignum, &c. behold the ivood of the cross, on which the salvation of the world hangs! Come let v.s adore /" Then bearing the cross to another place, he kneels, and places it there. Then putting off his shoes from off his feet, he approaches "to adore the cross," — kneeling three times before he kisses it ! Then after him, come the other clergy, and laity, two by two, who kneel thrice, and adore the cro&s, — adorani crucem."^ See Rom. Missal. Dubl. Edit. 1795. " The Roman Missal, for the use of the laity," has omitted the closing part of this idolatrous ceremony, — because it is a translation, in English; and is given to the Protestant public. Finch, p. 291.

The worship of the consecrated ivafer has been repeatedly noticed, as a prominent part of your idolatry. You convert it, by the muttering of ''hoc est corpus,''^ into ihe Host; that is the hostia^ or victim to be offered up in sacrifice for the quick, and

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST. 283

the dead. This idolatry, while it is as palpable, and as brutish as that which was the reproach of the ancient Egyptians, is decidedly the most degrading in all the his- tory of human infamy. The ignorant Egyptian would never degrade himself so low as to eat his idol calf; or his onion god : he could never be so far brutalized, as to become a cannibal; and eat a sacrifice of human flesh! But, you, Rev. Fathers, and your victims, less fastidious, make your bran god ; then adore him ; and, then, tat him up! You convert the bran god into human flesh, and human blood; and then, like cannibals, ^'ou eat this human flesh, and drink this human blood !

Then, only think of the prayer which you offer up to this wafer god, before you despatch him into the stomachs of the faithful, and, thence, " into the draught." Here it is ; — '■'■ O saving Host ! thou that openest heaven's door, — the arms of our enemies enclose us; we need thy help: O speedily help us, we humbly implore thee!" See "Manual of godly prayers, and the hymn of Aquinas in it." And Glasg. Prot. chap. 60.

In fine, bein^ infuriate with the spirit of idolatry, you do actually convert the sacrament into a god.' Yes, Fathers, you actually worship and adore it, under the name of St. Sacrament! "The manual of godly prayers," contains the litany of this new Roman catholic deity. A few extracts from it will close this Letter. And I request my reader to remember that these prayers are addressed, not to Christ, not to God, but to St. Sacrament; as is evident from the words of a little book published in French, in 1669, entitled, "Practice to adore the holy Sacrament," which begins rthus, — " Praised and adored be the most holy Sacrament of the altar !" Here is a part of th-e. litany ;^-" Bread corn of the elect, have mercy on us! Wine budding from virgins, have mercy on us ! Fat bread, and the delight of kings, have meic}" ■on us! Supersubstantial bread, have mercy onus! Word made flesh dwelling iy us, have mer^cy on us !"

To understand this last phrase, we have only t-o remember that they had swallow- ed the wafer ; and that wafer, being the body and blood, so^/l and divinity of Christ, was in their stomachs, at the moment of uttering this extraordinary prayer !

" Sacrifice, of all others most holy, have mercy on us! Dreadful, and life-giving sacrament, have mercy on us! Unbloody sacrifice, have mercy on us !'^

Such are a few specimens of your unparalleled idolatry and superstition ; as they are believed and practised by you, this day, in our .cities ; and over the land. Yes! such is the idolatry and superstition of your learned priests; and ^'highly polished, gifted, and accomplished bishops,'^ whom one of the ■editorial corps, the other day, called " the oriiament of letters, and the glory of our land I" I rest my appeal^ with the enlightened American community, if the idolatry and superstition of your soi- disant christian church, do not utterly eclipse, and completely throw into the shade, the foulest idolatry and superstitioji, of the most pagan lauds, in their most pagan .condition j

I am, Reverend Fathers, yours, &c.

w. a. B,

2S4 R01L\5 CATHOLIC CO.VTROVERST.

LETTER XXV.

XO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP. A^D THE LORDS BISHOPS OF THE R0MA:< CATHOLIC CHURCH, ly THE UyiTED STATES.

On tht inic-r/icl syrn-ptonis ofctrtain d^cay. cndf.rial rvin. in Popery.

"• Babvlon the ereatis fallen. — ^b fallen I Her sins have reached unto heaven; and God hiire-c:-brr=f h = r in! u:ties :" Eer. sviii. ^. 5.

E.EVEREVD Fathers : — Having done some jasiice, to your doctrine of ihe 7ncs!, and pu'satory : and having, as you will generously admit, made a fair exhihiiicn of ihr ti::'::^ a:: - itition of your church, it may be proper now to mice the ij~:\^:: 5 .-" Ucay in your novel cmd sectarian system. Every heresy nas its

weai - - Every apostacy from pure Christianity, and yom

ch-r: . - : : ^ .r:oli even to the le'.ter. — has in it the jarricg and

dr:!. T rj.r:^:^ ~ : .: T : K ._ ; :Z r. nas so ordained it. As sin

nee r ;?:::. . r .^ !. i^ l„c i^^i^aji 1-:,^:.-/, cven - : .-:r :s ^hat monal element in ever} i ^- -; -- -. necessarih^ by the lawsof ir-zi: i!r is ice- worketh its death and exrinciioa. In ttie natural ^*"orld, the ki: i i : ^ i Dt! y sends an anti- dote to kill the viper's poison, where vipers ai .:_ t : ze the vegetable «nd mineral poisons, where these exist. Even so i: :^ _ r - orld. No error, no heresy, do apostacy has ever 3 e: appearei. vri.i. u: - _ ^ viement ctf truth set forth ; or some fatal internal disease to work its gradual destruction ! And. just in proportion to the greatne»s of the evil system, so is the remedial element found to be potent and i/re^istibie. The king of Zion is very wise, and bonndle^ in mercy. Henee he has ordained, in mercy to a bleeding and agonized world, that when a eyBtem- such as popery, or Mohammedanism is the mortal enemy of the human race, in civil and religions things, — there shall be not only self remedial elements, but even a suicid.:d principle embodied in it, by its impious fabricators.

Now this, if I mistake not, is pre-eminently the case with popery- And you can correct me. Fathers, if in aught I err on this point. There are elements wrought up into your whole system, which are absolutely smeidal : and will, as naturally and necessarUy-, work the death of the whole system, as God's laws, in nature, produce their own proper efiects. And it is a comfort to reflect that this process in the moral w^orld, and in religious systems, is just as certain in its effects, as in the natmal world. For instance, the systems of the Brahmins, and other paeans, which are founded and sustained by darkness and ignorance of the sciences. n:_st tall to the ground when eFer its victims are illamined in the arts and scien : ? ? i.e christian world. That religious system which has, for a part of its solem: a belief that the earth is a

Tast plain, and not a globe; and that it rests on tne 1 re land turtle, must

fall 19 ruins before the science of astronomy and ^e _ Li ven so as certainly

must popery fall by its own jarring elements, and ri r i t : its own c-ormption.

First J — ^Yom syst^n lays no foundation for savi:.^ ri.i:i;. T^ follows a? a le^ti- mate inference from what we have established in our preceding letters. T ; :ne > jject of divine worship, yon add angels, saints, reUcs, and the wood of the c — vaich you render latria, or the higher worship. In the mass you have an en . -_;dtu- tion of priestcraft, for &e one. cniy, and perfect atonenient : in the doctrine of justifi-

ROxMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVEnST. 285

cation before God, j^our church has thrown away the righteousness of Christ, and has substituted good works, as the only meritorious cause of our personal acceptance. Justification by our own merits was established in the sixth session of the council of Trent. And your standard writers universally teach the damning error. Moreover, one needs only to open the Roman Missal, in order to see that jou offer up prayers to the saints, that God, ''through their merits" would deliver you from all sin. I open the book at random, — my eyes have just met this prayer of yours to St. Nicholas, — " O God, grant, that by his merits and intercession we may be delivered from eternal flames." Rom. Mis. for the use of the Laity, p. 527. It is taught by your unblush- ing priests, that the saints have not only merit in God's sight to procin-e their own salvation, but they have an immense surplus thereof, which they kifidly lend to others: and the pope has generously assumed the keeping of this fund; and as generously weighs it out, for ready gold and silver, to the simple faithful ! Hence, it is obvious that the entire foundation of saving faith is taken away. I do not deny that there are pious men in 3'our church ; but if there be, they are where they ought never to be. But that victim of your delusions, who believes as the Roman church believes, and dies in its faith, must either leave heaven, or Jesus Christ must leave it. They can- not possibly live in the same heaven! As surely, then, as Christ's cause must flourish, so surely must popery wither away and perish utterly.

Second : — The day is coming when the contradictions so glaring in the system of Popery; and its jarring elements, will cause every man of sense, forthwith, to aban- don it, as infamous. A folio volume might be filled with gleanings of these: I can give only a few specimens. The Roman church calls itself christian, — yet there is now, no one doctrine of Christ which it has not altered, and completely changed- ■"You are saved by grace," says our Lord. " No ! ye are saved by ^^onr own works, and the merits of th,e saints!" Says your Lord, the Pope. "By the deeds of \hp law no flesh shall be justified," says our Lord "By the deeds of the la>Y, all good Roman catholics are justified," says your lord, the pope. "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve," says our God. "You shall worship and invoke angels and saints, and Mary the queen of heaven, the great mediatiix between God and man," says your god the pope. " By his one sacrifice and one offerr ing, Christ has perfected them that are sanctified," says our Lord." "No! in the mass we offer up conlinuq:lly a real propitiatory sacrifice, to a})pcase God, for the rpiick and the dead," says your lord, the pope.

Our God has prohibhed the making of images for religious use and service, and enjoins us " not to bow down to them." "This by no means forbids us to make, and use images in worship,"' says your l,ord in the Trentine Catechism, par. iii. sect, .33, &c.

Our God prohibits all images of himself, — " Take good heed to yourselves, for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake to you in llorob, lest ye corrupt yourselves and make you a graven image, the similiiitde af any figure!''' ♦'No, this is not to be obeyed," say your lord, the pope, and the Trentine fatliers,-— " for no ollence is committed against God's law to express, and shadow out, by signsi any of the persons of the Trinity," — "it is lawful toijhadow out the Trinliy by some figures." See Trent. Catech. p.ait iii. s.e^'t, 30. p. 3.50,

Our God prohibits male and female images to be made, for religious uses, or wor? ^hip. "Take heed to yourselves, — lest ye corrupt yourselves, — and make the sinii^ Ji-lycle of any figure the likeness of male, or female!'' Dcut. iv. J5. 30. "This vye

2.36 ROMAV CATHOLIC COyTLOVKRiT.

do not obey, nor believe," cr\- your lord, the Pope, and the Councils of Holy Mother. — "We do make, and we shall make, and we shall adore images of male saints, and of female saints ."'

Tbe regenerate have to mourn the power, and evil fruits of sin that dwelleth in them. "I delight in the law of God after the inner man," says St. Paul. — --But I S€e another law in my members warring against the law of my mind ; and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members." Rom. vii. 22. '• This is not true; it is heresy," — cries j^our lord, by the voice of the Trent Fathers. *• There is nothing in the regtnerate that God can hate : and that they are inwardly •pure, and without sipot.'" See Coucil. Trent. Sess. 5. And while the^- hold that he is thus "pure inwardlv, and without spot : and while there is nothing in him that God hates," they teach that, with all this perfection and love of God. '• a man doubts, and must doubt, his salvation as long as he is in this life :" and needs purgatory, after alii tSee Trent. Conf. 6. chap. 9.

It is a standard doctrine of Rome that each of their seven sacraments "conveys grace." Nay, more than that, — in the mass, by the wafer, there is conveyed into each of their church members, a real, whole, and entire Jesus Christ : he is in them. Hence the prayer we formerly noticed in the Litany of St. Sacrament, in the. Manual of Godly Prayers, — " O word, made flesh, and dwelling in us, have mercy on us." This is addressed to '*the Christ tn them," after he is swallowed in the wafer. Xow, all men, who choose to say that they are of Holy 3Iother, — even all who choose to come under the priests' care; even the most infidel, and flagitious who walk the earth, can possess the "real grace," — and what you call the divine and only Savior, as really in them, as food is in the stomach i And yet, at the moment of taking in thi% special grace, and real Savior, they are living- in mortal sins against the law of God. And hence, when they die, — they descend, not into purgatory,-=- that is too good for them; they descend into hell, with the special grace of Saint Sacrament — and with " the real and true Jesus Christ dwelling in them.'" That is, they take grace and "the true Savdor," to hell, along with them! !

Hence, in perfect consistency with all this mass of absurdity and contradic- tion, the Rhemish annotators teach, "that wicked men and even reprobates, if they only remain in the public profession of the church;" that is, the Romish church. " are true members of the body of Christ." Rhem. An. in. Joh. 15, Sect. 1. And therefore, it is of no consequence how a man lives, — the most obstinate unbeliever, the adulterer, the mm-derer, the liar, the thief, the perjured, are all safe, if they only say,-^\es, only sat it to the priest, that they do belong to "Holy Mother church:" and do swallow down into their stomachs " the real Jesus in the wafer," they are quite safe I They may probably be subjected to a scorching and severe singeing in purga- tory,— but they will ^ertainl^' for the matter of a few dollars and cents, get out of even that- The Romish church, and doctors laugh to scorn those who teach the need of "sa\ang inward grace, and a new birth." Xothin? more is needed, says Bellar- mine, than "the external profession, and their union to Mother church." See Bell. Lib. iii. De Eccles. cap. 2. And we need only to add, here, their sentiments respecting the holy scriptures, in which, as we have fully proved, they embrace reso- lutely the most inveterate deism !

Nothing is more certain, therefore, than this, that the Romish church is strictly and properly speaking the mother of deism. She rejects, and even ridicules that which the Bible makes the test of discipleship in the christian: — "If any man be in

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 287

Christ, he is a new creature." This, to the pope and his bishops, as you well know, Fathers, is a nauseous, and disgusting doctrine. She takes away the very fountain head of purity, virtue, and godliness. Hence she is as much the mother of vice and all abominations, as she is the mother of deism!

Does any man ask for proof? You can see it on every p&ge of your decretals, canons, aad books of doctrine! You can see it in your late pope's Bull against the Bible, and all Bible societies ! You can see it in the opposition of every Romish priest, directed with a persevering, and rancorous malignity, against the reading of the holy scriptures. You can see it in their diabolical efforts to burn every Bible which they can find in the hands of the laity ! You can see it in the flagitious lives of the priests ; especially in all lands where poepry reigns in power. You know it to be a canon of your house, and a practical law of popery, that priests may keep iheix concubines : but wo, wo be to those, who shall, like good old St. Peter, marry and support an honest wife ! To live in the damning sin of fornication, the Romish church has granted a free canonical toleration to every "holy" priest in her service I Should the priests dare to marry, they are forthwith guilty of a mortal sin ! But should they keep concubines, and frequent the houses which "lead to the chambers of death," they are quite honest, clean, and pure priests! Nay, Fathers, blush not while you atfect 10 frown! I appeal to facts. Every body sees it here. And it is a recorded fact of history, that the priests of Italy, Spain, Naples, Austria, are a coij- gregation of whoremongers of the most infamous and unblushing class! Eventhe nobles of these countries, bad as they are, — blush for them ! — Hence also deism covers these lands. Both priests and the people, of the better and well informed class ; and those who read for themselves, are all deists, — nay, Fathers, they are atheists!" *'I must either worship the virgin Mary, or no one," — said a genteel Italian, to my friend Dr. Avery, while in Rome: "And I chose as a man," continued he, "to worship no God! For, if this be the true and only religion, then say I deliberately, there is no God!'''' And this expresses the sentiments of nearly the whole body of the middling and higher classes of that community ! It is not in human nature to be otherwise. The master craft of Satan prevails over the human reason and judg- ment, in these popish lands of J;he darkness of the shadow of death. Under the influ- ence of your church's diabolical prieslcraft, men are taught, are tempted, are con- strained to reject all that is named christian, by those villainous priests' lips; nay, to laugh to scorn even the existence of a God ! I appeal to the most manifest facts of history ; and what every traveller sees with his eyes ; and hears with his ears. Every popish country, thoroughly imbued with popery, is a land of deism and athe- ism! No sober man ever thinks of doubting it. The priests and bishops, as Mr. Noah, in the Evening Star, justly observed of Bishop England, "are merely me7i of the world, and 'politicians.^'' They traffic in the ghostly trade of popery : they deal in masses, and confessions and purgatory for ready money. They care no more for the arlicks they deal in, than the Yankee does for his ivooden nutmegs. Providing they gel ready money and can conceal the craft, in order to make another draft on the simple faithful, when ihey are again in funds, they care for nothing, ])rc8ont, or future; for nothing in heaven, or in purgatory, or in hell!! They laugh in derision at hell, and heaven ! It is the trade they have been brought up to; and they follow it as the farmer, or the jockey, or the gambler does his vocation. The sole object of Romish priestcraft is gain, and guilty pleasure!

Hence, popery, by its deism and atrocious vices, and its tyranny over the souls and

2SS F.OMA-V CATHOLIC COyTE.OVZF.ST.

bodies of men : and by it5 systematic robbery of its victims, and exactions for masses, and at the confessional^ is infallibly working its own ruin, and total downfall. The explosion of the old French Revolution was one legitimate effect of popery. It gendered the deism of the French: and thence t':eirartei>m. And, like the unguarded man who is blowing np rocks according to rule, it lays the train, unwittingly, to blow itself up, in an hour when it thinks not of it. And just as certainly as deism, the firuits of popery, oTertumed the house of the Bourbon, Louis 'KYI : and just as cer- tainly as the Jesuits' excess of zeal for Holy 31other produced the explosion vi hich drove the priest ridden Charles X. from his throne, — so certainly is popery laying the train over Ital}', Naples- Spain, Portugal, and Austria, which will, ere long, produce such another explosion, as Europe has never yet witnessed. For. —

" There wiU never be peace while Anti-Chiist reigns 1"

I -dTz. Pv.rv. Fathers, yours, ^c.

W, C. B.

LETTER XXVI.

TO THE LORD ARCHEISHOP. AVf THE LOBDS BISHOPS. OF THE F.0MA>' CATHOLIC CHURCH. I>' THE r>'ITZD STATES.

On the symptoms of decay, and certain ruin, in the Romish cliurch.

••Tlie JIaii of Sin. shall be revealed, the Son of Perdition, who. a= God. sinetb in tho temple of God. sho^ving himself that he i= God." — 2 Thess. ii.

Revefevd FatheB-s: — In addition ro rev former tico specificatioiis. I hsve, thirdly, to beg your patient admi^ion of another severe, but most manilesr truth, on this point. It is this : — The gross immorality of popery, and demoralizing tendency of aU its peculiar tenets, indicate the certain decay, and ruin of that system.

It were an easy matter to show that the Romish church has, in theory and practice, repealed all, and each, of the ten commandments. In reference to the f rst and second, behold your new gods, saints, ansfels- and images! The third they abrogate, by giving to their idols, and saints, the divine titles, attributes, and works, — " Holy 3Iary, tor instance, is Mediatrix between Godand man." They appoint days of worship, and institute ordinances to adore and praise them, and they swear by them, to the neglect and contempt of the only true Grod. The fourth precept is virtually repealed, by their institution of the days now alluded to, which are kept holier than the Sabbath. By a late ball of the pope, which was published in the Episcopal paper of Philadel- phia, the holy priests are prohibited from going into theatres, on Wednesdays cmd Fridays; as a mortal sin! But they may go into theatres on the Sahbath day! And this is actually done, as every traveller well knows, in all caihohc Europe, and in South America, and even in New Orleans, in our own country I It is, indeed, a matter of recorded history, that just in proportion as popery prevails in anv land, is the Sabbath of the Lord desecrated, and utterly despised ! This follows as naturally as our other position, that popery is the parent and nurse of deism I

The Jijih precept is abrogated by placing the clergy above the law, and ^-ithout the reach of civil law, and above the judgment bar of the magistracy, in Roman cathoMc

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lands: and by the insolent usurpation of the pope, in setting subjects free from their oath of allegiance to their lawful rulers. This power is acknowledged by all bishops, as you very well know, Fathers. And as soon as you can gain an ascendency, here, you have your secret instructions, you know; ^nd you are bound by your oath, to loose all the citizens from their oath of allegiance to our republic ; and to own, as in duty bound, allegiance to the pope, "your only legal superior." This is enjoined on every bishop, in his oath,— namely, to sustain and support the pope's power against all princes, and presidents ! And this you would do, to render God a service b}^ set- ting men free from the power and rule of our magistrates, whom you curse and denounce as heretics ! This, you are aware, is manifest from the words of vour oath ; and from your books. And it has been actually done in every country in Europe, where the pope has been, by the wrath of God, permitted to rivet his galling chains -on the neck of magistrates and people. Hence the cases of king John of England, .and the Emperor Henry IV. of Germany, whom he trampled under his feet !

" Thou shalt not kill.''' — This sixth precept they repeal by opening an asylum t© murderers; and preventing murderous priests from suffering the due penalty of th« civil law; by preaching the doctrine of "no faith with heretics," and by teaching that it is lawful, and even praiseworthy, in God's eyes to murder heretics, and all enemies of "Mother Church." Hence the applauded assassinations of princes, and other men by your members ; hence your authorized, and applauded massacres, per- secutions, and inquisitions ? Popery is a system which patronises murder hy whole- sale ! And we will show in another Letter, that the scarlet Beast has already on its hands, and its head, the hlood of sixty-eight millions of human beini^s, — murdered ija cold-blooded j^ersecutions !

The abrogation of the seventh precept is, par excellence, the most noted trait of the Romish church. The scriptures of the New Testament, with all its perfect refine- ment, calls that church "The whore of Babylon ;" "the mother of harlots," — "the mother of fornication. " See Rev. xvii. She is shadowed forth as a "drunken wo- man,— drunk with the blood of the saints!" Nay, she is — pardon me, I use Bible phrases, — " a Beast in all pollution !" See ver. 3, and 11.

I have materials in my possession describing the character, and vices oftlic clei-oy, which I cannot put down in English! It would make e\:en the profligate shudder, .and cry out, for shame ! And, if it be so bad to name, — or even to allude to it, — what a horrid scene would it present, to lift up from the haunts of nuns and monks, the veil which keeps the public from looking, with steadfast eye, at the priests of Rome, as they really are ! I beg leave to refer my reader to the pages of the Romish writer Nich. Clemangis; and to Edgar's Variations, last chapter, on "The celibacy of the Romish clergy."

It is notoriously known that houses of infamy, are publicly licensed at Rome, In/ the pope, and that he receives, quarterly, his shares of the wages of infamy and crime \ And did I set down here the materials furnished me by my friend Dr. Avery, who resided a whole winter at Rome, it would fill all honest men wiih horror at the vices of the past, and present priesthood of Rome! And yet, one of your own number, bishop England, in violation of all truth, and the dictates of his own conscience, bepraises these infamous adulterers, and ghostly debauchees, as " holy and virtuous men." — "Heaven save the mark !"

Why, the men and women of Sodom and Gomorrah, were quite modest, and vir- .tuous personages compared to the priesthood of Rome., in ages past, and at this dav

26

^90 ROiI.A?r CATHOLIC COXTROTZKsT.

In Spain, the council of Toledo, lq its 17th~caj]on. allowed priests to have concuhiMS. publicly ; but lo marry was procDiiiiced, in them, a deadly sin! In manv parts of -that country, the priests have as nunaerous families, as any honest men have! They <jTe holy fathers^ without wives ! The Roman writer Clemangis says, — -'The adul- tery, impurity, obscenity, drunkenness, and revellings of the clera^. are beyond all description !" See Cleman. 2S. Lenfan. i. 70. Others of their own writers declare the. Romish clergy over all England, Ireland, France, Spain. Italy, " as a conira- temity of the filthiest, and most infamous fornicators I SeeBruy. iii. 610. 3Iezeray IY.490. Gildas Ep. 23. 38. M. Paris 8.— "The priests almost universally, would hasten from their haunts of infiimy, and drankenness, to celebrate mass,'* says Lab- beus, " and feared not to touch the body of the Lord, with most polluted hands. " vol. XV. 247, and vol. xix. 3S9. Even "holy" councils treated purity and chastity with bitter sarcasm. These "holy" fathers, wherever congregated in councils, turn- ed the city, where they met, into a Sodom; then with unblushing and diabolical assurance boasted of "it! After the council of Lyons, for instance, Cardinal Hugo, in his speech to the citizens, had the characteiistic assurance to say, — "WTien the holy coimcil assembled here, you h^d heo or three houses of bad fame. But now. there is only one ! But that one extends from the east gate, to the west, without in- terruption !" See Labb. xvi. pp. ]4-35, 1436.

In the council of Basil, the holy fathers taught the theory, ■which was reduced to practice, in the coitncils preceding it, namely, those at Lyons, and Constance. It was in that Romish assembly, publicly advocated, that "houses of infamy ictrt necessary end proper I" And what crowned the climax of damning infamy. — •• ih« horrible atrocity was sanctioned by the holy, unerring, apostolic, Roman church."' See the fact stated in Labb. vol. xvii. p. 9S6. 958. And Canisins iv. p. 457. Edgsi p. 51 S. Hence they form a portion of the papers revenues 1 How appropriately she is, by you, baptized, — Holy Mother!

The eighth precept is repealed in the Roman church, by turning the temple of God into a place of merchandize. All things have been, and still are, set up for sale at Rome to the highest bidder: — namely, "the priesthood, — bishoprics, and even the chair of St. Peter;** and prayers, and masses, and *'the souls of men!" For pur- gatory is nothing more than " a ghostly market place,** — opened up for the sale of masses, and trade in human souls! For the fixed price, any soul is set free from its pains, and put to "repose:** and without the stipulated price, no soul is delivered. And as this place, is purely a fiction of priestcraft, as every one of you knows very well. Reverend Fathers, — ^all the money procured by masses, and for delivering souls out of pmrgatory, is just so much property got under false pretences, and by sheer forgery! You not only procure money by purgatory, but you sell the king- donri of heaven to the highest bidder. Ton usher all your victims, you tell us. infallibly into heaven, according to the sums fixed by the apostolical tariff. Absclu- tigo, and a passage into hea^v en, are given to those of you who receive it, and pay the church's dues !" Now, Fathers, whether does that man, or your Romish church, o3er the greatest outrage to the eighth command ? He. who sells lands in the Texa?, and receives the ready money, while he owns not one square yard there :— or tht pope, and his priesthood^ who seU, far money, the kingdom of heaven : while every one of vou knows that you have neither title, nor deed to the smallest portion of that kingdom! This venality of Kome has passed into a proverb in all lands. Hence Ae sacerdotal watchword. — " Xo penny, no pater nost^r !'■ And Chemnitius in his

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 291

Examen, has given us the copy of the following verses, written over an altar in a popish cathedral.

"Ut tibi sit poenaD venia, sit aperta crumena,

Hie datur exponi Paradisus venditioni,

Hie si large des, in coelo sit tua sedes,

Pro solo nummo, gaudebis in asthere summo!"

Which may be rendered thus : — *' That you may have the free remittance of punish- ment, only let your purse be widely open ! Here Paradise is set forth, end exposed to sale ! Here, if you give liberally, in heaven shall be 3^our abode ! For the paltry affair of money only, can you rejoice in the highest heavens!"

The ninth precept you repeal, by the false witness you have borne, as a churchy against God's people, for upwards of a thousand years. Not only as a bod}^ have the Roman catholics uttered the foulest slanders against the best of men, whom they put to death, under the slanderous name of hereiics : but individual members deem it a virtue in the sight of God, to utter slander against all the ^ hurches, and ministry, and pious members of the Reformation ! Open the popish books ; listen to the usual declamation of priests, and monks, and friars, of catholic Europe; and our own country, — and you will perceive that no measured teims are observed with the Pro- testant world ; and those who differ in the minutest point from "Holy Mother!" All men not within your pale, you pronounce accursed, and certainly doomed to per- dition. This is the immutable, and very charitable doctrine of "Holy Mother." The ninth precept has, therefore, no practical place in your bloody code!

Finall}'-, the tenth precept is repealed by your whole system, which is one entire and thoroughly concocted system of covetousnese, and a cunningly devised scheme of money making ; — from the vending and selling- cardinals' hats, and the pope's tiara, down to the manufacture o1^ scapulars, and the selling of consecrated beads, and relics! And in theory, this holy precept is repealed by the Jesuit doctrine of your sect, that *' the emotions of coveiousness in the human soul,, are no sins at all, unless sanction- ed by the consent of the man !" That is, — " sin dwelling in us," is no sin!

Thus, popery has in it the elements of inveterate corruption! And, according to the eternal laws of heaven in the natural, and moral world, it must be dissolved, and utterly destroyed by its own internal elements. Such errors, — such heresies, and infamous vices will necessarily annihilate popery; as time will reveal.

I have not noticed distinctly, here, the political tenets of popery; its tyranny over the body, and the soul of man ; its incessant, and unsubduablc aim at universal, and unlimiied power, by chaining down nations, and fixing ihem, m the most wretched, and degraded slavery, as bond slaves to tug at its bloody car ! To this 1 must devoto a separate Letter.

I have only to observe, at present, that tyranny is the soul and spirit of popery / Take away that, and thereby set the nations free, and it will speedily die, and be dis- solved, and utterly annihilated. No man knows this more accurately than priests. No man is more thoroughly persuaded of this truth than those men Avho arc hired to tvrite it up in our oominunity ; and who labor to })ersuadc their victims that the genius ^fV^V^^y ^^' — inirahile dicta! the fostering genius of liberty and the rights of man !

Now, Fathers, the eyes of the nations are opening. This deadly hostility of popery to the rights and liberties of mankind, is working its downfall, in Mexico, and In the SoMth; aiid in.ou.r own happy republic: and ovcnhe Roiuau catholic nations

2^2

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of Europe. And I tell you, Fathers, that the pope, and his minions, may as sooa chain the winds, and hurl back the lightning of heaven, as keep the nations o-f Europe much longer in the grasp of its ferocious claws, and the bloody dungeoBS of its unheard of tyranny.

I am, Rev. Fathers, yours, &c. W. C. B.

LETTER XXVII.

TO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP, AND THE LORDS BISHOPS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLli; CHURCH, IN THE UNITE© STATES.

On the internal symptoms of certain decai/j and ruin in Popery.

" They that see thee, shall look narrowly upoPx thee, and consider thee, saying, is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms ?"' Isaiah, xiv. 16.

Reverend Fathers : — The influences of an apostate and false religion are as necessary and certain, in their kind, as ate- those of the pare and holy religion of Christ. But, while they are equally certain and necessary, they are perfectly oppo- site to each other. A false religion is the parent of ignorance and superstition : it throws a deep and impenetrable cloud of darkness over the gloomy minds of its vic- tims. But the holy religion of Jesus scatters the most joyous rays of light and truth over free and happy minds. A false religion hates the light, shuns discussion ; and locks up the sacred fountain of truth, and refuses even a solitary rill to thread its way over the arid plains of the desert. The religion of Jesus courts the fullest and freest investigation: it fears nothing: it throws open the pure sparkling fountain of the waters of life and bids every one come forward, and receive it as freely as the air which he breathes; and the flood of light which is poured around him. False reli- gion is a gloomy, and horrid tyrant grinning on his throne of darkness over his pros- trate and trodden down votaries : true religion is a holy being from the skies, lovely as the face of Jesus, smiling on us. An apostate religion wields his iron maee ; and his clanking chains; he points to dungeons, and cells, and the horrid Inquisition's tribunal; and talks, when he deigns to converse, of penances, and of purgatorial fires ! True religion speaks in accents of redeeming love : and leads the weary and the blind, and the halt, and the lame, to the healing fountain, and everlasting com- forts! False religion kindles the fire of inhuman persecution, and lights up the blazing beacon cf deadly wars, and deluges the nation with human blood ! True religion breathes nothing but love, pure and undying as the love of angels : it cleanses the heart, and binds man to man in ties never dissolved even in eternity. It never raised the war shout: it never prompted to deeds of resistance, except in self defence, according to heaven's first and necessary law. False religion debases the human mind, and brutalizes the people with atrocious vices, which, so far from check- ing, it rather nurses; not purely from an enmity to the Most High, so much as from its accursed lust of gold, in turning sin into a very lucrative article of trade and gain, by means of penances, and indulgences ! True religion exalts the mind, and ele- vates the humblest in society to the nobility of soul, which characterizes thft

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 293;

c-hrrstian, and which makes him scorn a mean, and wicked action. False religion leads on its disciples, blindfold, to the precipice impending over the gulf of perdition. True religion leads man over the barren wilderness, v/ith a cloudy pillar by day, and a shining fire by night, while the smitten rock ministers to them in streams of consolation, the purest and most exalted joys! True religion, in a word, waxes, brighter and brighter in virtue and glory, until she reaches her own native skies, and the palace of the King of Heaven. False- rehgion has, in her, the seeds of death and dissolution; and exists after death, — only in her horrid works, and images in hell!

Fathers, — behold the one on the papal throne, putting forth its influences like the smoke, and nameless phantoms, as seen in vision by Joha, issuing out of the mouth of the bottomless pit.. Behold the other, clothed in the robe of light, walking forth over the protestant nations and shedding her choicest blessings on the people who own Immanuel, Jehovah Jesus, for their king. And we bless God, that the time is now fast coming when the pure, one, and holy religion of Jesus will cover the whole earth with a flood of glory. For false and apostate religions, with Rome at their iiead, are tumbling into ruins by their own innate corruption, like the old tottering weatner beaten tower walls, smitten by the gleaming thunder bolt of heaven !

I have enumerated three of the internal symptoms of decay and certain ruin of popery. The spirit of your church is the spirit of antichrist :. hence, —

Fourth : — The Roman catholic church has formally condemned the essential, and holiest doctrines of the gospel. In addition to those formerly specified, 1 add the fol- lowing from Tom. i. Indicis Librorum expurgandorum. ^'c. Of the index of Books expurgated, by Jo. Mariam Brans. Master of the sacred apostolic palace; Rome, 3,607. Under the title '•'■ Bihlia RoK Stephani,'''' we find the following : "From the- Index of these Bibles, on the books of the Old and New Testament, let there be blotted out the following propositions as suspected of heresy: viz: —

1. "Sins are remitted to the believer in Christ."

2. "The believer in Christ shall never die eternally.'*

3. " The Holy Spirit is received by faith."

4. " Our hearts are purified by faith."

5. " God- prohibits images to be made that we may adore them ; and bow ourselves, down before them."

6. " There is no righteousness in us :" Rom. vii.. 18.

7. "We are justified by faith in Christ."

8. " Christ is our righteousness."

9. " There is no justifying righteousness from the works of the law."

10. "There is none just before God."

11 . " Believers are about to enter into their rest.

12. " We are not set free (from sin) on account of our works."

13. " God desires, or wills, all men to repent."

14. "Repentance is the gift of God."

1.5. " The word of God alone is to be obeyed. "^

16. " That each man may have liis own wife."

These pure and evangelical propositions are condemned by the Romish church a* "damnable heresy!" Hence your church errs mortally in doctrine. Your whole system of doctrine is, in fact, as opposite, and Jis hostile to the .'•^.implu and holy gospel of Christ, as is the code of Mohammed ; or the Shaster of the Hindoo! And just as certainly as the church stands, or falls with these doctrines; — so certainly docs that

294 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSr.

apostate church, which dares utter its veto against heaven's eternal law, and dectevs^f — bear, in it, the elements of its speedy and irretrievable ruin !

" He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh y

The Lord shall have thorn in derision :

He shall speak to them in his tvrath ;

And vex them in bis sore displeasure ;

Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron,

Thou shalt dash them in pieces as a potter's vessel. "^

Fifth: — The jarring- elements in your church, relative to the grand fundamental tenet of the papal svpreynacy, are now working the ruin of your sect.

This I call a fundamental doctrine : it is the foundation of the whale system. O^i it rest your claims of infallibility, and the impossibility of the church of Rome erring! On it rests the pope's claim of absolute power over your souls, thoughts, faith, bodies, and property! By it, he is the potter, and you the clay and dust! By it, he wields the potent sceptre over kings as well as bishops. By ir, he opens heaven to his favorites, and slaves : and dooms all heretics to hell ! By it he places his lialf washed flock, in the fires, and waters of purgatory, that complete the work, which:, he avows, the infinite merits of Christ's blood could not do! It is, in fine, the rnain pillar of popery, the master-piece of Satan's deep laid conspiracy against the rights of man I

Now, God, in mercy ta mankind, has not permitted this execrable evil to enter ouf ^vorld, without an element in it, which will destroy it. I allude to the wars, and feuds in "■ holy and infallible Mother," on this matter.

You, Fathers, and your priests have taken much pains to convince the American public that j^ou own the pope, not as a civil prince, — not as possessing any temporal power at all, — but simply as a spiritual head of union. Now, were it even so, it is- dangerous enough to our republic to have men, — even the whole of your bishops, and all your priests, and all your members absolutely at the spiritual nod, which is far more potent than the political nod, of a foreign despot ; who, in case of a war with any of his favorite powers, would lay you all under an injunction to risa against our government, to a man, under the terrific pains of purgatory, and the eter- nal pains of hell !

But, you do own this foreign despot as much as a temporal prince, as you do own him as a spiritual head. You know it, Fathers ; you have never disowned this; it is beyond any man's gainsaying. Your oath to him as bishops, binds you, under pains of eternal perdition, to own, and assist,, and sustain the pope in all his characters, ])0%srs, rights, and claims. And, let me tell your people, — and you know it well, — that if an}^ one of you dared to disown his temporal poiver^ to his face,, in Rome, or ia any Roman catholic nation in Europe, you would forthwith be stript of your bishopric, hurried into a dungeon, and loaded with chains. Dr. England can tell you how many instances, and proofs he has seen of this. I invite Dr. England to stand up before the American nation, and publicly disavow the temporal power of the pope.

Besides the struggles which have already been displayed by your priests against the office of Wardens in 3'our church in the United States, show clearly ejiough that the priesthood are determined to exercise absolute power over the temporals, and the property of the church. Mons. Reze, in a letter to a person in Europe, and published in a printed "Report," which reached us, says, — "Mgr. the bishop of Cincinnati, has the happiness of governing his churches, without church Wardens.'^ " Were we

ItOMAS CATHOLIC CONTEOVERSf. 295

to estabiisli them, they might be useful to us, but we should fear schims, dissefltions-, of all evils the greatest. Despotism exercised against the pastor, and division, and- disorder, in many other churches, assure us ()if this." And in "the Annals," you state that, in the national council which met at Baltimore in 1829, you discussed" this subject, — "What is necessary to be done in regard to trustees, and the means of repressing their pretensions.''^ And you pronounce this a struggle between the claims of priests and laymen to exclusive power over all temporals, and church property^ This is a plain, and irresistible evidence of the pope and his priests' unalienabl* claims to temporal power. And, finally, did you ever yet hear of a Romish national^ ehurch existing without such a union of church and state, that the church has an^^ absolute power over the state, and guides the conscience of even the king, as a tutor guides a child. The papist, be he priest or layman, who ventures to tell the Ameri- can public that he owns not the pope's temporal power, must have no ordinary a 4egree of unblushing effrontery !

But, even admitting that you do not, here then you form another great faction in tte bosom of Holy Mother. You differ, hereby, on the pope''s supremacy, from your European fellow members in the church.

In Europe there are four prominent factions in Holy Mother's bosom. Theirs* maintains the pope to be supreme, as a president, — ■" the pope is only the first of the bishops." He has power, not legislative, but executive only ; he is inferior to a- general council ; and is by no means infallible : and has no right to depose kings. This is the prevalent doctrine of the French catholic ehurch. See Bupin Biss. p. 835, Lenfent i. p. 107. Gibert iii. p. 366. This sentiment was held by the early popes, as Pius, Julius, Zozimus, Adrian. See Lannoy, i. p. 295, 314. Dupin 442. It was also the avowed doctrine of three general holy councils, namely, of Pisa. See Dupin Dissert. 404. ; also of Constance ; see Gibert ii. p. 7. Labbeus xvi. p. 73 r and of Basil; see Labb. xvii. 236, 390. And Dupin Hist. iii. 38.

The second Roman faction invests the pope with unlimited sovereignty, they make him a temporal and spiritual despot, even the same precisely in " their church," as the- grand Turk, or the great Mogul is in his realm. He has power unlimited over all bishops and priests; over all princes, and kings, and nations; be they heathen, or christian : be they Protestant, or Roman catholic. Hence he is superior to councils*. This is the doctrine of the Italian school. They add, that the pope, speaking as pope, ex cathedra, is absolutely infallible, " He is exempted from all possibility of ignorance, error, or mistake P^ See Bellarm. iv. 5. 8. p. 987 &c., and Dupin Diss. p. 333, Gibert iii. p. 36, 487 ; and Labb. xviii. p. 1428. This monstrous doc- trine is held by Bellarmine, Barronius, and other nineteen leading doctors. It has been also held, of course, by all the popes, except the early ones ; and by three^ general councils, namely, — of Florence, which made the pope absolutely infallible, and the vicegerent of Almighty God ; see Labb. xviii. p. 1310. Cajetan i. p. 10, Gibert i. p. 93. Also by the fifth council of the Lateran. And the coimcil of Trent, after an exasperated contest between the Italian bishops, on the one hand, and the French and Spanish bishops, on the other, declared for this infallibility and unliinitctl power in the church universal. See Cramp's Text Book; Gibert i. j). 181; Labb. XX. p. 96.

Here, by the way, we find infallible doctors against equally infallible doctors; universities pitted against universities; councils against councils; and popes Dama- SU8, Felix, Pius, against popes Leo, Gregory, Urban, Paul, and Sixtus ! And all oi

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them gravely maiataining the unbroken, and' undisturbed unity, and- infallihility of Holy Mother !

The third faction actually raises the pope to an equality with God! This is not wonderful. The heathen interest, it might be shown, has triumphed in Rome, from the days of Constantine. They became universally christians, when the emperor declared for Christianity; as they would have declared themselves Hindoos^ had the- emperor been converted by the Brahmins ! And, hence, even to this day, under the- name and mask of the christian name, there has been a regular succession of pagcm> men, and women ; as thoroughly pagans, idolaters, and superstitious devotees, as ever lived, and moved, and had their being, in E-ome pagan!

Now, the original pagans were duly accustomed to hear Domitian call himself iiSr his edicts, " Fester Bominus Deus,^'' ^-^your Lord GodP'' And Caligula called him- self Deus maximus et optimus f God, the greatest and best P' Hence, their iineal descendants in place, in fai-b, and in practice, very naturally and appropriately call the successor of the Neras, the Domitians, the CaUgulas — Noster Dominus Detts Papa I'' Our Lord God the pope!" This excites no surprise in the least. The pagan emperors were as pious, and holy, and respectable, as any one pope that ever sat on the old Saracen's stool, huraorousl}'- called the chair of St. Peter, since 606!

You know, moreover, that the canon law of the Romish church, says, — " Papanon est homo!" The pope is not a man! "See Sext. Deer. L. i. Tit. vi. cap. 18. " The pope is a God, who has all power in heaven and in the earth." "None is like God, except the pope, either in heaven or in earth." See Turricr. Ques. 11 : Gianon aO c. 12, Bernard, p. 1725. Edgar, p. 159.

Monstrous as this really is, and shocking to the ears of piety, there have been doctors, canonists, popes, and councils, as we have already seen, who have sane- tioned this damning blasphemy : and have appropriated to the spiritual despot of Rome, the titles, attributes, and work of Almighty God ! The canon law, we have seen, and the fifth Lateran council bestowed these honors on the pope. " The Lord our God, the pope!" is the title in Can. Extrav. Tit. 14. cap. 4. And this, be it remembered, is the salutation of the kneeling votary, who stoops to kiss the pope's foot. See Edgar's Var. for a complete specimen of these names, and titles of blas- fjhem}^ p. 160, 161.

The fourth faction absolutely setting reason, piety, and common sense, outrageous- ly, at defiance, makes the f/ope superior to God.' The canon Law says, — "Habet plenitudinem, &c. He has the pleuitwde of power ; he is above all law and right :. he can change the substantial nature of things; and transform unlawful into lawful." Thuanus vi. p. 397. Gibert ii. p. 103. Durand i. p> 50. Edgar, p. 161. And even Bellarmine avov/s this. Premising that the pope cannot err, either in the decrees of faith, or in the precepts of morals, he sa3^s, — " This must be so, — or else, — secun- do, quia tunc necessario erraret etiam circa fidem. Nam, fides catholica docet om- nem virtutem esse bonam, omne vitium esse malum ; si autem papa erraret prascipi- endo villa, vel prohibendo virtutes, teneretur ecclesia credere vitia esse bona, et vir- tutes, raalas; nisi vellet contra conscientiam peccare." De Pontif. Lib. iv. cap. 5^ Tom. i. p. 988. That is, — "if the pope should err by enacting vice, or prohibiting virtue, the church would be bound to believe that vices are virtues, and that virtues are vices, unless she could be willing to sin against her conscience." And in the council of the Lateran, this sentiment was openly avowed, — "that Pope Leo possess- ed power above all powers, both in heaven, and in eaith." — See Labb. xis. p. 924^

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST. 297

And this consummation of arrogance and blasphemy, is not confined to an obscure faction in Italy. It is avowed openly, and unblushingly taught in the most public manner by every pope, every bishop, every priest. " They arrogate to themselves the power of creating their Creator, nay, of communicating to their underlings, the power of mj king their Maker! Deum cuncta creantem, creant." Labb. Tom. xii. 960. "Elevees a cet honneur supreme de creer la Createur!" See Bruy Tom. ii. p. 535. This, they assure us, gravely, they do in every mass. They convert, or create out of the wafer, "the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ." Now, that God can create himself is an utter impossibility! But these sons of Belial, and of holy Mother, i{ their word may be in aught believed, do this at every mass making! They do make a common business of doing, they say, what the Creator cannot do I

Now, shall the throne of iniquity be established, which frameth mischief by a law! Can the seed of evil doers ever be renowned, in a temporal, or eternal well being 5 Can such jarring doctrines, such monstrous claims and usurpations, which throw all paganism, and all ordinary wickedness, and all councils of pandemonium, into the back ground, exist long in power, in the dominions of the Holy and Just One! No, no: — It must waste away, and utterly disappear, as the fogs and vapors, charged with pestilence and death, in the natural world, are dispersed by the benevolence of the Deity ? I am. Rev. Fathers, yours, &c.

W. C. B.

LETTER XXVIII.

TO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP, AND THE LORDS BISHOPS OP THE ROMAN CATHOIilC CHURCH, IN THE UNITED STATES.

On the internal symptoms of decay, and self destruction in Popery.

" Siquis dlxerit, in ministris, dum sacranienta conficiunt, et conferunt, non requ'n'iinteuti- onem, saltern faciendi quod facit ecclesia ; anathema sit .'" — Concil. Trident.

Reverend Fathers : — In pursuing this subject I beg leave to observe, — Sixth: — That your doctrine of intention, carried out in its legitimate tendency, must ruin your system of popery, in the judgment of every man who puts himself to the trouble of thinking, for a moment, on the subject. Your church holds this doctrine: — " that the efficacy of the grace, conveyed by every one of your sacraments, depeiuls upon the intention of your officiating priest." If this intention be awanting on the part of the priest or bishop, then is the sacrifice without grace, without efficacy ; null, and void ! That is to say, — unless the priest oificiating, has an intention in his soul, con- science, and heart, to do that thing which "the church" intends that he should do; — unless he inlt udsin his soul and conscience, to make that sacrament, and the thing in the sacrament, to be just that thing wliich the church intends it to be — tlien there is no grace, nor efficacy in the sacrament.

Now, that this doctrine is an essential article of your creed, is evident from the ex- tract at the head of this letter. Council of Trent, Sess. 7. Canon 11, — " Si quis &c. If any one shall say that the intention is not required of the ministers, when they make, and administer the sacraments, let him be accursed !" From youi standard book, — '■'■The abridgement of the Christian doctrine,'' — I copy the following: "Is

Wo ROMAN CATHOLIC C0ITTE0VER8T.

the intention of the minister to do that which Christ ordained, a condition, "without which the sacraments subsist not? Ans. It is ; as also the intention of the receiver, to receive what Christ ordained, &c." In all the sacraments, every adult receiver must have the intention, as well as the priest : otherwise the sacrament is null, and void! Doyle's Edition, 1833, p. 76.

Nov/, it is astonishing that the inventors and fabricators of popery, should have al- lowed such a fatal doctrine to be embodied into their system. It can be accounted for only on the singular interposition of divine Providence, in pity to his bleeding and suffering church, in order to work the certain ruin of popery. Qwem vult Deus per- dere, jnius dementat. Whom God wishes to destroy, he first renders infatuated. This essential doctrine of intention, established by the decrees of the pope, and th« Trent Council, renders every thing utterly uncertain in your church. There is no one sacrament, no priesthood, no canon, no doctrine, in any degree certain, or eflft^ cacious. It destroys the pope's supremacy, and the church's infallibility : it de- stroys your articles of faith : it annihilates all peace, all hope, all comfort ! It shuts up, or rather expunges purgatory from the list of your fables, and shuts up, and bolts your gates of heaven against 3-ou all, who believe in the intention !

And even some of your own leading doctors have had the confession wrung from tlieir lips. They felt the appalling confusion into which this doctrine throws your system. "Nullus celebrans potest evidenter scire &c. "No priest," says one of tliem, "who celebrates, can know, evidently, whether he be baptized, or lawfally or- dained." See Gab. Siel, in Epit. Can. Missae. And Belarmine, while laboring to overturn another doctrine in his way, unwittingly is constrained to speak the truth, in the following extraordinary confession: — "No man can be certain, by the certainty of faith, that he does receive a true sacrament; because it depends upon the intention of the minister ; and no one can see another man's intention. Sacrcmentum non conficiatur sine inientione ministri, et intentionem alterius nemo videre possit.''^ Bell. Lib. Just. cap. 8.

Now, in perfect accordance with the uncontradicted admissions of these great doc- tors, let me offer you, Reverend Fathers, a specimen of the necessary det-truction which this doctrine works over the whole field of your fabricated system. The in- novators who got up the Romish church, took it into their heads to enact seven sacra- ments : tiiat is to sa}^ — exactly five more than the Lord Jesus, the only King of the church, did divinel}' ordain. This is not all : you not only addec] five things humo- rously called sacraments, — you have romanhed the only two out of all existence, in \'our sect. We shall, however, let that pass. We need not stop gravely to refute each, when we are on your suicidal doctrine of intention, which actually executes on its own sacraments, what the noted Judas did on himself!

The first is your Baptism. This you make essentially necessary to salvation. And hence this question, and atrocious doctrine put forth in your '■'• Abridgement of Christian doctrines,'"' p. 109. "Whither go infants that die 'without baptism? Ans* To that {)art of hell, where they suffer the pains of loss, but not the punishment of sense; and shall never see the face or God."

But, by the doctrine of intention, no person in the Roman church can know that he is baptized. For he does not know, certainly, that the pjiest who baptized him was himself baptized : he knows not, certainly, that the bishop had "the intention" to ordain that priest, when he was apparently ordained. Hence, there is a double chance against his being a priest at all !. And, finally, he does not know whether th^

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST. 299

priest, who baptii^ed him apparently, had the intention to do it ! Hence, no member of the Roman chtirch can possibly have either a certainty of his baptism, or any soHd faith of being saved !

The second sacrament is " confirmation." It is not my design to stop here to re- fute this, or any other gaudy ceremony. It is enough to say that your elevating it to the rank of a sacrament, and your using oil and balm "to sign your victims with th« chrism, &c." are acts of persevering high treason against our Lord, the King of the Church, wlio never breathed one word, who never caused to be written in all the holy Bible, one sentence originating, or countenancing this superstition. We need olfer no farther refutation than the doctrine of intention. The person going up to the bishop to be conjirmed "by cross, oil, and balm," never can have any evidence of his con- firmation, for three reasons. He cannot certainly know that the bishop was baptized with intention ; nor that he was ordained with intention : and he has no evidence whatever that, in the act of his apparent confirmation by rubbing oil and balm on him, the bishop has in his soul the intention to give confirmation. Hence no benefit, n,o grace can arise to him, from this rite.

" Holy Orders" is a third sacrament. By this, say you, " a character is given ;" by it "the grace is conveyed" to make a man a priest, a bishop, a pope. Now, it is with you of infinite importance, that it be done right. If any thing be awanting, particularly, if the intention to make the man a priest, a bishop, or a pope, is really awanting, then is this sacrament void. And the mmi apparently a priest, or a bishop, is only a lay man! And the flock under his spiritual care, has no sacraments, and thence, no grace ! — For you know, Fathers, that all the grace you ask, or at all car® for, is "that which a priest conveys by intention, through the seven sacraments. And, hence, to be under care of a priest, who is one only in appearance, is to be exposed, as you teach, " ^o certain damnation"" — -without even the poor chance, or the poorer benefit of purgatory.

This is not all; as you can, by no means, prove the intention of the minister, you cannot prove that any one pope was ever duly inducted into his chair, as a baptized man, or a true priest of the church! You have no evidence to believe, that any of your bishops have been in "holy orders," or "ordained with the intentio?i! And thence, you cannot believe, (for you have no evidence) that any one of your priests has ever been "in holy orders," or "ordained with the inte?ition." There is not one man among you, guided by reason and evidence, who can, for a moment, believa that your church has a pope, or true bishop, or true priest in the whole world ! If any man ca^ beheve this, he believes without evidence; and, therefore, acts unlike u rational being! Every Roman catholic must, therefore, on this radical point, either cm.sz to act as a rational being ; or surrender the whole system of popery.

A fourth sacrament is the Eucharist, and the Mass. Herein you worship "th« body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ." Now, you admit that there may be defects to render this sacrament void : particularly, if the intention of the priest is awanting. If he does not intend to turn the wafer into Christ; then it is not ChrisK And even you admit that, in this case, in worshipping that untransubstanliated wafer — €Lad not Christ, you are guilty of idolatry ! Now, it is impossible for any Roman catholic audience to have the evidence of the priest's intention as he rapidly mutters over the words, — "jFfoc est corpus meum,'" wliich, by a niarvcllous charm, turns th« real wafer into the real Christ. The must unblushing Jesuit dare not insult his vi«- lims, by even iusiauatiug that any one of them has the least evidence of his tnienrjow,

300 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST*

to make Christ out of the wafer. Hence, when they bow down, and worship tht Host ; they are worshipping what, they have not even the least shadow of evidence to beUeve, is the true God! Hence, the whole Romish church is actually worship- ping what they have no evidence, in the least degree, to believe is God, in the wafer. That is, the Romish sect are reduced to this dilemma; they either believe without any evidence; and thence act unlike rational beings, or, they are guilty of the mor- tal sin of idolatry !

But, to be brief, — let my readers be kind enough to apply this form of argument to the Jifth, and sixth popish sacraments, of Penance and Extreme Unction; and they will arrive at the same result ; that is, — the doctrine of intention takes away ^11 certainty, all faith, all peace from the dying man, in the article of death. Even extreme unction brings him no relief. He is told, it is true, to believe that the anoint- ing him with oil, by the holy priest, ^^ conveys grace to his soid;'^ and makes him '•'•ready to die.^^ But, he has not the least shadow of a consoling proof that the priest has the intention. He may tell him so; but even there, the intention to tell the trutli may itself be wanting. He lives in a cloud of uncertainty ; and dies, alas i in men- tal confusion, and the dreariness of a dark, dark night : and sinks into an unknown state ! He has strayed far from his God, and Savior, being seduced by the unprin- cipled slaves of Antichrist, who have rejected the gospel, and enveloped themselves, and their victims, in an endless mist of uncertainty, and darkness; in order — Oh ! shame on human villainy, — to trade in souls, — and barter heaven's hoh'- light ; and sell God's unsold pathway to paradise, for filthy lucre !

Lastly, Matrimony is a seventh sacrament of popery. This very novel sacrament " conveys grace to those who enter into it; and j^et, Holy Mother scandalously denies this potent instrument of "conve3dng its grace^' to the one class of men in her, who of all other men under the sun, do stand the most in need of it, — I mean the priests ! Now, — for I let this pass, — by your doctrine of intention, there is not one married 'Couple in our city, or in all the land, of all the Roman catholic church, that can exhi- bit even the slightest shadow of evidence that they are lawfully married.

For, unless the officiating priest had the intention \n his soul, and conscience, atth« nuptial ceremony, to make the man and woman then standing before him, husband and wife, they are not married! This is not all. You require intention in the receiver, as well as in the minister officiating. If the bridegroom, as he takes th« woman's hand, does not intend in spul and conscience, to make that person his wife, they are not married ! And, to crown the chapter of chances against the luckless couple, — if the bride does not, at that moment, intend, in her soul, and conscience, 40 m.ake that man her husband, they are not married ! Here are three chances against one ! And no person, no, not a catholic in all Christendom, can prove either th« priest's, the groom's, or the bride's intention! Hence, no couple in all the limits of *' catholicity," has even the shadow of evidence that they are not living in the mortal sin of concubinage ! And if they should die in that mortal sin, they are doomed for •ever to hell, without the benefit of purgatory !

This appalling doctrine is calculated to throw civil society into the greatest disor- der. One evil growing out of it, is this: — Divorces are sued out on this assumption, in Roman catholic countries. A man, or a woman goes into the proper court, in Rome, for instance, and declares, on oath, that, at the marriage ceremony, he, or sh€ had not the intention to be married: — Or, a villain, who "married" a young person ■whom he could not otherwise gain to his wishes, — needs only to go into a ghostly

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 301

court at Rome, and swear that he did not intend to marry that young woman wheja the nuptials were solemnized, — and the apparent marriage is dissolved!

I refer my reader, for proof of this, to every intelligent traveller who has resided, any time, in Rome, and has taken the pains to visit these courts, by a priests' favor, and introduction. I refer also to Bishop Burnet on the thirty-nme articles, Article 25. He narrates what he witnessed in Rome, himself: and he adds "that such divorces are very frequent there." I refer also to T. Wardell's valuable Letters, on Intention, &c.p. 13. N.York, 1830.

Seventh : — Your hostility to the progress of knowledge, and the sciences, will work the downfall of popery.

The system of popery is hostile to the progress of the arts and sciences, — except only, painting and sculpture, which are, in a melancholy manner, dragged in, to minister their enchanting powers, to an idolatrous religion, bloodier, and more destructive than paganism ! The evidence of this hostility, is found in the Inquisition ; and the stern, unyielding Index )^xpurgatorius, by which almost every classic author of Britain, America, and France is prohibited. There is scarcely one of all the classic, English authors which a Roman catholic is allowed to read. Milton is a doomed author; Young also ; Covvper is in the Index ; Watts too ; our historians ; our immortal John- son ! All the renowned theologians of England, of Scotland, of America, of France, are under the ban. And no Roman catholic dare, under pain of purgatory, open a single volume in a Protestant's whole library of our most approved writers.

This is a point but little known, and by the Romish priests usually concealed from Protestants; and most stoutly denied by the most of them! But you. Fathers, know how true this is.

Even in our enlightened day,— and in our city, no priest dares, without a writtenfper- mission from his bishop, look into a book written by a heretic, — that is, a Protestant! If the bishop allows any one to do it without this license, he breaks his solemn oatli, and violates the law of Rome laid down in the Index! No man in your communion dares to think for himself, or even use his own conscience, without priestly permission and dictation. Then, what blunders in science, has Infullihility fallen into ! In settling the place of purgatory, for instance, we have seen that pope Gregory, the saint, and Bellarmine, and even Dr. Rosaccio placed hell, and purgatory in the earth's centre; at a distance of 18300 1-2 miles below the surface. This has never been corrected ; nor even apologized for ! Infallibility, right or wrong, can never correct itself!

It is very well known that the famous Gahlco was formaih^ condemned and punished, simply for daring to invade the Romish darkness, by teaching that the earth 13 a sphere, turning on its axis, and moving round the sun. Here I shall present, an extract from the sentence of the Inquisition of Rome, in 1633, acting under the eye of pope Urban, "the infallible vicar of God." " Whereas, you Galileo, aged 70 years, were denounced, — tor holding as true, n. false doctrine taught by many, that the sun is immovable in the centre of the world, and that the earth luoves; therefore, this holy tribunal, desirous of providing against the disorder, and mischief, proceeding and increasing, to the detriment of the holy frith, — by the desire of his holiness, the two pro))ositions, are qualified by the theological qualifers, as follows: —

1st. The proposition that the sun is the centre of the world, aod imniovablo from its place, is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical ; because e\])ressly contrary to the holy scr)i)tures. 2d. The proposition that the oarih is not the centre of the world, nor im^movable ; but that it nioves, and also has a diurnal motion, is

27

S02 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST,

also absurd, philosophically false, and theologically considered, at least, erroneous i* faith," See The Life of Gahleo, published at Boston, 1832, pp. 179, 180.

Such was the decision of pope Urban, " the infallible heacV of the church, and his lord cardinals, and doctors! And this was as late as 1633! Pope Zachary had, indeed, pronounced his " infallible" ban against Virgil, a Bavarian bishop, for pre- suming to teach the shocking heresy, that "there are men living on the opposite sid& of the earth, from us." " If he persist in the heresy," says he to his legate, "strip him of his priesthood : and drive him from the church, and altars of God!" See Life of Galileo, p. 192. But, then, this "infallible pope" pronounced the curse against Virgil, and his antipodes in the middle of the eighth century, when there were no heretics to pour light upon the eyes of popes and infallihles! There can be no excuse, therefore, for the ghostly judges of Galileo, but the invincible and incur- able depravity of popery. And, unless you also be under its influence, you will excuse the honest warmth of the bosom friend of Galileo, namely Micanzio, who exclaimed of pope Urban, and the other tyrants who condemned Galileo,— "I shall devote these unnatural, and godless hypocrites, to a hundred thousand devils !"

It is right here to remark, that this doctrine, and these sentences of pope Zachary, and Urban, against bishop Virgil, and Galileo, stand unrepealed by pope, bishop, or doctor, to this day, in the Romish church. Hence you, and the pope, and all your priests sustain it, and avouch it, as much as Zachary, and Urban did. For no way has yet been invented to correct one infallible, by another infallible !

Hence, upon the whole, as the light of science, and as the influence of virtue, and true religion, are spread over the regenerated nations : and as knowledge, like the rays of the dazzling and glorious sun, gains an irresistible ascendency over the whol» world, popery, as a system, — the enemy of God's glorj^ and of man's hajxpiness must necessarily fall; — and fall, to rise no more ! And your Reverences will, no doubt, unite with me in saying, — Amen, and amen !

I am, Rev. Fathers, yours, &c. W. C. B.

LETTER XXIX.

TO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP, AND THE LORDS BISHOPS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, IN THE UNITED STATES.

On the internal symptoms of decay, and certain ruin, in Popery.

" So I went into the chambers of imagery and saw ; and beheld every form of creeping things; and abominable beasts; and all tiie idols of the house of Israel; pourtrayed upora the wall, round about." — Ezek. viii.

Reverend Fathers: — I have had the honor of drawing your attention to a few ©f the more striking symptoms of decay and certain ruin in popery. I beg leave to spe- cify B. fourth one, vividly displayed in your religious use of Relics. You believe ia their divine efficacy; you worship them; you maintain a brisk and lucrative traffic in them.

Now, when truth and sound philosophy^ in their irresistible progress, shall opem die eyes of the blind, the contempt and abhorrence of all men will be poured upon this system of imposture.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 303

One naturally feels astonished that a system of darkness, emerging from the Dark Ages, should find a moment's rest for the soJes of its feet, amid the flood of light poured out on the present age. We alluded before to the influence of astronomy and geogra- phy putting to flight the systems of paganism founded in principles of the darkest ages. Can a child, initiated into these sciences, ever be seduced to believe in a reh- gious system that the world is .a flat body, and rests on the back of a huge turtle/ Can a child believe the gravely related Romish doctrines, in many instances as su- premely absurd as this. Pope Gregory the Great and saint, places hell and his pur- gatory in the hollow centre of the earth! Cardinal Bellarmine advocates the same theory. Gregory adduces the spouting flames of ^tna and Vesuvius in proof of this, for these come from hell and purgatory ! There is, to be sure, one redeeming truth in this theory; he placed the opening into these infernal regions in a correct latitude; that is to say,— in his own immediate vicinity, — the seat of " the Beast."

Dr. Rosaccio improves on this theory, and fills up the measure of its glory. H® also makes a hell and a purgatory in the earth's centre. But let our infant scholars mark the Romish geography. He makes purgatory exactly 2550 1-2 miles below the earth's surface ; and 15,750 above hell. By adding these, Ave find that the popish doctors make it exact!}' 18,300 1-2 miles to the central cavity of the earth: whereas the earth is only 8000 miles from pole to pole, through the centre ! I refer to Bellar- mine, De Purg. Lib. ii. cap. 6. in Tom. i. viihi, p p. 1928 &c. And Edgar, p. 536. Yet all this is rational and sublime, in comparison with the priests' world of Re- tics, set forth on the altar, and around the chapel, and in their variegated chambers of imagery !

And, then, such Relics ! And held up, too, for ike religious worshij) and homage of human beings! Why, they would absolutely derange the gravity of our protestant ehildren ! Let us notice a fev/ of them which garnish and consecrate your sanctua- ries ; and, thence, draw in large revenues to your "Immaculate Mother" in Europe. I shall not rehearse the wondrous bits of wood of the cross ; and the four nails, by which our Savior was nailed to the cross. Like the four heads of John the Baptist, in France, there are several duplicates of these four identical nails! You have 'Mhe parings of St. Edmunds's toes," and several chapels have some of the coals which roasted St. Laurence ! Among the Glastonbury relics, you show us the identical atones which the devil tempted our Lord to turn into bread ! In France, Spain, and Flanders, they have eight arms of St. Matthew ! Of course antiquarians must bless you for the amazing discovery that he had 40 fingers ! And the author of one list of relics, in the possession of the late Mr. McGavin, declares that he had seen three arms of St. Luke. In the Lateran church in Rome, they show the very Ark of the Lord, made by Moses ; anil the rod with which he did his miracles ! In the sam« church, they have the entire table on which our Lord eat the first Supper. And in Spain, and in Flanders, they have genuine fragments of the table! In the same ohurch they have the entire heads of St. Peter and St. Paul. And in Bilboa, there is a large part of Peter's skull, in the ])ossession of the Augustines; and a large frag^ ment of Paul's skull, in the convent of the Franciscans! In St. Peter's church at Burgos, they have the cress of the good thief: ^^someivhat tvorm eaten :'^ with Judas' lantern; and the very dice which the soldiers used in casting lots for our Lord's gar- ments! They show also the tail of Balaam's ass! In the same ])lace, they have a little of the manna In the wilderness; and a few blossoms of Aaron's rod! They have relics of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and also the Virgin's comb; and a comb

304 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROTERST.

of each of the 12 Apostles, ^^ nearly as good as fiew!^^ They have a part of St' Mark's body; with an arm, and a finger of St. Ann, the Virgin's mother. The cata- logue, also, shows the Virgin's identical veil ; and St. Patrick's staff, with which he expelled the toads and vipers from Ireland! They have, also, what is very appro- priate in a den of traitors, a bit of the rope with which Judas hanged himself! There is, also, some of the Virgin's hair; with several vials of her milk. And what is a rare and devotional thing, they show a little hitter, and a bit of cheese (very rare,^) made out of her milk, which never decays ! ! ! See Philos. Library for 1818; and Glasgow Prot. chap. 52.

In the Cathedral of Glasgow, they had a choice museum of these adored relics. For instance, they had a bit of St. Bartholomew's skin : and the Virgin's girdle : and a bone of St^ Magdalene: with four vials of the Virgin's milk ! Also a vial of St. Kentigern's blood; and a bit of the manger where our Lord lay; and St. Blartin's cloak, ^^ rather moth eaten.''' See Beauties of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 217; Glasgow Prot. ch. 53.

In 1633, Pope Alexander VII. sent into France, three chests of holy relics for *' Kosphal Church." They were bound with silk cords, and sealed with Cardinal Ginetti's seal. On the apening of the relics, with much pomp and devotion, there was found in the third chest, the head of St. Fortunatus. There nnfortunately hap- pened to be present a medical gentleman, who, with a heretical eye, perceived a bit of 'painted cloth above the ear. This led him to examine the skull; he scraped if, and pierced it v/ith his knife. And lo ! the holy relic, pronounced to be the true skull of the saint, by your infallible head himself, turned out to be a piece of pasteboard! See Archbp. Tenison*s Reph/ to Mr. Pulton, p. 72. Edit. 1687.

Now, if ever there was a thing called a lusus nature, verily, here is one ! And it will be duly and gratefully chronieied by the Antiquarian Society ! And I call the attention of our amateurs to it, not merely in its physical, but in its moral bearing. We have here pontifcal authority, from the chair of St. Peter, that a man can, in the most perfect manner, fulfil the holy functions of a Roman priest; and be a Roman saint, — and yet, after all, have only a pasteboard skull, and hrains to correspond !

There was a famous crucifix at Bexley, in Kent, Old England. Its eyes, lips, and head moved graciously, at the approach of its votaries, to pay their adoration to it, «ad "the holy relics. At the Reformation, says Hume, the bishop of Rochester broke oflfits head, and showed to the people ils springs and wheel?, by which it was moved. Henry III., king of England, used to sport a rare and precious relic — -no less than a vial of your Lord^s blood, sent to him from Jerusalem. He used to show it devoutly to all the great men of his court! King Canute very devoutly paid the priests one hrmdred talents of silver, and one of gold, for the old black withered arm of St. Augustine. M.y authors do not inform me what these honest traflftckers in hu- man limbs, charged the kings of France, and Spain, and Najjles, for similar arms of that African father! In the Lateran church at Rome are "some planks of the cove- nant;" in St. Paul's, are PauPs body, and such a number of vials of holy bloody hung round the walls, that a stranger is apt to think he has got, by some mistake, into an apothecary's shop ! Here is, also, the very pillars on which the cock crew, when Peter denied our Lord ! See Owen*s Travels, vol. ii. p. 52. In another church, is shown the comb of the said cock, that set Peter a weeping. In Paris, at St. Denys, they show a real likeness of the queen of Sheba ; with Solomon^s drinking cup ; and Judas' brass lantern, full of chrystals. Here is, also, the linen with which Chiist

ROMAN CATHOLIC COKTUOTIRST. 305

wiped the disciple's feet ; with a bit of the water pots of Cana ! See Evelyn's, Me- moirs. In St. Basil's Chapel, at Bruges, Campbell, [Journey^ p. 39, quarto,) saw the sponge full of blood which Joseph of Arimathea wiped off our Savior! At Aix la Chapelle, he saw the very chemise of the Virgin; the cord that bound Christ, and some of St. Stephen's blood nicely preserved in a bit of earth, on which it dropped! In the Cathedral of Munster, Mrs. Piozzi saw the very sword which St. Paul ivore ! And behind the high altar, is a hachgammon table, which belonged to John the Baptist, or, as the keeper said, "to some baptist!'''' In Upsal they have Judas' bag, and one of the thirty pieces of silver; with the identical pair oi red slip- pers, in which the Virgin paid a visit to her cousin ! See Wraxall's Northern tour, p, 127. In the church of Durham, they showed the teeth, and the head of St. Aiden ; and what is a very rare matter, two eggs of the griffin! See Smith's Beda, Append. No. 15.

And, to crown the climax, I shall give an extract from Stephen's Traite preparatif a VApologie pour Herodote, chap. 39. He relates that a monk of St. Anthony saw "a bit of the finger of the Holy Spirit, quite sound ;" also the nose of the angel that appeared to St, Francis ; and "a finger nail of a cherub !" There were, moreover, *'arib of the ivord made flesh !^' and a feather of the angel Gabriel! And, besides the vial of St. Joseph's breath, caught by an an(|"el, as he was cleaving wood, — ther« is " a hem of his garment." Another scarce relic is this, — " a quantity of the iden- tical rays of the star which led the wise men to our infant Savior !" There are also the identical square buckler, and the identical steel sword of St. Michael, which he employed in his' battle with the devil ; together with a vial of his sweat, which he, the angel, sweated on that occasion ! " All these have I devoutly brought home with me,"— -added the monk. See the Clavis Calendaria, vol. ii. p. 56, &c. ; and tha Recreat. Magaz. Bost. Edit., p. 384, 386.

I hold up this system before the eyes of the American people. Behold, fellow citi- zens, a system of unparalleled knavery, which blushes not to palm these lying wonders on the ignorant part of our community, even as if the reign of the Dark Ages had not yet passed away ! Here is a system, which, worse than paganism in Greece and Rome, holds up these solemn puerilities of gods and rotten bones, as objects of reli- gious worship in their chapels; which compels its victims in all catholic lands, — ye?, and in our own enlightened land, to fall on their knees, and worship these motley remnants of bones, and garments, and angels, and dust; and yield up their property to the immeasurable exactions of these ghostly traficers: which robs its votaries of their last shilling to sustain this villainous imposition, and throws them on the public charities of our country; and plunders them of even the pittance of supplies, yielded by pubhc charity, to eke out the imposture to the closing scene of their ruined vic- tims ! O merciful heaven ! can such a curse be permitted to scom-ge the human family forever! How long shall these deceptions, and lying wonders, and workings of- Satan, find a place among civilized men ! Not long, my fellow citizens. The rising light will chase away this darkness : these ludicrous, yet blasphemous absurdities are hastening, by irresisti[)le necessity, its irrecoverable downfall ! And from all lands, the joyful signal will be uitcred: Babylon is fallen, — is fallen !

I am,- Rev. Fathers, yours, «5cc. W. C. B, 27*

306 ROMAN CATHOLIC COITTROTEIIST.

LETTER XXX.

TO THE LORD ARCHSISHOP, A>'D THE LORDS BISHOPS, OF THE R0MA:!V CATHOLIC CHURCH, I>' THE UNITED STATES.

Popery essentially despotic : and incompatible with the free institutions of our repuhlic^

'• Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes ! O Teucri, ne creclite equo !"'

I have my mcdves, Reverend Fathers, in spreading out all your "■solemji lilies," before, our plain republican citizens. \ our titles indicate the genius of j^our hierarchy ; that lordly and absolute despotism, which has rested^ as a horrid incubm, on the breast of sleeping Europe, for so many centuries : and which yuu are seeking to press on the bosom of our republic !

I disclaim all personal reflections, and even allusions. Indeed, Reverend Fathers, both you, and yonr head the pope, we deem too humble, and too little known among us, to be the subject of any personal reflections, in the presence of the people of this great republic. Without bating one jot of your consequence, which you borrow and import from Rome, the whole of your hierarchy and priesthood in our republic, are, ia fact,-asthe fiy on the horn of the noble bull, mentioned in the fable. You can do no lasting naischief, were our fellow citizens only awake, to the inesnmable value or their civil and religious liberties. Our only dangers are these : — the lethargy of our republic, and the unwearied efforts of foreign Roman catholic, and despotic powrers, to invade us, and corrupt the" fountain of public opinion. Disclosures have been made, which establish the, fact, that an extensive conspiracy is formed by the des- pots of EviTope, to make a dangerous attack on our free institutions. This they are <loiug under the garb of the old and only religion, called Rcn\an Catholicism. They dare not send in among us, their political emissaries, under the name of "politicians'* to teach us, and our children, their Romish policies, and despotism! This would be too barefaced. It would ruin their cause sooner, than if •' Satan transformed into an angel of light," did shove the cloven foot and horns, out from beneath his ill adjusted robe, and mask 1 But, all the world knows thai the order of Jesuits "was revived in 1814, by pope Pius TIL, for the express purpose of gaining ghostly power in Europe ; and especialh' to gain over the United States. And latterly, the Roman catholic princes of Europe have entered deeply, and zealously into the enterprise. These, it is true, care little for the pope, and far less for his system of inventions, which he is pleased, facetiously, to call tht christian religion! The truth is, that as men, enter- taining their own private opinions, neither pope, nor the Roman catholic princes, in Europe, ever gravely affected to believe in the system of the Romish religion. Vievv-ed strictly as a regular system of priestcraft and tyranny, it is a wretched substi- tute for Christianity, and to it, strictly speaking, as such, is applicable all that Voltaire and Hume wrote. In their ignorance of the holy Bible, they mistook popery for CHRiSTiA>'iTT. So docs the pope ; so do his ghostly court ; so do the despotic princes of Europe.

But, nevertheless, this system, — a compound of absurdities, pomp, and puerility', as it is, — his been an adinirable tool in t3'rants' hands. It amuses lounging cour- tiers and sinecure professors, and keeps them out of political plots : it edifies the weak

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

30 7

aalnded; and feeds the pious ignorance of fanatics: it lodges unlimited power with priests and tyranis. And, then, it frowns on no damning crimes ; it allows men to serve the devil, the world, and the flesh, to their heart's content, as long as they live ; and , then, for a small consideration,— ~(ihey cannot take their money with them at any rate,) it shrieves these children of the devil, and gives them a passport to glory. Moreover, it fills the coffers of bishops, and monks, who have made vows of poverty : it feeds an army of twenty millions of priests and monks, who are ready, at an hour's w'arning, to march to the onset against knowledge and liberty, even to the ends of the earth ! And, finally, it strikes a very salutary terror into the trodden down populace, which loves iniquity, and fears the flames of purgatory, which are sold by the priests !

It is, therefore, consummately adapted to create, and sustain despotism, on the largest scale. In the pursuit of his object, the pope has never ceased to add as proper instruments, the power, and influence of Roman catholic sovereigns, to that of his army of ghostly militia, the cardinals, bishops, monks, and priests. And these Roman eatholic princes, v/ho relieve their grave, filial obedience, by fits of the merriest mockery of him, and all his army of " 5/fat;e/mg-s ;" and send him, and them, daily, *'tothe devil," — over their cups,— do in their turn employ him, his bishops, and priests, as their political minions, to crush, still deeper, their wretched, and plundered tubjects; and to prevent the progress of light, and knowledge among them; that their bondage may be perpetuated ; and, finally, to overturn every free government under heaven !

There is nothing to which these despots of Europe look with more uneasiness, and real pain, than to the progress of liberty, and the establishment of self government on our continent. Especially is our Republic the object of their unmitigated and un- aabducible hatred. I do not say that the people, their sabjests, do so view us. They adniire, or envy us. But the princes, and tyrants who have pat tke screws on their people in church establishments, and in state usurpations, do viev\^ our republic with immeasurable vexation and hatred. Hence the present conspiracy ; and combined efforts to execute that conspiracy, by these European despots. And the Jesuits, — "who have convulsed every nation and government in Europe, they have, as the last resort, selected as the means to accomplish our ruin. And every man, in our Union, who has eyes to see, and has looked steadily on, for a few years past, has perceived that an army of Jesuits are at work over the land. The effort now made, — ^and I implore my fellow citizens to mark it, and watch the progress; — the untiring effort, and aim of these foreign emissaries, of European despots, are to get the educa- tion of our children., and young people, male and female, into their own hands! And all those unhappy victims whom they can obtain, they send home, — verily igno- rant enough of the usual ornamental, and useful branches, — but, then, their o??f, only grand aim is achieved. They send theirt home into the bosoms of their families, unblushing, irreligious, bigoted Roman cathohcs! This, as you know, Rev. Fathers, is the plan adopted in the conspiracy against our free institutions. The foreign des- pots know that it is vain to attack us with armies, and navies : that political vmii^iiuncs and writings could find no place here. They attack us under the mask of religion ; the Jesuits are their soldiers; the De propaganda of Rome, and that of the south of France train their soldiers : the despots, and the " Leopold foundation," at Vienna, furnish the money. Every son of his holiness is taxed to support the emissaries in our land. They arc ''teachers of religion."'' Yes; but they cease not to teach ia

308 HOMAIf CATHOLIC CONTROTKRSr.

their religion, the sentiments of the Holy Alliance ! ^hey are " teachers of religion /" Yes : but they instil into their pupils, despotic principles ! They are " teachers of reli- gion" ! O, yes! But at the confessional they utter execrations against liberty and republics ' They applaud monarchy ; and popery, and absolutism ! They are ?eac/iers of religion. " Yes! and that religion dooms all /terc^tca/ governments: and teaches that no heretic has a right to rule : or even hold property : that no Protestant heretic has a lawful heir, because no heretic is legally married, according to the papal law! They are '■'- teachers o/ religion"! Yes! But in every nunnery, and in ©very male seminary, it is their religion to hold up the pope as the legitimate master of all magistraies ; and his court, and platform of rule, as the only model of perfection in the art of government! No politics, no political emissary, — no armed bands can be more fatal to our countr5s than these *' teachers of religion'''' ! And their very jealousy, and eternal outcry of '^religious 'persecution,''' when we expose iheir conspi- racy against our unsuspecting people, is to me, a manifest demonstration that their whole system is a political conspiracy. The teachers of pure Christianity court pub- licity : they mov» in light, and triumph by the force of truth. But those "religious" eonspiralors " creep into houses ;" and move in darkness, and fear nothing more than light and publicity !

I beg leave to lay down, emphatically, before the public, this doctrine : —

Popery is esseniially despotic, and utterly incompatible with the free institutions of our Republic.

Here, I have to combat the prejudices, and ignorance of superficial men, who maintain that popery is so altered, and so modified, and reformed, from what it used to be, in the Dark Ages, that it can do little, or no harm. Reverend Fathers, no on« knows better than you do, that these ages were created Dark Ages by the plastic power of popery ! And if she could have crushed the influence of the Bible ; and quenched the light of truth, and science, we should have been in the Dark Ages still. Modern iight and improvement bring no improvement to her. One fact is enough to show this:— Popery claims absolute supremacy for her .pope, and infallibility! Hence, she declares "sAe never errs!''' She can never alter one decree; nor revoke one false step: nor abate one evil that ever existed in her. You affect to compliment her by calling her improved and reformed ! Were you in Spain, you should receive for jour compliment a. corps du gard, to escort you to a cell in the dungeon of the bishop, —the inquisitor, in his own diocese ! You ought to know that you offer Rome the greatest insult, v/hich in her estimation, you can contrive to ofiCer her in this land :— by all edging that she is in any respect altered: for, in doing this, 3'ou take away the largest and brightest oem from her crown. You take away her infallibility and supremacy.

The fact is this : — Popery is altered so far, that she puts on the mask, and a false garb. For she feels that she is in an enemy's land. She suits herself in appear- ance, to the decent appearcince of Protestants. But, as you know, Fathers, the moment you can get the power, you will forthwith revive old Irish, Spanish, Italian, and Austrian times. All our cities will gleam with the Auto da Fe!

I need not appeal, here, to what has been done by popes and councils of old. The pope claims, to this day, absolute and undoubted supremacy as a temporal and spiritual prince, over all persons, and their property : and over all countries, as well Mohammedan, as Protestant, and catholic and pagan. Has any one forgotten that iie pope claimed, and still claims the giving away of newly discoTcred lands, to his.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 309

favorite princes? Prom the begianing of the eighth century, the pope clainaed this power in Spain. It is true, Dr. Geddes has estabUshed the fact, beyond all Romish gainsaying, thai the pope's supremacy was not owned, nor even known in Spain, until ab©ut the close of the seventh century. But early in the eighth, the pope threat- ened liing Witiza, for allowing and authorizing the priests to marry, that if he per- sisted, he should lose his kingdom. See Dr. M. Geddes' works against popery, vol. ii. p. 29. It is true, king Witiza of Spain, denounced the pope ; and assembled the great council of Toledo, in A. D. 704; which declared and decreed that, — "the bishops of Rome had no authority in Spain, either in church, or in state.'''' See Ged- des ii. p. 31. Yet the pope set up claims to that realm : letters of pope Gregory vii. were produced out of the Vatican Library, addressed to all princes who were willing to invade the moors of Spain, and drive them out. In these Letters, this spiritual despot published his solemn grant to all princes, who should conquer the Moors, " that they should have, and hold from him, the pope, the use of all the countries in Spain, wliicli they should conquer from these Moors. But," adds he, — '•'■the property of these countries, he could not part with, or give it to ihem : because it belonged to St. Peter ; and the See of Rome /" Geddes ii. p. 30.

The pope's spiritual supremacy was,- in defiance of the great but unsuccessful struggles of all good men, fully established in the most of the countries of Europe, about the beginning of the seventh century: and his temporal power and supremac}^ about the year 756. Through the influence of that infamous traitor and usurper, Pepin, this was effected. By him was pope Stephen ii. made Exarchate of Ravenna. By insatiable ambition and lust of power, the popes continued to make constant acces- isions to their domains, and revenues. Charlemagne made very great and important additions to the gift of his father Pepin. This monarch, bigotled and superstitiouB, helped on the Romish power towards its height. He was the first emperor that was crowned by the pope. Give tyranny, especially ghostly tyranny, the least degree of unlawful power, and its thirst becomes burning and insatiable for more. From this time, the popes actually assumed the right of crowning kings : and, thence, they set up the claims of conferring the crown ; and with it, the right of conferring the sovereignty of the empire. For, what was the crown "without the holy pope's bene- diction." From that time the popes claimed absolute sovereignty over all kings, and magistrates, from the lowest to the most exalted in all lands!

Such is tiie origin of papal supremacy. Nothing less than a traitor and a mur- derer of Ilia royal master, and the usurper of his throne, could have conceived it; and his bloody son consummated it! From that time, the illicit union of the spiritua} and the temporal power, by a frightful amalgamation, gave birth to the papal Beast, as foreseen in the visions of St. John !

I am, Rev. Fathers, yours, &c.

310 ROMAN CATHOLIC CUXTKOVLRSY.

LETTER XXXI.

TO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP, A>'D THE LORDS BISHOPS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, 15^ THJE UZS^ITED STATES.

Popery essentially despotic: and incompatible with our free institutions.

" Per vavios casus, per tot discrimina rerum, Tendimus in Latium!" Virg.

Reverend Fathers: — Through you, I earnesth' beg the attention of my fellow citizens, to the open and avowed doctrine of the Romish church on this point. These papal claims are laid down by popes and councils; and they are viewed, and acted on, as " t/ie e55en/faZ doctrine of Christianity." And these claims of ths pope, his bishops, and priests extend to our republic, to our president, and congress, and gov- ernors, and all the magistracy as fully, and as entirely, in their undimiuislied pre- tensions, as unto any Roman catholic power in Europe. I implore my fellow citi- zens not CO be imposed on by the Jesuitism of the men who pretend that " they do aotovvm the pope as a temporal prince." Ther© is not a Roman catholic in Europe. or in the United States, vho does not fully believe that the pope has just as absolute a right, and supremacy orer Protestant Holland, and Protestant Britain, and over our Protestant Republic, and over all our bodies, and eur souls, and our real, and personal property,- — as h% has over Spain, or Italy itself! This is the solemn faith of every Roman catholic, as it is laid down in his books; and taught him daily. And you know, Fathers, that papists could not expect to bs saved, if they did not believe this. It is true, they refuse to admit it: they even deny it. But this, you know, is denied only before Protestants, and in all Protestant lands. The}- would be guilty of a mortal sin if they did not believe that which the^- thus deny! I shall produce from your own books, 3'our authentic doctrines on this point ; and we ghsll then see how atrocious and dajagerous they are.

"The pope,"— says the council which had Gregory YII. at its head. — "ought to be called the universal bishop : he alone oug^t to wear the token of imperial dignity : all princes ought to kiss his feet: he has power to depose emperors and kings, and is to be judged by no man." Pope Innocent III. proclaimed himself thus to th« world : — "The church my spouse, is not married to me without bringing me som«- thing. She hath given me a dowery of a price, beyond all price : the plenitude of spiritual things ; and the extent of temporal things : the mitre for the priesthood : and the crown for the kingdom; making me the lieutenant of Him who has it written &n his thigh, " King of kings, and Lord of lords:" to enjoy the plenitude of power, that others may say of m.e next to God, — "out of his fulness have we received."

To deny this unbounded temporal power, was deemed by the pope the greatest heresy in the kings of Europe. Every one has read of the troubles and degradation to which King John of England; and Henry II. of England, in the affair of the Tillainous and treason working knare, Saint Thomas A Becket, were subjected, by thi« usurped power of the pope. Every student of history is famihar with the power claimed by the two popes who excoramuuicatad King Henry YIII. ; and by pope Pius VI. who put Queen Elizabeth under his ban, and called, authoritatively, upon ah her subjects, as his subjects, to rise up in rebellion against her, "whom he.

ROMAN CATJOLIC COJTTROVERST. 3lJ

by virtue of power from God, had judged and damned," — yes, damned! For he affected to be "Lord, and God," of both worlds, and judge of the bodies and soul« of all men !

When King Philip of France, showed a disposition to slight the pope's power, the pope thus addressed him in his Bull, — " We would have you to know, that you, king of France, are subject to us, both in things spiritual and temporal: and we pro- nounce all those who believe the contrary, to be heretics !^^ On another occasion, addressing the same monarch, the pope said,-— "Do not imagine that you have no superior : or, that you are not in subjection to the Head of the ecclesiastical hierarchy , — he that maintains this is an infidel !"

And this has been practically played off by way of a comment, and a lesson t© kings, and magistrates. A king of England, and a king of France, were compelled to hold the pope's stirrup, and act as his groom's man. An emperor of Germany laid his neck at the pope's feet: and the pope, in lordly pride, put his heel on hie prostrate neck, as he blasphemously repeated the sacred text;—" Thou shalt tread laponthe serpent, and trample on the dragon, and lion I" Henry IV., the emperor, did penance before the pope's gate at Canusium: three days did he stand there, barefooted; bare headed, and in a wretched woollen cloth wrapped round him. On the fourth day, the haughty despot deigned to give him an audience; and he promised him absolution, on condition of his submitting to the dictates of »a council, to be call- ed by the pope. That council, at the nod of this pope, — I mean Gregory VII., deposed him; and chose a new emperor; to whom the pope sent a crown bearing this motto :- — "Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rodolpho." " The Rock gave the crown lo Peter, and Peter gave it to Rodolphus!"

This supremacy of the pope, " over all persons, and things," says Bellarmine, "is THE MAIN SUBSTANCE OF CHRISTIANITY!" Hcuce tlic following doctrincs of th« Roman catholic church, which I submit to every citizen of this republic. Cardinal Pol us, De Concil. 41. says, — " Petri cathedram, &c. The chair of St. Peter, Christ has constituted, above all imperial thrones ; and all regal tribunals!"

Blasius, De Rom. Eccles. Dignitate, Tract 7, pp. 34. 83. 85, says, — "UnicusDei ricarius, ik,c. The Roman Pontiff is the only vicar of God : — the pope's power is orer all the world, 'pagan., as well as christian: the only vicar of God, who has su- preme power, and empire over all kings, and princes of the earth ! As there is on« God, the monarch of all, who presides and rules over all mortals; so there is oiu vicar of God ; kings ought to be under Peter : and must bow down and submit their necks to him, and his successors ; who is prince, and lord of all, Avhom all emperors, and kings, and potentates, are subject to ; and must humbly obey."

Pope Boniface VIII. proclaims in the Extravagantes, (the extravagantes are th« decretals of popes, and councils, and of the civil powers,) — " Omnes Christi, «fcc. It is necessary to salration that all christians be subject to the pope /"

Bzovius, De Rom. Pontif. Col. Agripp. cap. i. 3. 16. 32. 45. teaches thus : "Papa est, &c. The pope is the monarch of all christians; supreme over all mortals: from him lies no appeal. He is judge in heaven; and in all earthly jurisdiction, iupreme: he is the arbiter of the world."

Mancinus, De Jur. Princip. Rom. Lib. 3. cap. i. 2. "Papa est, &c. The jKjpe is Lord of the whole world. The i)ope, as ])ope has temporal jioAver : his temporal power is most eminent. All other ])owcrs dej)cnd on the ])ope."

Moscovius, De.Majest. Eccles. Miiit. Lib. i. cap. 7, p. 2G, teaches the Romish doctrin*

312 ROMAIf CATHOLIC C0NTR0VIR6T.

fully and frankly : " Pontifex Romanus, ^c. The^Roman Pontiff is universal judge : king of kings, and lord of lords ; because his power is of God. God's tribunal and the pope's tribunal are the same ; they have the same consistory. All other powers are his subjects. The pope is judged of none but God." See also Pithou, Corp. Jur. Can. 29, Decret. Tit. 7, c. 3, also Gibert ii. 9. Bruy, ii. 100, and Labbeus, viii. 666, and Binii Concil. ix. 54.

Sciopplus, in Eccles. Jacob. Mag. Brit. Reg. Oppos. cap. 138, 139, 241, says, — " Catholici non tantura, &lc. Catholics believe the pope's power to be not only ministerial, but imperial, and supreme; so that he has the right to direct, and compel, with the pov/-er of life, and of death."

Maynardus, De Privil. Eccles. Art. 5, Sect. 19, &c. Art. 6, Sect. 1, &c. Art. 13, Sect. 19, says: "Emperors and kings are the pope's subjects. The pope has power in, the whole ivorld in temporals and spirituals. Statutes r.iade by laymen do not bind the clergy /"

Simanca, in his Enchir. Judicum. Tit. 67. Sect. 12. p. 349, says, — "Heretic! privati sunt, &c. Heretics (Protestants) are deprived of all dominion, and jurisdic- tion; and their subjects are freed from their obedience."

Emanuel Sa, Aphoris. Confes. Verb. Cleric, p. 41. thus teaches, — " Clerici rebellio, &c. The rebellion of a priest is not treason : because clergy are not the king's," (nor the republic's) '^subjects."

Tarrecremata. Card, ad Can. Alius 3. Cans. 15. Quest. 6. and De Eccles. Lib. 2. cap. 14, teaches thus : " Papa potest deponere, &c. The pope can depose empe- rors, and kings; he may lawfully absolve subjects from their oath of allegiance. If the king" (or President) "be manifestly a heretic," that is, a Protestant, — "the church may depose him," that is, from his office as a magistrate.

Paul IF. the pope, in his Bull, A. D. 1558, thunders forth his anathema thus : — " J[ZZ Protestants, be they kings or subjects," — that is, be they Protestants, or Govern- ors, or Mayors, or Aldermen, — ''are all solemnly cursed.'' — And this Bull is a part of the canon law : see Lib. 7. Decret. Lib. 5. Tit. 3. De Hereticis, &c. cap. 9.

And let magistrates look well to the character which the Romish church says, her priesthood occupy, in the Republic. They never can, without violating their solemn oath to the pope, take the oath of allegiance to our government; or become citizens. If they do, they are guilty of perjury before the pope! Nay, the Roman Council of the Lateran, under pope Innocent III. Can. 43, thus declares,—" Sacri auctoritate, &c. By the authority of the Holy Council, we declare it unlawful for secular prin- ces to require any oath of fidelity, and allegiance of their clergy; we peremptorily forbid all the priests from taking any such oath, if it be required." See Corpus Jur. Canonici.

Again, in Corpus Jur. Can. cap. Sicut 27, Extrav. De Jurejurando, it is thus taught, — " Juramentum, &c. No oath against the benefit of the chureh is binding: all such oaths are perjuries." And Spottiswood in his History of Scotland, p. 308, says, — '■'If the pope dispense with voluntary oaths, it is valid."

Filiucius, in his Moral Quest. Tract 16, cap. 11, sect. 307, 309, teaches that "by the canon law, and the decree of the Lateran Council, under pope Innocent III., all magistrates who interpose against ecclesiastical persons, in any criminal cause, whether it be even for murder, or even high treason, shall be excommunicated." And the Bull of pope Gregory ix. in 1580, declares thus: — "Judex secularis, &c. No secular judge may condemn a priest : and if he do ; he shall be excommuni-

HOMAN CATHOLIC COKTROVE-RST. 313

cated."" — Hence it is canonical doctrine of the Roman court that papal ecclesiastics 'are not subject to the civil laws!

This is easily carried out, in every priest ridden government. But how is it managed under a Protestant government ? I answer by facts, — when a priest commits a crime which lays him open to the lash of the law, — the bishop orders him cfFin an hour ; and before the legal officer is at his house, he is on board of some vessel under a borrowed name. We all know how often this occurs in our cities ! Remember priest Smith !

I conclude with a few more extracts. Bellarmine, Controv. Lib. 5, cap. 6, p. 1098 says, — " the spiritual powers must rule the temporal by all sorts of means, and expedients, when necessary." "Christians,"— that means papists, — " should not tole- rate a heretic king," (or President.)

Salraeron, Comment. Evan. Hist. Tom. iv. pars 3: Tract. 4, p. 411, thus teaches : *' The pope has supreme jjower over all the earth ; over all kings, and governments ; to command and enforce them &c. And if they resist him, he must punish them, as contumacious."

Lessius, Lib. 2, cap. 42: Dub. 12: p. 632, teaches: — That " ^/le pope can annul and cancel every possible obligation arising from an oath.'^ So completely does the pope set all civil governments, and all courts at defiance.

And, now, can any citizen, of the least reflection, deny that these essential doctrines of popery can never be compatible with the laws and institutions of our Republic? If the Jesuits do teach these doctrines, — as I do affirm before God and m3n, they do in their seminaries, they are deadly foes of our free government. If they dare oeny them, while they lie open in their standard books in our hands, then are they verily Jesuits, and knaves that will lieJ

I am, Reverend Fathers, yours, &c. W. C. B.

LETTER XXXII.

TO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP, AND THE LORDS BISHOPS OF THE ROMAN CATHOilC CHURCH, IN THE UNITED STATES.

Popery Essentially Despotic ; and Incompatible with the Free Institutions of

our Republic.

Hoc volo; sic jubco; sit pro ralione voluntas !

Juvenal vi. 219.

Reverend Fathers: — I beg that it may be distinctly known by you, and my fellow citizens, that all the above doctrines are extracted from the canons, and da- cretals published by Roman doctors, approved by iuquisiiors ; or enacted by councils, and sanctioned by popes. Hence they exhibit the immutabk' faith of I he. Roman caiholics.

Now, let us glance at facts to show that, in this instance, popery is, if possible, even more intolerant in deeds than in theory. J. I'he Romish church has never i^leraled any church of Christ, where she had the jJOWcr. The Jew, tlic infidel, the Moham- medan, the christian have all been, alike the victims of her unsparing bigotry ! Sh('^ knows no other sect, — adniits of no sister cliurch : there is ?20 religion out oflior: KG salvation out of her: all are doomed to r icrnal perdition, not of her communion :

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^4 ROMA:? CATHOLH; GOXTROVERSy.

This is not all ! she is a lordly tyrant, who permits- none to breathe, or live, or enjoy civil privileges, who differ from her,— wherever she has the ascendancy! Look at Spain, Austria, and Italy! None will she allow to die in peace, or receive even the last honors of sepulture, — or even, — if she can prevent it, — enter the gates of lieaven? who differ from her petty tyrants, the priests ! Her government, and all her habits of rale are not onl}' strictly monarchial, but despotic, — ahsolutdy decpotic, over soul, and body ! Witness the absolute slavery of the lay people, to the imperious priest I In Ireland, the priest exercises his lohip and jists, on his parishioners, as freely, and as cruelly as the slave driver does on his negroes. Then, mark the slaveiy of the crouching priest, to the bishop. He must, on his knees, kiss the lordly hand of the despot, before he mounts the pulpit, if he happens to be present. And then, the slavish prostration of soul and body, on the part of the bishop, to tbe "Lord his god the pope," is a disgrace. — a foul blot on God's image, — man! The bishops and priests live, and move, by the breath of the pope'ii hps ! They have no opinion, nor sentiment, nor religion, nor conscience, nor even soul of their own. It is all as the lordlv tyrant of Rome breathes it into them, even here, within the free air of our republic I

2. The Romish church has ahcays united church end state. This is an essential element of her religion.

And history reveals hov.- much her selfishness here rivals her impiety. In every instance of similar unhallowed connections, in Protestant lands, there is liie union of the church to the state; by which the latter uniformly makes a tool of tbe former; and the church always suffers. But, in lordly Rome, the church unites the state to herself, that in every instance, she may use its perfect subservieccy. Hence her unbounded arrogance. She sets up claims of pov/er over all kings, emperors, presi- dents, and governments. Hence the secret of her treatment of civil powers. All gov- ernments not of her religion, are pronounced, in her canons, heretical : and that means, in her court style, unlawful; and they must be put down, at all hazards: and every where, as soon as she reaches the power. Carrying out these maxims, and principles of action, as an absolute despot, she, of course, abhors and nauseates every form of government that favors the liberties of the people. She has an uncon- quera.ble horror of a republic. It is at perfect antipodes with everj" sentiment, and feeling of Rome. Her people must not think for themselves ; must not read : they liave no right to liberty of conscience : the press is muzzled : with her the liberty of the press is insupportable licentiousness. These maxims pervade the present pope's late encyclical Letter. Hence, no Romish priest can be a republican. He has no taste for it. Like the bear of the north, the Romish priest is an animal that can thrive only in the icy regions of despotism. He cannot be a republican, had he even a taste for it. He is a feud:il vassal : he would bring on his soul the mortal sin of perjury, if he became a lover of liberty. The pope has his whr.le soul, and his great oath : his ward, and even his civil oath are not to be credited in opposition to his papal intere&'s ! Facts confirm this-

The one great, and unwavering object of papal ambition, has been pou'cr, and nniversal ascendency in all things, temporal and spirin;al. History- declares that no Roman catholic country has ever been a true republic. The priesthood of Rome have been monarchists of the most absolute character, from the pope down to the cure.

Hence, we frankly avow, that we oppose your system of priestcraft not on account of

ROMAN CATHOLIC OOlTTROVEllSY. 315

your religion, merely as a religioiu Wg oppose you on this accoirnt, that popery is a despotism, breathing a deadly malignity against every form of religion, differing in any iota, from itself; and against all free, and especially, all republican institutions! I appeal to the history of Roman catholic countries in Europe, South America, and Mexico. The land of the Inquisition, and of priestcraft has ever been the tomb of liberty ! And the Roman catholic church has been the mother and nurse of th© Inquisition, and priestcraft. The moral atmosphere of Rome, worse than their own malaria, and worse than the deadly Samiel of the desert, breathes death to all liberty, civil and religious!

3. Of all the specifications which might be made, there is one, to which I beg the earnest atte ntion of our citizens. It pourtrays the diabolical spirit of this ghostly despotism, in deepest hues. Every Protestant, and, indeed, every man not a Roman catholic, is denounced by the pope, and his foreign emissaries among us, as eicommu- nicated heretics ! And, what is worse, every person in these United States, who is not a Romanist, is annually excommunicated, and pronounced accursed, and doomed to perdition! This unchristian, and horrid ceremony of cursing all the American citizens, and government, is annually pronounced on Thursday, before Good Frida}^

It begins at Rome. On that day, the pope, in his scarlet vestments, the appropriate clothing of the "b'ood red, scarlet colored Beast of the apocalypse," utters in awful form, this infernal imprecation. And, in his name, in like manner, does every priest, in his own chapel, read this bull In ccena Domini, re-echoing the papal curse over the world ! They denounce ail our citizens; all our magistracy; our mayors; our aldermen; our governors; the president; and all the branches of our government! And this curse of their foreign master, includes the sentence of deposition from civil office; as being heretics, and having, of course, no right to rule ! And there are just two things which screen them, from popular indignation. They deny the charge of doing it, even while they are in the act of doing it: and it is done in Latin, which few understand.

But the priests and their partizans gain their aim notwithstanding : they cherisli the secret spirit of hostility to our institutions ; and their subserviency to European despots !

And in case of a war, or insurrection, the whole army of priests, bishops, monks, and partizans are bound by your foreign allegiance, as you know. Fathers, — and by your great oafh, to rise in defence of the pope and his allies; and against our govern- ment' If you do not, the guilt of perjury rests on you; and you, thence, forfeit your offices, and your revenues! No man, acquainted whh Romanism, and its des- potic vows, can imagine that a papist will permit his oath of allegiance to any heretical government, to supersede, in one instance, his vows, and oath to the pope. And this oath, bo it remembered, binds him as perfectly mcivil, as in spiritual matters.

It is now understood by us all, that the course adopted by our Jesuits, and the priests in general, in reference to this Bull of annual damnation of heretics, is, — to deny it utterly; to deny that it is promulgcd by any of them. Hence the Jesuits have caused it to be published in The Catholic Herald, that it is never promulged by them; that 'Mhey have not even a copy of it;" "that it utters no curses on any one." I refer to the Protestant Vindicator, No. 12. I beg leave^ also, to notice a •mall book, lately published by one of you; I mean bishoj) England, entitled Ex- planation of the ceremonies of Holy Week, &c. ; but which is, merely, a childish,.

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and contemptible apolog}' for the theatrical mummery- of Rome, and its inlolerani dogmas.

V> hen Dr. E. comes to the services of Maunday Thursday, he has the hardihood to deny that these vindictive curses on the human family, "are now gone through on the Thursday of holy week." It is now laid aside ; and has " not been gone through since the 5 ear 1740." See p. 69.

I do not stop to inquire whether courtesy should compel one to sav that a person speaks the triith, when he actoally lies I But I cannot conceive it possible that our Jesuits, and also Dr. England aid net know that what they say on this matter, ia- positivelj" untrue and I'alse.

I shall conduct them, and you, Fathers, directly to this yer\' Bull for evidence to sustain my strong assertions. "You do not promulge the Bull In coena Domini;^* jou saj^ Hear what your sovereign lord at Rome says : — Sect. 29, — "Ut processus ipsi &X:. That the processes themselves, and these present letters may be made mor& known, in virtue of canonical obedience, we do strictly charge and command all and singular, — that they publish them once annually or ofrener. if expedient, when the major part of the people are assembled."'

'■You do not possess a copy of it, and therefore, y3u cannot pubhsh it," — you say^ in The Catholic Herald.

\^Tiat an act of rebelhon against the pope, and the highest power in your church! Here are the words of the Bull, Sect. 25. •• Episcopi, nee non recrores &::c. Bishops,- aad rectors, snd curates, and presb\-ters of every order, shall have icith them a tran- script of this Bull, and shell diligently read and study to understand it/^

"It has not been gone through since 1740; but is now laid aside:" s^ys Dr. Eng- land. It is diificult to say whether we should pronounce this to be impudence, or reckless hardihood, or Jesuitism dyed in the wool. That he should have thus dared to utter this at Rome, and thus beard the lion in his den, — the pope in his very levee! Yes! and \snth the xerj Bull uttering his papal roars in his very ears, — is surpass- ing strange! The unblushing falsehood ought to be rebuked. I affirm that Dr. England knows perfectly well that this Bidl is ordered, by the highest authorhy of his church, to be annually promulgated. And in the teeth of his denial. I affirm that he knows well that it has been uttered since 1740. — Dr. E. is " a member of the Rom. Pont. Academy of ArchaeologV'." Now there is avolume, printed at Rome in A. D. 1764, entitled, — "Appendix ad Tusc. Synod, held by the Cardinal Duke of Y'ork. Bp. of Frescati, in 1763." Is it possible that this member of the Academj' has not seen that book, so well known in its library, and in the libraries at Rome ? I cannot persuade myseh'that Dr. E. is so absolutely ignorant. He must havs seen it. It is well known even in the libraries in Britain. At p. p. 575,. 576, of that book. Dr. E. must have =een the copy of the Bull //j. coena Domini, as uttered by pope Clement XIII., in the year 1764. I copy from the preamble,, now before me. The pope, stating that his predecessors on Maunday Thursday, did esercise such a spirit- ual sword of church discipline, adds: — "We, therefore, following this ancien^. and solemn custom, do Firstly, — Excommunicate, and curse on the part of Almighty' God, and the apostles, all heretics, &c." Then follow the designated %aetims of papal intolerance : he " curses" them from the eye brows to the toe nails; and theip souls, being damned by him, with the de\'il^ he adjudged into eternal fire: damnctum cum diaholo, — in igntin. c£ternum judicarnus." See also Lond^Prot. Jour. ApriL 1834- V. 230.

EOIWAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERST. 317

Farther — " This Bull In coena Domini,''' — you say, "does not curse Protestants, — does not interfere with Protestant governments." I beg the attention of the American community to an analysis of this famous Bull, which is annually pronounced against us. It opens thus: — "In the name of the Almighty God, Father,Son, and Holy Ghost, and by the authority of St. Peter and St. Paul, and by our own, — we excom- municate and pronounce accursed, all Hussites, Wickliffites, Lutherans, Calvinists, Huguonots, Anabapists, Trinitarians, and all apostates from the faith, and ail who keep, and read knowingly their books, &c.

In section sixth, the pope utters his curse "on all civil powers who impose new taxes without the consent of the Roman court."

In the 12Lh section he curses all who, in any w^ay, hurt or maltreat cardinals, bishops, and priests; or who drive them from their lands, territories, &c." Now, as the pope claims all lands, and gives them to his priests, this republic falls under the malediction of the pope, because, it does not establish the popish religion by a law ; and pay the tithes of the fruits of the land, as his just tribute!

In the 15th secdon, he curses all magistrates, who "take away the jurisdiction of all benelices, and tithes; or other spiritual cause?, from the cognizance of the court of Rome." Hence, if any of our courts take up a cause of quarrel between the priests, or laymen, about monies due to " the church,''' or " any spiritual property'' instead of referring it simply and dutifully to the foreign despot, they come under the papal curse.

In the 17th section, the sovereign master of all Roman catholics utters his curs© on all those who shall hinder priests, and ecclesiastics, from exerting their ghostly jurisdiction ; or w/io shall appeal to a civil court for redress, and "to procure prohibi- tions, and penal mandates against these priestly courts, &c.

In the 18th section, he curses " all who take away the priests," and church's proper- ty." At the Reformation, the priests were made to disgorge their ill-gotten "goods and gear," which they had abstracted by fraud and imposture. For, demanding back their own, the protestant world has been put under the pope's weightiest ban. And every priest and layman, does really affect to believe, that for this thiug alone, — namely, for maldng these ghostly thieves and robbers refund what they had been, for ages, plundering off the nations, — every Protestant shall be doomed to hell! Nor, can we, of thiii republic, escape ! All the earth is the pope's property; and as he is entitled to the tithe of all its proceeds, — our not giving this to his representatives and foreign emisaaries, and spies, here among us, to wit, the holy bishops, vicars, and priests, — is a sin which will send us all, — magistrates and people, a packing into infal- lible and inevitable perdition.

In the 19lh section, he curses " those who, without express license, from the Roman pontiff, impose taxes or tribute on Roman prelates, priests, monasteries, or churches, &c." Hare the curse reaches our government, and our legislature, if they shall ven- ture to tax pricfts, or priests' property, '''^ without express license of the pope.'*

In the 20th section he utters the doom of judges and magistrates, who shall "sit in judgment on a bishop, priest, or ecclesiastic, with express license from the Holy Apos- tolical See !"

In the 22d, (lie pope declares this Bull, and these sentences of doom binding forever, wnless revoked by the pope for the time being. In the 64, he utters his curse against )^i3hop or priest, who shall dare to give absolution to any one under these dooms, " in

28*-

31 9i ROarAW CATHOlilC CONTROVEHST.

face of these presents ; and he declares that " he will proceed to severer s-piritmt, cnS temporal punishments, as he shall think most convenient."

Lastly: — This extraordinary document is introduced with these words: "This Bull — is alwa3^s pronounced at Rome, and by all Roman priests, on Thursday be- fore Easter." It has received the sanction,, and addition from at least twenty popes. See Bullarium Magnum Romanum. And it is closed with the assurance, that "if any shall infringe on these letters, and this Bull, or oppose them, he shall certainly incur the wrath oi Almighty God, and of St. Peter and St. Paul.

4. Additional hght is thrown on the nature of the Roman catholic subservi- ency to a foreign despotism, from the oath which chains the papal bishops and priesthood, as feudal vassals, to the foot of the pope's throne. It is recorded in Bulla Pii IV. : " Omnia a sacris, &c. All things defined by the canons, and general councils, and especially by the Synod of Trent, I undoubtedly receive, and profess : and all things contrary to them I reject, and curse, and from my dependents, and others under my care, as far possible, I will withhold. And the catholic faith I Avill teach, explain, and enforce upon them."

This oath binds every priest to hold and enforce all these aforesaid doctrines, which we have recited ; and which are so essentially despotic ; and so utterly incompatible with our republican institutions.

I subjoin the canonical oath which every prelate must take, at his consecration. It is copied from Pontif. Roman. Be consec. elect, in Episeop. p. 57. " Ego P. P. ab hac hora, &c. I from this hour will be faithful, and obedient to my Lord, the pope, and his successors" (and he is a temporal prince, as we have seen, as well as a spirit- ■unl:) "the council they entrust to me, I will never discover to any man, to the injury o-fthe pope. I will assist them to retain and defend the popedom, and the ro^^alties of St. Peter, against all men. I will carefully conserve, defend, and promote the rights, honors, privileges and authority of the pope. I will not be in any council* fact, or treat}^, in which any thing prejudicial to the person, rights, or power of the pope is contrived. And if I shall know any such things, I will hinder them with all mv power, and will speedily make them known to the pope. To the utmost of my }iOwer, I will observe the pope's commands" {temporal of course and spiritual) "and I will make others observe them. And I will impugn and persecute all heretics, and all rebels, to my lord the pope."

Now, is there a man in our Republic, who does not see that such men, as the. priests and bishops, w^ho are the vassals of a foreign court, — and are sworn by an oath paramount to all other oaths, to act on such dangerous principles, — -can never be true citizens! To be republicans, is, on their part, absolutely impossible ! They are initiated into despotism : from their earliest habits, they are trained to despotism ; they are the vassals of that foreign, haughty, and turbulent despot, the pope; whose court has kept all Europe in confusion : and has involved all nations thereof in con- tmuous scenes of bloodshed, rapine,, and desolation, for upwards of twelve hundred years! They are the successors of those men who were the papal tools in doing this : and they come among us to re-enact the same scenes. I hold them up to our fellow citizens, as spies in our camp : as our deadly foes : bound together by a fearful oath, and pledge to a foreign power, to compass the ruin of civil and religious liberty ! I implore my fellow citizens to listen to the words of the famous Rucellai, the secre- tary of the government of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Tliis patriotic man, a Ro- man catholic^ was filled with indignation at the proceedings of those scourges of the

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liuman family, — the Romish priests. And he labored with the Grand Duke, to put down this insulting and heaven daring Bulla in Coena Domini. In the close of his spirited appeal to the Grand Duke, this faithful secretary says: — "The priests ought to be punished as transgressors of national laws» Their obedience to this Bull In Coena, should cease to operate as an excuse for them. That Bull is published every where; its principles are taught in the schools," — yes! and also in every popish seminary in the United States! "It is inculcated on the penitents by their confessors; it is demonstratively unjust: it is subversive of all the rights of sov-ereignty, of law, of good order, and of public ^tranquillity !" Nay, exclaims that faithful and distin- guished statesman, in allusion to the priestly oaths ; " That oath, is in fact, a solemn promise not only to be unfaithful to one's lawful government ; but even to betray it, as often as the Court of Rome's interests may render it necessary !" See Mem.oirs of Scipio de Ricci. ch. 3.

These are the atrocious principles of the men who are pouring in their legions of Jesuit priests on our shores! These are the outrageous principles, and politics of the men, who are rearing seminaries, and offering to teach Protestant children the true religion; and American republicans, sound jpolitics ! ! These are the revolutionizing" principles of men, who are looked upon with so much indifference, by some of out statesmen, and carressed as sound and worthy patriots, by others.

I lift my pleading voice ; and Mdth deep solemnity warn every christian ; every politician; every magistrate; and every statesman in the land, against these foreign emissaries, of a foreign despot! By your love of country ; — by the memory of your fathers who gallantly braved all dangers, and broke a foreign tyrant's cruel yoke ; — by the souls of your children, and those yet unborn, — I implore you, throw the shield of your mighty influence, over our free institutions, and liberties ; and ward off the fatal blow, aimed in a novel assault by the despotic powers of Europe! Study the history of Jesuitism ; jwpish supremacy, and its bloody deeds in Europe,— and tremble for your country's liberties ! This, I implore you to remember, is no sectional ques- tion ! It is no question of sectarianism : it is no question of even religion. It con- cerns every lover of liberty, and of his country, whatever be his creed, or politics. The broad question is this, — shall we sit quietl}' still, and see our country converted into an arena of Jesuitism, despotism, and blood-shed, like another Europe which has been the bloody arena of an atrocious tyranny! Or shall we, by every fair and honorable means — even by the weapons of light and truth, diive by one harmonious effort, the enemy from our schools, from our sanctuary, from our firesides, and fromourhappysbor.es!.

I am, Rev. Fathers, yours, &c.

w. e. B..

050 R0HA5 CATHOLIC COXTRGVZRsT.

LETTER XXXIII.

TO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP, A>'D THE LORD? EISHOPS OF THE ROMAV CATHOiKT CHURCH, !>' THE UMTED STATES.

On the Six G:znd Attributes of Popery. — Imp::nty, Impiety, Arrogaiice, Treachery.

Intohrcmce, and Cruelty.

•■'No great slaughter, and no notorious calamity hath ever happened, either to church, or atate. of Tvhich tlie bishops of Rome have not been the authors !" ^. Sylvius, afterwards-

pope Pius ii. in his Historia Ausiriee.

Revep^evd Fathers : — On the pages of the scriptares the rise andTeigttof a sic- gular Power are graphically delineated. It is manifestly distinguished, b^." Daniel in ch. vii. from the Jirsthea^, the Babylonian empire: and from the sccc-;id, the Median and Persian: and from the tJiird, the Grecian : and from the^wrt^. the Ro- man pagan empire. The singular power I allude to, is " the Little Horn," which sprans up among the ten horns." " It had eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great thing?.**

The apostle John also distinguishes it from the Beast rising up out of the sea : namely, the Roman empire pagan, rising amid the turbulent waves of the nations. Rev. xiii. I. This pagan power preceded tJieEeast I allude to. Rome pagan was* in the words of St. Paul, the power -which " no^w,"" — ^in his time, '* letteib and will let, until he be taken out of the way." 2 Thes. ii. 7. And this "letti;:g" power was "-taken out of the way," under the opening of the sixth seal, in the days cf Con- atantine. when paganism was overwhelmed, ana utterly destroyed : as a persecuting power.

It was upon this fall of the Beast, that John, in Rev. siii. 11. saw " anotber Beast coming up out of the earth, having two horns like a Iamb ; but speaking as a dragoa." This, by Paul, is called "•The Man cf Sin:" and by John, "Babylon the Great," — even a greater persecutor than the first Babylon. Now, these predictions cannot be referred to any pagan power.

The power foretold so minutely by Paul, arises out of '' the falling aicfiy," — that is, in the original Greek, — the cposiccy, from that which Paul taught : that is, tht apostacy from the christian faith. Hence it cannot be referred to any Pagan, or Mohammedan power. These never -were within the pale of the church; they can, in no sense, therefore, be the apostacy from the christian faith.

Now, where, within the name and limit of the christian world, shall we find a power ansTvering to the names and designation here presented to us, by Paul? I said, it is a power ; for it is evidently not applicable to 07ie man, or a few wicked men : nor to a mere moral, and theological society, such as that of Socinians, Arians, or Deists. It is a power clothed with civil power. It is a great poioer, which the Roman impe- rial government, as it existed in PauTs days, "did let," and "would let," until "removed out of the wa^'." This fact determines it to be some extensive cirii tyranny, as well as spiritual tyranny, or " apostacy'^ springing up, within the limits of the christian world. Now, there is not a power that has ever existed, or does ndw exist, in which this descriptiou can, with the least consistency be apphed, but one. And that is, — the Roman cathoUc hierarchy : the attributes of which are these.

First: liiPURiTT. He is ''the Man of Sin.' ^ The pope, his cardinals, and court

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321

Sre to a proverb, notoriously profligate.. Such writers as Baronius, Dupin, and Bower set this matter in the clearest Hght. Guicciardini, the historian, and secretary to Pope Leo X, when speaking of the popes of the 15th and 16th centuries, frankly avers that, " he v/as esteemed a good pope, who did not exceed in wickedness, the worst of men !" One pope (John xxiii.) was, by a council, convicted, says Labbeus, o^ forty crimes ! From the fountain head was spread like a mighty torrent, universal pollution and crime, over all Roman catholic countries. In fine, in addition to all that I have already exhibited, I refer to the statements of Cardinal Ambrosius of Ca- nadoli, who, in visiting his diocese " could not find even the traces of common decency in ths various convents." And those who wish to contemplate an honest portrait of the holy priests' morals, especially since celibacy^ the master device of the devil, and pope Gregory vii., was imposed on them, can consult Edgar's Variations of Popery, chap. 15. By chastity, the priests never mean what honest and pure christians mean. With priests it means no more than " the virtue of abjuring mar- riage ;" while every nameless enormity and shocking crime, which destroyed Sodom, is perpetrated, and even gloried in by those chaste fathers ! European and South American catholic countries groan under the licentiousness of these clerical profli- gates! I speak soberly when I affirm that church history sets them forth, in general; and those of Italy and Spain, in particular, as many degrees worse than the priests of pagan lands, in ancient or modern times ! And, as if personal pollution did not redeem their title given them by the Spirit of God, — namely, " the Man of Sin," — ihey actu- ally traffic in sin ! Hence, their indulgences to commit sin, and absolutions from old crimes, for money ! — Hence, " the Tax Book of the Holy Apostolical chancer f for- merly quoted by us, — in which is set down a regular papal tariff of the diiTerent crimes, absolved for money ; the greater crimes being always the most pro^ table to the treasury of the pope and his ravenous priesthood : and therefore, — though with a frown, — always the most gladly listened to at the confessional !

And it is not of Romish morals in the dark ages, that we speak. We point to the vicious morals of the present day, in Spain, Austria, France, and most especi::lly in Italy. For the nearer we come to the head quarters of his "Holiness," we pe ceive their atrocity increased in a frightful ratio. Eustace in his Classical Tour, vol. iii. 131, speaking of the notoriously depraved morals of Itftly, says, — "may the}^ not be ascribed to the corruptions of the national religion ; to the facility of ahsoluiio?! ; and to the easy purchase of indulgences?^^ "We saw a man at Tivoli," saj'^s a modern traveller, "who had stabbed his brother, who died in an hour, in agonies. The murderer went to Rome, purchased his pardon from the church, and received a v/ritten protection from a cardinal; in consequence of which he was walking about, uncon- cernedly, a second Cain, whose life was sacred." Graham's Three Month's Resi- dence &c. p. 34. "Those who have interest with the pope, may obtain an alsolutioiv in full, from his Holiness, for all the sins they have ever committed, or ma.y'^ choose to commit.''^ "I have seen one of these edifying documents," continues the traveller, "issued by the present pope, to a friend of mine." Rome in the 19th cc?itury, vol. ii.. p. 271.

Hence we are warranted in saying that the voice of sober history has distinctly pronounced that to no pagan, and to no other apostate religion, under the heavens, can the extraordinary title of " Man of Sin," be honestly and truly applied, than to the Romish church. It would be a positive breach of charity in a christiau, to apply it to a pagan, or any apostate religion, except the Roman hierarchy.

322 ROMAN CATHOLIC COJfTROVERSY.

The secotid, and third attributes of this power ar^ Impiety, and Arrogance, which I ahall examiae in connection. "He opposeth and exalteth himself above "^U &at is called God , or that is worshipped."

This dividej itself into a tvrofold count. First, " He opposeth all that is called God, and exalteth himself above all that is called God." Now let the Bible explain itself: magistrates are, on its sacred pages, called gods. " I said ye are gods." Now I revert to my first principle : this can refer to no Pagan, Jew, or Mohammedan power. Th?se grew out of no " apostacy" from Christianity. To a power within the limits of the christian world alone, is it applicable. But has the Roman hierar- chy done thi.s ihing that is here laid in the count? She has, and she is the rnilv j)ower within the christian world who has done so. What Pope Gregory Vil, rr rhe head of a Council decreed, has been the audacious practice of these lordly priesis ;— " The Pope OLigit to be called Universal Bishop; he alone ought to wear the tokens of Im- perial dignity; all princes ought to kiss his feet: he has power to depose emperors and kings, and is to be judged by none."

The Glossa upon Can. 2, Cap. 15, says — " the Pope can give dispensations against the gospel, the apostles, and the law of nature." Glossa, Cap. 4. Extra v. Johan- nis XXII. "Whosoever shall presumptuously venture to maintain, that our lord god the Pope, cannot thus decree, let him be holden as a heretic;" and Boniface in his bull, sa\ s— " God has set us up over kings and kingdoms, to root up and destroy ; whoso thinketh otherwise, we hold him as a heretic."

Pope Boniface VHI. concludes his famous Bull " Unam sanctam,^'' with the follow- ing words; — "Y/e, therefore, declare, say, define, and pronounc-3 it to be w;cjssar3/ to salvation, that every human creature should be obedient to the Roman ?ontiff." Sext. Deciet. extrav. lib. 1.

The church of Rome has never ceased to assert her temporal jurisuiciion over princes and magistrates. I refer you, Fathers, to the words of the counci; of Con- stance, fifteenth session: — "If any person shall presume to violate the statiites, and ordinances o^ the holy council, — he shall be deprived of all diginties, estates, honors, offices, and h* aefices, ecclesiastical or secular, whether he be emperor, king, cardinal, or pope." So al.-o do the council of Trent, Sess. 25. In the Bull of Q,rpen Eliza- heth's "damnation, and excommunication," pope Pius V. declares that "Aimighty God has appointed him, the pope, prince over all nations, and all kingdom.:?, ihat he may pluc^. up, destroy, scatter, ruin, plant, and build." See Camden's Hist. A. D. 1570.

I shall give a few extracts from "the Pope's Book of ceremonies." lb;:: singular book is in the library of Dublin college : it was shown to Mr. Finch, by Or. Saddler, librarirxii. It is entitled, — Sacrarum Ceremon. Rom. Eccles. Libri Tres.^'' Cologn. Edit. 1571. — " 1. The emperor shall hold the pope's stirrup. 2. The emperor shall Ifiad th© pope's horse. 3. He must bear the pope's chair on his shoulder. — 7. He shall carry the pope's first dish. 8. He shall carry the pope's first cup." Ses Finch, Rom. Controv. p. 312.

And these laws of the ghostly usurper are fully confirmed by history, which reveals how completely ^' the ten pov/ers" of all Europe surrendered their power to " the Beast:" and how every class of the magistracy has, by the pope, been insulted, maltreated, and degraded ! I cannot help noticing two classes of facts, which set this ia the clearest light* First, — Popes have deposed kings and emperors ; and even s^t their feet on their prostrate necks. Need I refer to king John of England, and

ROMAN CATHOLIC COKl^ROVERSY. 323

Henry IV. empefor of Germany ? iS'econc?,'^Fopes have audaciously suspended the laws of nations; have absolved subjects from their oath of allegiance to their lawful rulers; nay, the wretched priest, residing at Rome, has, for ages exacted tribute from kings, and their people, as his subjects. This was exacted under the canting name of Peter's pence, in Britain, Ireland, Spain, France, and the northern nations of Europe.

There was one item more, to fill up the features of *' the Man of Sin," as delineated by the hand of unerring inspiration. The pope has claimed supreme power over "these gods below," — the magistrates: but angels are "the gods above,"-~the rulers in heavenly places. The pope has filled up the full measure of the perfect likeness of "the Man of Sin ;" he claims supreme power also over the angels of heaven. For instance, pope Clement VI. in his bull for a jubilee, after having promised pardon of sins past, present, and to come, adds, (p« 2.) "Et mandamus angelis ut animam e purgatorio, penitus absolutam, in Paradisi gloriam introducaut. We command the an- gels to take his soul out of purgatory, wholly clear and absolved, and introduce it into the glory of Paradise." But, there is a second count in the indictment: — "The Man of Sin — exalteth himself above all that is worshipped." We admit that th« pagan emperor was styled Divus, and even " dominus deus, the lord god.'' I revert to the principle laid down. The power, is an Apostate power from chris" tianity. And we need only to open the pages of approved Roman writers to discover an overpowering evidence that the Romish church is here intended. " Our Lord god, the pope," is a common appellation of each pope. " Papa non est humo," the pope is not a man." " The pope holds the place of the true God." See Piihou 29 Canon law, Decret i. Tit. 7. cap. 3. Bellarmine in the famous passage, so often re- verted to, teaches the pope's absolute infallibility in laying down arUcles of faith ; and precepts of morals: and addsthat "if the pope could err, by enjoining vices, or prohibiting virtues, the church would be bound to believe that vices were virtues, and virtues, vices, unless she chose to sin against her conscience." J?e Pontif. Lib. IV. cap. 5. Among the first acts after a pope's election, is that called, the adoration oftht pope. We have an account of it by an eye witness, in Finch, p. 322. He is carried in by men, and placed on the great altar, in St. Peter's, where the host, their god, usually is laid ; and there as in Thibet this man god is adored, even as their host is adored! — Every man admitted to the pope at Rome must kneel down, and kiss hi« foot, as he salutes him with, — ^'Dominus noster deus, papa ! — 27<e Lord our god iht pope! And this godship is thus claimed by pope Clement VIL, and his cardinals, in their letter to Charles VI., of France : — " As there is only one God in the lieavens, so there cannot, and there ought not to be but one God on earth," — meanajg himself! See Troissard, Tom. iii. 147, folio.

But the arrogant claims of" the Son of perdition," are not confined to an array of divine titles. As a legislator does the arrogant blasphcn^er seat himself in God's throne: He has abrogated, as Ave have seen in a former letter, all God's ten com- mandments: to the one only object of divine worship, has he added a host of false gods; he has perverted both sacraments, and added five novelties to them: he juits the moiis m the place of Christs' atonement; and holy ivuter, and oulward rites of cleansing, in the stead of the Holy Ghost. Thus, has he cliangcd ihe laws and ordi- nances of the Most High, as far as his power can do it. And, as if venturing llie utmost daring, the unmatched blasphemer has set up his claims of right lo (he keys of hell, and uf heaven. He saves ; he rfam«5, when he will! I appeal to his Bulls of

324 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

excommunication, in proof of this. I open the book at random : I fall on the Bull of Pius v., against the Queen of England. In this, I have the proof of both points. He declares that his catholics alone are saved : he opens the gates of heaven to none but those of Holy Mother, — "extra quam nulla salus est: out of her, there is no sal- vation.''^ Hence he condemns the soul, as well as body; hence the title of the Bull of Pius v., against the Queen of England, — " the damnation of Queen Elizabeth." There was only one step more that he could go,^ — and that he has gone too. He lias actually set up his claim in a physical, as well as a rnoral sense, above " all that is worshipped." I allude to what I have again and again brought before the public. In every mass-house, the pope and his delegates, the priests, by muttering the con- secration words ^^ hoc est corpus meum,'^ convert a wafer into "the body and blood soul and divinity of Christ !" He and his lieutenants thus do create their Creator^ ten thousand times ! And having ten thousand times eaten, "their Creator," they again create him, ten thousand times more !

May I be permitted here to advert briefly to the graphic delineation of this poiver by St. Paul, in 1 Tim. iv. 1 — 4., in order to throw an additional illustration on these papal attributes, from that striking text? — It is a power which "-has departed from the faith,'" that is, the christian faith. Hence it cannot be referred to any pagan, or Jewish, or Mohammedan, or atheistic power. It is an apostate christian society. Now mark the full length, and perfect portrait, of popery ! First, it gives "heed to the doctrines of devils;" in Greek, demons. By demons is understood, according to the ideas of the ancients, that class of beings between the immortal God, and mortal men, that is, deified spirits of men ; that is, canonized saints ; elevated to the rank of Inferior worship.

Now, let any candid man, Roman catholic, or protestant, name a power, within the limits of the christian world, which has set up canonized saints, and also angels, for worship, besides the Romish church. Who is it that has its altars reared to them, its shrines, its images, and temples? The Romish church. Who has its enshrined relics for adoration ? The Romish church. V/ho burns its incense before an innu- merable host of gods and goddesses, surnamed saints? The Romish church.

Second : It is said of this apostacy from the faith, that it shall forbid to marry,^'' Among the fanatical pagan priests, ancient and modern, in the Eastern world, the state of celibacy has been bepraised to the skies, Justin proportion to their lewdness; and marriage has been, of course, forbidden. But this passage of Paul refers only to those who "/larf departed from the christian faith." To no pagans, therefore, can it be applied. Now what power is it, within the christian v/ord, that foioids marriage? Do you Fev. Fathers, and your chaste priests answer, by an extract from your vow of chastity. Why do you not marry, like other honest men ? Why,— the answer is written on 3rour forehead, and in 3^our morals,™ because you obey that diabolical APOSTACY, which "forbids to marry."

Third: This apostate pov/er commands "to abstain from certain meats, which God hath created." Now, determining the meaning of this by the principle already- laid down, what power within the whole range of Christendom, commands "to abstain from meats ;" and makes this abstaining from meats, a portion of its religion ? Let our learned priests answer the question, who would pronounce their terrific anathema on their followers, and doom even to hell fire all those who would dare to eat meat in Lent, and on Fridays, and until lately, on Saturdays. To the Roman hierarchy is this descriptive prophesy wholly applicable ; and to it alone. Henee

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 325

the Roman church is that impious Man of Sin, and arrogant Son of perdition, spoken of by Paul.

Thus far have we treated of the first three attributes of popery.

I am, Rev. Fathers, yours, &c. W. C. B.

LETTER XXXIV.

TO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP, AND THE LORDS BISHOPS, OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, IN THE UNITED STATES.

On the Six Grand Attributes of Popery, — Impurity, Impiety, Arrogance, Treachery^

Intolerance, and Cruelty.

** Art thou that traitor angel, art thoM he,

Who first broke peace in heaven, and faith, till then

Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms

Drew after him the third part of Heaven's sons

Conjured against the Highest?" Miltok.

Reverend Fathers : — The fourth grand attribute of popery, is Treachery ; to this I beg your usual indulgent attention. Jesuitism was revived by Pope Pius vii. in 1814 ; and Jesuitism in its primitive virulence, is poured forth in a wide inunda- tion, over our land, by the spiritual despots of Italy, France, and Austria. And every one knows that Jesuitism is now a regular classical English M'ord for Treachery.

1st. I shall quote a few specimens of their avowed moral tenets, in addition to what has been formerly quoted by us.

" They do not falsify, who to replace a lost title of heirship, forge another." Sa, Aphor. p. 150. — "If any one promised, or contracted, without intention to promise; and is called, upon oath, to answer, he may simply answer. No. And he may swear to this denial, by secretly understanding that he did sincerely promise ; or that he did promise without any intention to acknowledge it." Suarez Ju. Precept Lib. 3. cap. 9. p. 473. " A person may take an oath that he has not done such a thing» though he has, in fact, done it, by saying to himself, it was not done on a certain day; or, before he was born, &c." — Sanchez, Oper. Moral precept. Decal. pars 2 ; Lib. 3. cap. 6. No. 13 — '* He who is not bound to tell the truth before swearing, is not bound by his oath ; provided he makes the inttrnal restriction that excludes the present case." Charli, Prop. G. p. 8. "A priest is not bound to declare the truth before a lawful judge ; for a priest cannot be forced to testify before a secular judged Taberna, vol. ii. p. 288. " The rebellion of a ])riest is not treason, for Catholic priests are not subject to civil government.'^ Em. Sa. Aphor. p. 41. And here is the sentiment of Bellarmine, which every priest in the United States is solemnly sworn on the cross, to believe, and to carry into practice, whenever it is practicable, "on pain of damnation," — "The spiritual power must rule the temporal by all sorts of means, and expedients that may seem necessary." " The pope — potest mutare reg- na &[yC. can change kingdoms ; can take away power from one ])rince, and give it to another, in his character as chief spiritual Prince." "Thepopo cannot, as pope, enact and annul laws, ordinarily, as if he were a ])oli(ical prince: he can enact civil laws and confirm them, or abolish them, if such be necessary to the salvation of souls,

29

326 ROiL\?f CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

and kings be unwilling to enact them." '"The ci\'il power is subject to the spiritual; fotestas civilis suhjecta est potesiati spirituali : therefore, the spiritual prince, the pope can rule over temporal princes, and magistrates. In every case, must the spiritual, which is the superior, bear rule over the temporal, which is inferior." See Bell. De Pontif. Lib, v. cap. 6, 7. p. p. 1094, 1095., of my copy. I beg to give a few more specimens.

" The pope can annul, and cancel every possible obligation arising from an oath." Lessius, Lib. ii. cap. 42. p. 632. "A man condemned by the pope," — (such as a Jew, a Protestant, a deist.) may be killed wherever he is found." Lo Croix, vol. i. p. 294. " A child may steal from his father, as much as the father would have given to a stranger, for compensation." Escobar. Theol. jVloral. vol. iv. p. 348. "Servants may steal from their masters as much as they judge their labor worth, more than the wages they receive.'* Cardenas, Cris. Theol. Diss. 23. cap. 2. p. 474. And Lud. Molina, Vol. ii. p. 1150. (My copy is the Mentz Edit, of 1614.) --It is lawful to kill an accuser, whose testimony may jeopard your life or honor." Esco- bar, Theol. Moral, vol. iv. p. 274. '* Licet procurare abortum, ne puella gravida infametur." &:c. Marin. Theol. vol. iii. p. 428. This I must not translate. "If a man become a nuisance to society, the son may lawfully kill his father.'" Dicastilloj Lib. ii. p. 290. Such is a mere gleaning of their atrocious tenets. And in the redu- cing of them to practice they are moU faithful in ever\- element of their treachery! The histor\' of all the governments of Europe, who have all in their turns, expelled ihem, tes*ify to this I And the faithful historian of future America, if ever, by the wrath of G jd, they gain the ascendancy here, will bear an appalling testimony to the same melancholy truths ; in the tears, and assassinations, and massacres of our chil- dren's children I

From these avowed tenets, it is easy to see that a Roman catholic can take any oath, be it before a civil court, or the oath of allegiance, and yet never design, in sober truth, to consider himself loand by it! Yes, my fellow citizens; and he is quite con- sistent on his principles ; for he has two ways of escaping as the deluded man beheves, without peijnry resting, in its damning guilt, on his soul. First; by mental reservation. Second, by the priest's power to absolve him from it. There is another and a practical way to evade their oath. A friend of mine was present one day, when a Roman catholic, in New York, boasted that he had voted at th rue different poles : and took the oath thrtt times, that he was a citizen, and had resided the requisite time m each of the three wards, at ones: "I caught them," said the Jesuit, "thus : I put my thumb across the holy sign of the cross, on the book ; and kissed my thumb ! And (hat you know, is no oath at all, — at all !" T^his, as observers see, is no uncommon thins: with our Romans, in our civil, and criminal courts !

2d. " Keep nx) faith with heretics," is a regular dogma, and a solemn doctrine of the Roman catholic church, i

The denial of this has, lately, been repeated by a venerable citizen in Philadel- phia. Will sober readers of histon.^ believe it that such a man as Mr. C. gravely denies it ? No man can question Mr. C's. honor or sincerity'. It is purely his want of knowledge of the Roman catholic standard doctrines that has led him to the rash as- sertion.

He has appealed, it is true, to the answers of the famous foreign XTniversities, to the questions proposed bv the late Mr. Pitt. These grave societies, combining all the learning, and honor of the Romish world, really affect to start with horror at the bare

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 327

suspicion of their Holy Mother ever having held, or taught that " no faith must be kept with heretics!" They all flatly and solemnly deny that their church ever held it, or ever taught it. And they even lay these denials before the British government!

Here, again, Mr. C. betrays his painful ignorance of the manners and besetting sin of all Roman ecclesiastics : I do not say lay gentlemen, but oi^ priests, under whose Jesuitism those Universities are sordidly enchained. No shrewd politician, nor chris- tian is deceived by these answers, for one moment. Every body read in history, and in popish Bulls, canons, and theology, as the professors of these same Universities are, know in the most perfect manner, that there is no truth whatever in their re plies to Mr. Pitt. These were uttered merely for effect , and did any one yet ever hear the criminals at the bar reply otherwise than not guilty, to the usual question put to them. Mr. Pitt as a well read man, could expect no other answer; and he got no other, than what these ghostly criminals ch.os& to give, " we plead not guilty. ^^

Now I shall go directly to the decretals and the pope's bureau, and to historical documents. Will you follow me, Fathers, while I try your pleas of not guilty of ever holding the dogma *' That no faith is to be kept with heretics.''*

Gregory VII. in a council at Rome, declares, " We, following the statutes of our predecessors, do, by our apostolic authoriiy, absolve all those from their oath of fidelity, who are bound to excommunicated persons, either by duty or oath; and we unloose them from every tie of obedience, till the excommunicated persons have made proper satisfaction." Decret. 2 part. cans. 15. quest. 6.

Urban II. teaches the same doctrine. "You are to discharge the soldiers," says he, " who have sworn fidelity to Count Hugo, from paying any obedience while he is excommunicated : for they are not obliged to keep that fidelity inviolate, which they have sworn to a christian prince, who opposes God, and his saints, and despises their precepts." — Ibid.

Gregory IX. has laid down the general principle with the utmost care and pre- cision. "Be it known to all who are under the dominion of heretics, that they are set free from every tie of fidelity and duty to them; all oaths or solemn agreement to the contrary notwithstanding.'''' Decret. Greg. lib. 5. tit. 7.

Clement XI. being enraged at the treaty of Alt-Rhastat, says in his Brief to the emperor Charles VI,, " We denounce to you, and, by the authority given us, by the Most Almighty God, do declare the covenants of that treaty, &c. &c. to be, de jure, null and void, invalid, unjust, reprobated, ^c. ; that no person is bound to the observ^ ation of them, or any of them, although the same have been repeatedly ratified, or secured by an oath ; and they neither could nor ought to have been, nor can nor ought to be, observed by any person whatsoever," &-c.

Here are a few more gleanings from the papal decretals, — Martin V. in his epistle to the Duke of Lithuania says, — "Be assured thou sinnest mortally, if thou keep thy faith with heretjcs." St, Thomas Aquinas is of the same opinion, " that a catholic might deliver over an intractable heretic to the judges, although he had solemnly pledged his faith to him ; and even confirmed it by the solemnity of an oath." Bruce's Free Thoughts, &c. p. 119.

Bonacir^o says, — " Contracts made against the canon law, are invalid, even though confirmed by an oath ; and a \i)nn is nr)t bound to stand by his promise, even though he had sworn it." Pope Pius V, taught the einperor, and exhorted him, — "Noc fidem, &c. Tijat no faith, nor oaths were to be kept with an inlidel." Poj)o Innocent VIIL in his edict against the Waldenscs, in A, D. 1487, declared, as the vicar of

328 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

God, that — "all those persons who had been bound by any contract whatever, to grant, or pay any thing to them, should not be under any manner of obhgation, to do so, for the time to come."

And, Fathers, what pope, and general council openly avouched that no faith must be kept with heretics? Innocent IV., and the council of Lyons, when they deposed the emperor Frederick II., and absolved his subjects from their oath of allegiance to their lawful prince ! Who avouched that no faith must be kept with heretics ? That pope who absolved the subjects of king John from their lawful oath of allegiance! Who avowed that no faith must be kept with heretics? Pope Pius V. who doomed Ehzabeth, and set her subjects free from iheir oath to their lawful sovereign ! Who was guilty of that doctrine of devils that no faith is to be kept with Jews, Turks, or heretics? That ghostly villain, pope Clement VII., w^ho dispensed with the corona- tion oalh of the king of Spain, the emperor Charles V., in the year 1524; and com- pelled that prince in the face of the world, to break his faith pledged by oath, to protect the Moors; and thence to turn that whole race, in Spain, over to the infernal Inqui- sition ! See the Spanish Hist, of this period : and Geddes' Works on popery, vol. i. p. 36. 39.

x\nd to suit the orihodoxy of those who judge a council superioi to the pope, 1 beg leave to say that this dogma has been settled by the decree, and by the practice, of a general council of your church. The council of Constance, in 1414, did solemnly decree tliat "no faith shall be kept with heretics." Here are their words: — "The person who has given them the safe conduct to come thither, shall not, in this case, be obliged to keep his promise, by ivhatever tie he may have been engaged, when he has done all that has been in his power to do.'^ Bruce, Free Thoughts, p. 120.

Nor was this a bold theory in the brains of licentious priests. It was, with that savage ferociousness, the usual characteristic of Romish priests, reduced into practice, in a horrible tragedy in Europe. The immortal John Huss had come to this council under the solemn pledge, and safeguard of the emperor Sigismund. These ghostly judges, amid their revellings, and debauchery, found a brief space of relaxation, to condemn the holy man as a heretic. They doomed him to the flames ! The emperor interposed : pleaded his safeguard that had been pledged to Huss, on his royal honor. Of all beings that walk the face of God's earth, the priests of a false religion, are the most desti lute of honor, common decency, and the bowels of pity. Charles V., at a later day, had the resolution to reject with a noble firmness, the pleas of the inhuman assassins, who sought Luther's blood, with an appetite as keen as that of a New Zealand cannibal! When pleading with him, and urging with indecent zeal, that no faith should be kept with heretics, he nobly replied to the savage teachers of Jesuit morals, " What ! when good faith is banished from the earth, — ought it not to be found with an emperor !"

But, alas! for John Huss, — Sigismund had not this honor nor firmness. He yielded to the spiritual assassins of the council of Constance, and Huss was consigned alive to the flames! And shortly after him, also, Jerome of Prague / The council of Trent formally recognized the decrees of Constance. Hence this doctrine "of keep- ing no faith with heretics," is as much a regular dogma of the Romish church, as is the mass, or purgatory, or the pope's supremacy.

I conclude the specimens of Treachery with the following extracts from " The oath of secrecy devised by the Roman clergy, as it remains on record in Paris, among the

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sociefy of Jesuits." It is copied from a collection of papers by Archbishop Usher. It exhibits to x^rnerican citizens, the stcret oath, by which all Jesuits are bound to the pope, and their foreign superiors. I beg the attention of every christian, and patriot in the land, to this document.

Secret Oath. — "In the presence of Almighty God, and of all the saints, to you, my ghostly father, I do declare that his holiness, pope , is Christ's vicar- general, and the only head of the universal church throughout the earth : and that by virtue of the keys given him by my Savior, Jesus Christ, he hath jpoiver to depose heretical kings, princes, states, commonwealths, and governments ; all being illegal, without his sacred confirmation ; and that they may safely be destroyed. Therefore I, to the utmost of my power, shall and ivill defend this doctrine, and his holiness^ rights and customs against all usurpers,''^ &c.

'^Ido renounce and disoicn any allegiance as due to any heretical king, prince, state, named Protestants, or obedience to any of their inferior magistrates, or officers.'^

" I do further promise and declare that notwithstanding / am dispensed with, to aS' sume any religion heretical, for the propagation of the Mother church's interest, — to keep secret and private all her agent's counsels," &c.

"All which I, A. B. do swear by the blessed Triuity, and the blessed sacrament, which I am, now, to receive. And I call all the heavenly and glorious hosts above, to witness these my real inten'ions, to keep this my oath. In testimony hereof, I take this most blessed sacrament of the eucharist, and set to my hand, and seal." Such is the secret oath of our Jesuits, so long in use, and never revoked to this day, by their superior, or the pope. Such is the infernal oath by which the Jesuits, and other household troops of the Roman catholic powers of Europe, now pouring in upon us, are banded together in their present conspiracy against our republic, and our holy religion !

May the God of our fathers, in his compassion, awake our fellow citizens to a sense of their real, and appalling danger, and turn into confusion the counsels of the leaders of this hellish plot against our country. And to this none can refuse their hearty Amen, but spiritual tyrants, and conscious traitors.

I am, my Lords Bishops, yours, &c. W. C. B.

LETTER XXXY.

TO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP, AND THE LORDS BISHOPS OF THE ROMAN CATHOt,lC CHURCH, IN XVLW UNITED STATES.

On the Six Grand Attributes of Pojyery, -^Impurity, Impiety, Arrogance, T'reachery^

intolerance, and Cruelty.

"No illusion is more diuigoions than to make toleration of religious sects, a mark of the true chiiroli !" — Bassitrt, Oeucrcs, Tom. Hi. 411.

Reverend Fathers: — I au) (juito uwaro that your good sense approves my direct appeals to documents, instead of assertions, and declamation : let us then go on. The Fifth attrihule of your church is Intolerance. This and Cruelty, has ever been your eminently characteristic marks. And this struck the eye of the holy John in vision.

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He saw "the scarlet colored Beast," bearing along in stately procession, the woman of Babylon in fiery scarlet colors, drunk with the blood of the saints, and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." Now, this is not fulfilled, ultimately, in the scarlet robed pope, and his scarlet chair, his scarlet robed priesthood on Maunday Thursdays; and the scarlet robed cardinals, with their scarlet hats, their scarlet chariots, and scarlet horse trappings! This we enumerate among the striking coincidents of the case. It looks to a deeper, a more atrocious, and damning attribute of popery, which we are now to consider.

Boniface VII., in Extra vagantes, declares the principle on which all papists be- lieve and act; namely, — "Omnes Christi fideles, &c. It is necessary to salvation that all christians should be subject to the pope." " Papa est, &c. The pope is monarch of all christians; he is supreme over all mortals." Bzovius, De Pontif. Roman Col. Agrip. cap. 1, 3, J 6, 32, and 45.

The present pope keeps alive this intolerant dogma, in our day. "On the holy See," says Gregory XVI., "do the churches depend for support, and vigor!" (En- cyc. Letter.) In this Bull, he denounces freedom of opinion, as "a senseless free- dom." "He, alone, has the dispensation of the canons: he, alone, decides on the rules of the sanction of the fathers." Hence neither priest, nor layman, neither sovereign, nor council, can dictate to him, in temporals, or spirituals ! He pronounces "liberty of conscience an absurd and erroneous opinion, a delirious conceit!" He holds up the freedom of the press, every where, to catholic indignation, " a never- to-be-sut^ciently execrated liberty of booksellers!" He is "horror-stricken," at the spread of knowledge: it is his deadliest foe. And, thus, in the nineteenth century, the po])ere news the sentiment preached three centuries ago, by the vicar of Croy- don,— namely, " We must root out printing, or printing will root us out I'" He ap- plauds the salutary Index Expurgatorius, by which all our theological works, and almost all our classical English authors, are prohibited!

Your council of Trent, Sess. 4, prohibited " the free and promiscuous reading of the holy scriptures, — as causing more evil than good/' Hence, the Romish church places the holy Bible in the Index, — not merely Protestant translations, but their otvn Douay, and all other versions in any vernacular, as prohibited books, not to be read by any man, without a written license from a bishop."

Your pope Pius VII., issued his Bull against Bible societies in 1816; and pro- nounced them " a shocking and most crafty device, to sap the very foundations of religion." See a copy of this Bull, in Glasg. Prot. Amer. Edit. vol. i. ch. 33.

In short, cast your eyes over Roman catholic lands. There your pope prohibits, under pain of death, all Protestants to. teach their religion, wherever he has control. Your pope, and the priest-ridden despots of Europe, prohibit every man from uttering under the penalty of the dungeon, even an opinion against your church, or the govern- ment !

Romish lands are the lands of white slaves! The very soul is in chains. Your church, and her sons, the civil despots, have a system of passports, by which you know the movements of every man in the land; they have their espionage, and tlieir armed police, at the appoach of which, liberty sickens and dies. These minions rush into any man's house ; seize his papers, and letters, and drag the sus- pected to dungeons ! The habeas corpus law, — which is dear to every freeman's soul, lias no name, nor place in popish lands. They have their secret inquisitions to cure Keresy, and stop the progress of light, and science. True, The Grand Inquisition is

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no more. But every Romish bishop is the inquisitor in his own diocese, in our land, and in Europe !

In a word, no man in your communion is allowed to read, or even to think, for himself on religion. " I think it is so," said a young medical student, a Roman catholic, at the confessional, — "You think," exclaimed the confessor, in a voice choked with fury, " what right have you to think ? Let me never catch you think- ing again !" He is now a man, and a Protestant ; and was lately, if he is not still, in this city.

In short, no slave in all the Indies, — no galley slave chained to his oar, no wretched victim chained in the inquisitor's cell, is more chained down, in body, than is the genuine papist chained down in soul, conscience, and thought, by an outrageous and villainous priest, to the pope's galley oar! We pity and deplore his case from our souls. And no tyrant's or usurper's fall, do we pray for, and toil, more, to accomplish, than the prostration, and annihilation of prfesicra/i .' Oh! Lord Jesus, how long! Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!

Such, Fathers, as you know, is the uncompromising spirit of popery ; unmingled, and strong in its elements of malignity ; without any one counteracting, or neutrali- zing principle of clemency to the species ! And it breathes this ferocious spirit into the most devoted of its victims. And as the lower order in every community, are the most abjectly priest-ridden, this spirit shows itself in them, just in proportion as the light and influence of Protestantism, science, and piety, have shed none of their transforming elficacy upon them.

Hence, the melancholy and deplorable condition of the middling, and especially, the lower order, in three, out of the four provinces in Ireland, in Italy, Spain, and the Roman Catholic cantons of the Swiss! The native genius of these people is equal to that of any people under heaven. There is not a nobler, kinder, more generous, or more gifted soul than that of an Irishman, or the descendant of the Gaul, of the Swiss, or the ancient and immortal Homan! But, alas! behold the accursed, the deadly influence of popery on them ! It chains them hand and foot, and throws ihem back into ihe darkest days of the darkest ages!

It is an axiom of truth, established by the luminous evidence of history, and experience, that no class of our species, bears a nearer likeness to the Author of all false religions, than the priests of false religions. And, as popery, if we receive the testimony of St. Paul, is "in its coming," in a pre-eminent manner, " after the working of Satan, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness," of course, its priesthood, and its priestcraft bear, in all points, a superior resemblance to its supernatural fabricator ! Unrelent- ing malignity has ever been their prominent, and, I fear, their boasted, and cherish- ed attribute ! Hence the Inquisitionl Hence persecution, terrific, refined in cruelty, lavish in its horrid devices, and imj)lements, persevering, and diabolical, on the part of those who, in their illiberal, and exclusive views, call themselves Catholics J And all this has been to an extent, unknown, in number, as well as degree of viru- lence, even in pagan persecutions! Did the pagans ever conceive an inquisition? Did the pagans create the monster, called an inquisitor 1 Did the pagans ever conceive the idea of the hell and tortures of a Spanish inquisition ? No, never! They are guiltless of all these !

It was in the pro])hetic vision of this bloody attribute of ])opcry, that John " won- dered with great admiration!" He saw mystic Babylon "drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." Had it been Rome pagan that

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was presented to view, John would not have wondered, with any great admiration! It was nothing more than what was expected from the hatred of such pagan empe- rors, and pagan soldiers. But there were two reasons why the apostle was over- whelmed with amazement. Here, before his eye, was a society, in name thristian^ ^^ church of Christ :^^ — by its own avowal, "the only church of Christ," "drunk with the blood of the saints, and the blood of the mart3TS of Jesus !" And then, a sect, christian by its own avowal, yet more cruel, more unrelenting, more perse- vering in persecution, than the most relentless of the pagan powers ! " A church, call- ing itself the church of Christ," murdering its te7is of thousands for their religion, for every hundred, murdered in the pagan persecution !

This leads me to the Inquisition, and Persecution by the Romish church.

I am, my Lords Bishops, yours &c. W. C. B.

LETTER XXXVI.

TO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP, AND THE LORDS BISHOPS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, IN THE UNITED STATES.

Cruelty an Essential Attribute of Popery.

" Go to your bloody rites again — bring back

The hall of horrors, and the assessor's pen

Recording answers shrieked upon the rack ;

Smile o'er the gaspings of spine-broken men;

Preach — perpetrate damnation in j^our den ;

Then let your altars, ye blasphemers! peal

With thanks to heaven, that let you loose again

To practice deeds with torturing fire and steel

No eye may search, — no tongue may challenge, or reveal."

Thomas Campbell, On the Inquisition.

Reverend Fathers : — I am indebted for your patient attention to these investi- gations. But I am not indebted to you. Had I been in the land of Romish catho- licity, su'ch as your Spain, or Italy, I should likely, have had your company in the deepest dungeon of the inquisition ; and there have been pur!^uing my discussions on " the Beast," by the glare of the familiar's lurid torch : and b}- the judicious help of the torturer by fire and water, and the rack! Blessings on our cherished country! Blessings on our beloved republic! Tyranny, ghostly, or civil, cannot live, nor move, nor breathe here ! May it be so for ever ! And let the frost of death paralyze the tongue of the guilty traitor, who refuses to say, — Amen !

The sixth attribute of popery, is cruelty. This divides itself into two counts. It shows this infernal attribute by the Inquisition ; and by Persecution.

Part First, — The Inquisition. — The Papacy, you know. Fathers, is a system which has ever had, for its object, unbounded power, amid the potentates of the earth. This has been its one great aim. The christian religion had the misfortune to be laid hold upon by it, merely as a pretext to gain power. Every man, — every tyrant has used one means, or another, to gain wealth and power. One man trades in gold and diamonds: another in baubles, and jugglery. The all absorbing aim of unprincipled men is one ; — namely, wealth and influence. One tyrant employs

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333

arms ; and boasts with Alexander, and the Romans, that he gives nations liberty and peace, after he has plundered, and desolated the land. Mohammed set up a new- religion, simply to gain power. If he could have bent to his purpose, the christian system, as successfully as the papacy, the Arabian impostor would have spared the infliction of the alkoran on the world. And he would have marched through seas of blood with the Bible, in the one hand, instead of the alkoran; and his scymetar, in the other. But the genius of his voluptuous Arabs, prevented this. The late empe- ror of France was a Jew with the Jews, a Protestant with the Protestants ; a Roman catholic when he compelled the infallible father, Pius VII, to crown him ; and a Mohammedan in Egypt! The truth is this, these men were atheists. And not one soul of them cared for the ivare in which he trafficed, if he only gained his ambitious object. Alexander, and the Romans, cared no more for "the liberty, or peace" of nations; or Napoleon for "islamism;" or the juggler for his baubles and tricks, or Mohammed for his alkoran, than the papacy, for the christian religion! Each tyrant has a design upon the species; each tyrant climbs to a crown by his own ladder : and his object gained, he is the first to kick it aside, as a thing never cared for of itself.

The papacy gained its ascendency by chaining down the human intellect and con- science. To accomplish this, our ghostly tyrants seized upon the form of the christ- ian religion, the purest, and most holy, and only religion, vouchsafed to us from heaven ; and that which has the mightiest influence on the conscience, from its exhi- bitions of eternity, its reward, and its punishments. The pope usurps the throne of the Deity; and sitting in the temple of God, he deals out glory, and damnation, as he is in the humor. He erects a purgatory to make an easy way to heaven for evil men and knaves, and to create a revenue of money, wrung from the ignorant, guilty, and trembling wretch ! He deals out its " fires," "waters," its " steam-baths" to each culprit, in a charitable manner, and a charitable measure, just as he is able to pay. He takes heaven into his own hand; turns the Holy One away; places his Virgin Mary on the throne, and opens heaven, and sells glory, to the highest bidder, and the richest knaves !

All this enormity, which throws Satan's inventions in the dark pagan world, en- tirely into the shade, has poured in enormous revenues. All Europe, all ranks from the king to the beggar, were his tributaries. x\nd the priests, monks, and friars, and nuns were his tools and paunders; his militia; and his lax gatherers! And by his ghostly ware, and traffic in religion, he has gained more riches, and more power, than Mohammed did by his alkoran ; or Alexander by his Greeks ; or Csesar by his Romans !

Now, to consolidate this system, the pope knew that it was essential to check every thing like liberty of thought, and the rights of conscience. To get, and to keep pos- session of his revenues, he knew that he must keep the souls of all Europe, in chains.

This he has labored to efl'ectby two prominent and truly satannic means. By the Index Ex pur gatorius, he keeps the Bible, and every valuable book from the subjects of his kingdom of darkness, and des|)otism. In other words, he employs ignorance, palpable as the darkness of Egypt, to chain man down. In this darkness he keeps men " from rising from their seats ;" and the gloom of their cells. The otlier wea- pon of hell is the Inquisition! "It is essential tosalvation," — that means, in other words, — " It is essential to his fleecing men of their liberty and property, that all men bo under the pope's power." — And the Inquisition may be defined, — That tri-

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I

bunal, the joint invention of ttie devil, and the pope, whereby men are punished, in an exemplary, and, to the pope, a very lucrative manner; for the deadly sin of obey- ing their Maker, by exercising the faculties of their own souls; and thinking differ- ently from the Roman catholic religion i

The Inquisition has three degrees in its rise, and progress. In the council of Verona, in 1184, Pope Lucius constituted each bishop f/ic Inquisitor, or "The heresy hunter," in his own diocess.

But when those, whom the despot was pleased to call heretics, and who, in fact, were true and enlightened christians, rejecting with indignation the idolatrous svstem of popery, had increased in an incredible degree, the popes, in the beginning of the I3th century, in order to check them, sent delegates into these parts where his power was so unceremoniously i-rampled down. These sanguinary miscreants, such as Castelnau, and Dominic, preached down hereby. And their wretched sophisms utterly failing to make men of sense apostatise from christianit}', to popery, — tbey look on ihem, without the leave of bishop, or magistrate, to Inflict capital punishments upon their victims !

But the Inquisition was perfected in its terrific power, when the emperor Frederic ii, and Louis ix, sirnamed Saint Louis, king of France, lent their authority to esta- blish this tribunal : and when the magistracy was converted into a tool of the priests to enact legalized murders, on men, simply for their opinions in religion. Then Europe exhibited the novel and outrageous spectacle. — to use the words of Dr. Jortin, " of the priest being the judge, and kings the hangmen !"

Such has, in fact, been the true relation of the crowned heads of Europe, and in- deed, of the magistracy, to the pope of Rome, and his sanguinary- army of priests. The pope having usurped unlimited power over every crowned head ; and these ignorant and effeminate animals, called kings, and emperors, having in their treach- ery to God, and their subjects, *' yielded up their power to the Beast," and lamely put their necks under his. heel, they became the pope's spies and hangmen.' Nay! the whole magistracy for several generations, became "the hangmen," of the Inqui- sition; and the royal armies, the hired executioners of whole provinces, and cities, in vast, and wide-spread massacres! All this was done at the nod of an upstart, and wretched priest, who succeeded in deceiving the world into a persuasion that he was a christian : and God's vicar general, in St, Peter's chair I Hence, we know how to reply to the papal sophistry, on the lips of priests, within Protestant lands, — " Our church inflicts no civil pains, the civil magistrate, alone, puts these criminals to death :" and " their blood is no more the blood of the saints, and martyrs, than the blood of thieves, man-killers, and other malefactors: for the shedding of which, by order of justice, no commonwealth shall answer." Rhemish Annot. Revel, xvii, 6»

At the bidding of the pope, four edicts were issued by the emperor Frederick II. In the first he asserts, the divine right of kings " to wield the material sword, given to them separately from the priesthood, against the enemies of the faith, for the extirpa- ting of heretical pravity." "We shall not suffer," says he,'-^"the wretches to live, who infect the world with their doctrines." He then fixes the horrible punish- ment for heretics ; namely, — death in the most appalling forms, by rack, and fire, and sword : and their goods to be confiscated, their children to be disinherited^ and their memory, and their children, to be held infamous forever !" No heretic, that is a dissenter from popery, could make a will; nor receive any properly, by succession, or inheritance. Pope Innocent YIIL, in his edict of 1437, enacted that ^'catholics

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miglit seize upon, and possess the goods of heretics : that if bound to them by contract, it must not be fulfilled ; if indebted to them, they must not pay debts." William the Conqueror, in his devotion to Rome, enacted that "no man should buy, or sell, who refused allegiance to the apostolic see." And pope Alexander III. issued his bull that, — "No man should traffic with the Waldenses." And the council of Constance uttered their anathema "on all who should dare to enter into contracts, or engage in commerce with heretics." And the Inquisitors were the ministers of vengeance, charg- ed with the execution of these sanguinary laws.

So completely did these enemies of God, and his church, fulfil, unconsciously, even to the letter, the prediction respecting antichrist, in Rev. xiii. 15, 16. " The image of the Beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the Beast, should be killed. And that no man might buy, or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the Beast !"

Such were the origin and the laws of this infernal tribunal, which had, under Satan, pope Innocent III. for its founder, and one of the saints of the calendar, St. Dominic, for its earliest inquisitor. It was fully in operation in Ital}^, in 1251. It was gradually extended into other countries, and the executioners and tormentors in " The Holy Office," were always Dominican friars, a class of men destitute of the bowels of humanity !

In some countries, they never were able to establish this court, by all their efforts ; for instance, in England, Scotland, and Ireland. In France, it was forced on the people: but soon were the miscreants and their tribunal banished with indignation. In Germany, the exasperated people drove these minions of popery from their towns; and, more rigorous than the French in their law of retaliation, the first inquisitor, Conrad of Marpurg, was cut to ])ieces by the ungovernable populace. In Spain, and Portugal, "this scourge, and disgrace to humanity has, for centuries, glared like a monster, with its frightful aspect." At Rome it was generally most tolerant! For Rome acts on judicious principles. Gold and power are its only deity. And she knows that a rigid Inquisition would dry up the fountains of wealth poured in by strangers and travellers. In Europe, while each bishop's Inquisition is in full ope- ration, the Grand Inquisition is suspended in its operations. But it has never been condemned, not even disapproved of; and its crimes of murder and butchery have never been atoned for, never even deplored, by the papal church, in Europe, or the United States ! Hence, it is manifest that on each priest's head, who walks our streets, rest the atrocious guilt, and blood of the Inquisition, until he re])enls, and makes reparation to outraged human nature. But Holy Mother, and her })riests, never can repent of her deeds, as a church ; for in that case, she avouUI nduilt that she has been in error; and they would lose the caste oi^ infallibility !

The Inquisitorial /my took its rise out of the ignorance and brutality of the Domini- can monks. "They were entirely ignorant," as Mosheim justly remarks, "of all judicial proceedings, and sound law. They knew only the tribunal of penance ; where men testify against, mid for themselves. On this they modelled the laws of the ln(juisition." Hence these laws are " in many respects, contrary to the common feelingsof huirianlty ; and tlu; plainest dictates of e(]uity and jiistic(\"

"The IiKjuisitor," exhibits tlie sp(>ciii!en of a human being, made in (iod's image, destitute of the least feelingsof Inimaniiy ; and a consumniai(> lui;i\e. He smiles on the most horrible torments of a IcUow being: the groans of bleeding, laccraled, and dying mortals, are the music of his dark cave; in which, far below the surface of the

336 ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY.

earth, in close dungeons, where the ear of man- cannot hear him, he practices his horrid vocation ; after the manner of his Lord and Master, in the dark regions below !

In Spain, where this tribunal triumphed in the reign of terror, over religion, morals, and bleeding humanity, there were eighteen ditferent Inquisitorial courts; with their apostolical Inquisitors. And besides the legions of officers in these hells, there were 20,000 familiars, dispersed over the land. These, with the cunning and malig- nity of the devil, mingled as spies, and informers, in all companies ; invaded the sanctity of families, and dragged all suspected persons to the cells of the Inquisition. They would come upon families, in noon da}', and at the midnight hour. They car- ried off the wife, and mother from the bosom of husband, and children. They singled out the blooming maid ; and the young man, the stay of his widowed mother; and the bride from the very circle of her gay friends ! The greatest virtues, and respect- ability in society, were no shield against these infernal invaders. Mere suspicion, or personal quarrel, or the glance of a voluptuous Inquisitor's eye on youth and inno- cence, were sure to send the horrid prison carriage at the dead hour of night, to the person's house, to carry the victim to this slaughter house of virtue, and tomb of the Hving. Such was the terror inspired by these incarnate devils, that the parent, and the brother would hurry, with trembling steps to tbe door. iVnd whenever the appal- ling words were heard, — " Open to the holy Inquisition ,•" — " Deliver up your wife, — deliver up your daughter, — deliver up your son, to the holy Inquisition ;'' — that in- stant would the terror-stricken relative, without daring to ask one question, or breathe one murmur, or even implore pity, lead the trembling victims out, and deliver them to these fiends ! The bereaved father, or husband would, next day, go into mourning: and speak of the dear lost one, — as no more! Gloom and melancholy were spread through the family ; aud the remains of hope were swallowed up in the bitterest despair. Even their tears, and their sorrows had they to conceal, lest they should be the next victims of ghostly suspicion.

i\.nd with such pr: found secrecy did these familiars conduct their movements, that the members of the same family, would, in numerous instances, know nothing of one another's apprehension. Dr. Geddes states that a father, and three sons, and three daughters, living all in the same house, were carried prisoners to the Inquisi- tion, without knowing of one another's being there; until set-en years afterwards, when those of thera who had survived the horrid tortures, met at an Auto da Fe! There, after se?;ew years of weeping and despair, their eyes fell on each other, about to be consumed in the fire of the papists' grand human sacrifice ! See Dr. M. Geddes' Works on ^popery, vol. i. p. 392.

As for the victims seized by the familiars, they were hurried into the dungeon cells, and loaded with chains. If females, they were placed in the harems of the sacerdotal monsters, who revel on the honor, the peace, and happiness of families; and subject them to disgraces worse than death, to the pure and virtuous!

The prisoners were never confronted with the accusers, or informers. No witnesses were produced, and the basest of mankind are admitted as spies, and accusers. Even the crime alleged against them was not made known to them. They must make it out the best way they can, and confess their own crime. If they did not, they were put to the rack, and a confession extorted from them. "This procedure," says the his- torian Voltaire, "unheard of, till the Inquisition, makes all Spain tremble; suspicion reigns in all bosoms ; friendship, and quietness are at an end : brother dreads brother ;

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and father, his own son. Hence the taciturnity of a nation, endued with all the vivacity natural to a glowing and fruitful clime." Univ. Hist. vol. ii. ch. 138. Jones' Church Hist. vol. ii. p. 99.

Let me conduct my reader into the interior of the Inquisition. I shall follow the guidance of the most approved authors, in their investigations of the "Infernal Tribunal." The exterior of the biiilding is sufficient to strike terror into the bosom of even tiie bravest man, who has always trodden the soil of freedom. The entran- ces are through long, dark, and winding passages; through ponderous doors : opened by massy keys, and clanking chains. The walls are black and filthy ; the flash of gleaming ton^hes reveals the sullen and taciturn officers, and familiars, whose coun- tenances retaining little of "the human face divine," frown an eternal scowl of ven- geance on all who have the misery of coming near them; while their eyes flash with the glare of the hidden fire, perpetually burning within their guilty, and horror- stricken souls ! The stoutest hearted cannot view them without honor! The tor- turing dungeons are so deep ; and the massy doors so close, that the groans, and the horrid shrieks of the tortured victims, cannot reach the air: or if perchance there ever came, —

" So loud a shriek

As reached the upper air, The liearers blessed themselves, and said, The spirits of the sinful dead

Bemoaned their torments there !"

Sir W. Scott.

But if my reader can follow me, let me be more minute in detail. I shall describe, to the public, the torments which were of every day's occurrence.

1st. The torture by ivater. The victim is laid on a table ; and tied down so tightly by cords, that they cut through the flesh into the bone, of his arms, thighs, and legs.

The nostrils of the wretch are stuffed with a thick paste. A narrow filter is insert- ed in his mouth, through which quantities of water are poured. At every breath he is forced to swallow a mouthful of water, till at last his swollen stomach, and hea- ving breast, showed the extent of the torture he endures. He struggles fearfully to escape from his bondage, but his struggles are of no avail, except to increase the pangs he suffers. Nature, at length, is soon exhausted, and then these diabolical operations are suspended for a moment, and the sufferer is asked if he will confesss his crime. He cannot speak, bnt, with what little strength he has remaining, shakes his head. The torture is again put in force. Flask after flask of water is poured down the sufferer's throat, to force him to confess a crime, of which he is entirely innocent. This is often continued until the victim expires under his murderer's hands.

There is another form of torture by water. The victims nostrils being closed with paste, a thin muslin cloth is put over his mouth ; and water poured in a current on it, until the cloth is actually carried down into his stomach! This is dragged up by his inhuman tormentors, with inexpressible pain, besides his continued danger of suf- focation. The victim often expires sooner, by this process, than by the other, just mentioned.

2d. Torture by Fire. The victim is ])lace(l on (he floor, with his feet toward a blazing fire, his soles arc fixed near the red coals ; the fire is jdaccd along the whole"* length of his limbs. He is chained down by the neck and hands, to the floor. One of the familiars is continually cm})loyed in basting the poor christian's feet and legs

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with lard and oil; while another tormentor is stir-ring up the fire into the intensest blaze! The torment is beyond conception ! His feet and limbs are literally roasted!

Sometimes the fire has been applied in " the dry heat.''' The victim is put into a large vessel of iron or copper ; and the fire put beneath it ; and he is left beneath the lid, to the burning and suffocating air, — until he expire ; and his body is reduced to ashes.

3d. Torture by the St. Mary. When the Inquisition was thrown open by the troopsof Napoleon, and king Joseph, in Spain, an image of the Virgin was found standing in a damp corner of a cell. On inspection, it vvas discovered by the French officer, to be a torturing engine ; as she had a metal breastplate, beneath her robes, stuck full of needles, spikes, and lancets ! The familiar was ordered '^ to manoeuvre it." He did so ; it raised its arms as if to embrace ; a knapsack was thrown into her arms; she gradually closed and crushed the knapsack, and pierced it in a hundred placfs, with deep cuts, each of which would have been a death's wound to the living victim !

4th. Torture of the Rack, By one form of this torment the victim is fixed to a post, and his arms are drawn back by great force until the shoulder joints are, each, dis- located. By another form, the rope is fixed, first above his elbows, then above his wrists, and he is hoisted suddenly to the lofty ceiling; then dropped with a sudden jerk near to the floor, until all the upper joints of his body, are dislocated ! If the poor christian refuses to confess, what he knows not, or refuses to become an apostate, then the ropes are fixed to his lower limbs, and he is hoisted up with his head downward; and let fall repeatedly, with excessive violence, until his ankle joints, and knee, and loin joints are all dislocated. And oh horrible! the whole weight of his body hangs, as it were, danghng upon the loose flesh, and sinews ! When the wretched man faints, he is hurried into his cell, and thrown on the cold damp floor! And if he jecovers underjhe surgeon's care, the same horrid tortures are enacted on him, from week to week, 'until he confess, — or expire in their hands ! These are only a portion of the tortures which have reached the public ear. There have been such "as eye hath not seen, and ear never heard." There has been no recorder of them. Besides who can register the tears, and groans, and agony of broken hearted human nature! But, Lord God ! Thou art just ; Thou art on thy judgment seat! And there is a doom to overwhelm the oppressor, and the inhuman butcher of thy innocent, and bleeding martyrs, O Lord Jesus !

5th. The Auto da Fe. This closes periodically, the tragedy of "the Infernal Tribunal." This sacrifice of Moloch, has always taken place on a Sabbath day. The prisoners are brought into a great Hall, where they are dressed for the proces- sion. The Dominicans, the master spirits of this pandemonium, march first, bearing the flag with the appropriate motto, — (for they characteristically unite mockery of human nature, to their savage barbarity.) '■'■Justice and mercy!'''' The penitents who escape, are dressed in black coats, without sleeves ; and they are marched barefooted. Next came those who have narrowly escaped, — dressed in black coats decked off with red figures of flames, top downwards. Next came the negative and relapsed, with red figures of flames curling upwards, on their dresses. These are to be strangled and burned. And, lastly, came our brethren, the dear devout Protestants and chris- tians, who abjured " the sectarian heresy of Popery,'''' and died for the gospel of Jesus. These had not only red figures of flames, but figures of open-mouthed dogs, serpents, and devils, covering their vestments I

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339

In their march to execution, our poor suffering fellow beings, and fellow christians are not even permitted to speak, or give utterance to their sorrows. A victim who had opposed the idolatry of the mass, and the worship of the wafer, and idol gods, exclaimed in an ecstacy, as he came out of his dungeon, and reached the open air, and saw the sun shining in all his glory, — a sight he had not seen in many years: — ''^Hoiv is it possible for people that behold that glorious body, to ivorship any being hut Him who created it P' " Here," says Dr. Geddes," I saw him stopped short in his pious exclamations; and immediately gagged, so that he could not speak a word more!" See Dr. M. Geddes' Tracts on Popery, vol. i. p. 406.

Arrived at the horrid Golgotha, and field of Moloch, a wretched declamation, called a sermon, is uttered by some hypocritical Jesuit, or a half witled but savage Dominican, in praise of the " Holy Inquisition," and the devout servants of God, " the Inquisitor'''' and all " these skilful tormentors'''' of our fellow beings. This being done, sentence is passed on each class; and the two classes appointed to be burned, are de- livered over formally to the civil magistrate ; while the reckless hypocrites, — the Inquisitor and his minions, " beg, and implore the magistrates not to take their lives ; not to kill them; not to burn them; but tu spare them ! P' This mockery of God and human nature, being enacted, the penitents are dismissed ; — the relapsed who die in Romanism, are first strangled, and then burned. This is all their privilege, — they are frst strangled ! But the faithful christians who persevere in Christ's cause, are chained on a high stake, many feet above the piles of faggots. Here two Jesuits again inflict on each martyr a long and whining exhortation, to repent, — and die in the Ro- man faith, and receive the tender mercy of Holy Mother: — namely the benefit of being strangled, and then burned. This mockery enacted by these inhuman priests, the loud scream is uttered — at the nod of the Inquisitor, — " Let the dog's beards be made /" Instantly blazing torches and furze on long poles, are dashed on the faces of the agonizing martyrs; and this is continued until their faces are burned to a cinder ! Then the flames are applied below, and the roaring flames ascend, and slowly con- sume the sufferers to ashes ! And to crown the whole, — at the bidding of the Inquisitor, and the example of all the priests, this horrid tragedy is enacted amid the peals of laughter, and shouts of exultation, and merriment, from ten thousand beings actually calling themselves men, — and women — and christians! ! And yet, no people in Eu- rope, perhaps show more kindly feelings, or deeper sympathy with the sufferings of common criminals, dying for any crime against the civil laws ! Such is the sa,vag"e and ferocious influence of popery and priestcraft, in these countries. It actually ren- ders man not only insensible to the feelings of humanity, but absolutely inhuman toward his brother man. No scene in the worship of Moloch; none, in the horrid rites of Juggernaut; none, among oiir savage Indians around a captive warrior's murderous fire, when he is put to death by their ingenious tortures, has ever equalled the scenes of torture ia the the interior of the Inquisition, and the closing tragedies of the Auto da Fe ! And yet, — O most outrageous mockery! All this has been enacted from age to age, under the name of the holy and benignant religion of .Tesus Christ, Even that religion which breathes nothing but love to man: which prohibits all vio- lence, and even compulsion in religion: which declares tliat even "the man who hates his brother is a murderer."' By the voice of this holy and peaceful religion what must the Roman catholic priests be, who sing psalms, chaunt the mass, aud butcher mankind by hundrel- of thousands in cold blood !

The aumber of the victims of the Inquisition will never be known, until the day of

340

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final retribution. Various have been the numbers set down. "Authors of undoubt- ed credit," says Jones, — " have affirmed, and without any exaggeration, that mill- ions of persons have been ruined by his horrible court. Moors were banished from Spain, a ?«i//ion at a time! From six to eight hundred thousand Jews were driven away from it, at once ; and all their property seized." Jones' Ch. Hist. ii. p. 98.

In Spain, alone, the numbers who suffered in the extreme, are thus set down by Lorente in his late history of the Spanish Inquisition ; Pans Edit. 1818. Tom. iv. p. 271. '

"It is the Inquisition which has ruled in Spain," says he, "from the year 1481, to the present day, of which I undertake to write the history." Tom. i. p. 140. Recapitulation of all the victims condemned and burnt .... 33,912

Burned in effigy, 15,695

Placed in a state of penance with rigorous punishments, , . . 291,450

Total 341,057

This number fixed on by this unusually accurate historian, is far below the truth. It is generally admitted that under the first Inquisitor of Spain alone, namely Tor- quemada, no less than 100,000 human beings suffered : under the above three classes, that is, they were burned ; or they perished on the rack, or by it ; or in exile; and perpetual confinement I

This, Rev. Fathers, is enough at one time, in all conscience, for your, or any man^s digestion ; you will, therefore, accord me the boon of pausing a while.

I am, my Lords Bishops, yours &c.

W. C. B.

LETTER XXXVII.

TO THE LOKD ARCHBISHOP, AND THE LORDS BISHOPS OF THE ROMAN CATHOUC CHURCH, IN THE UNITED STATES.

Cruelty an Essential Attribute of Popery.

Thus Beelzeb-flb

Pleaded his devilish counsel, first devised By Satan, and in part proposed : for whence But from the author of all dl, could spring So deep a malice J' MiLTaN.

Reverend Fathers: — The tribunal of the Inquisition, bloody as it was, never- theless was too slow, in its exterminating process for the sanguinary zeal of the papal priests. Besides the arm of civil power was found to be neeessaty in some countries, where neither Moloch, nor Satan, nor even the pope himself could establish " The Infernal Tribunal!" Hence the summary process ofcrtcsades^ and massacres. This conducts me to, —

Part II. — Persecution. 1. Of tJte Crusades we may reckon two kinds» The one maybe termed morah and besides violence and outrage, it included the resort to every species of treachery, deception, and cunning, which power and Jesuitisia could employ, to bring men over to Romanism, from the christian religion. As spe-

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 341

cimens of this, I reckon that violence, and those diabolical artifices employed to sinderrnine the ancient apostolical churches of Britain, Spain, and Ireland; and spread the horrid impostures of popery over them, — which to this day, enchain the greater part of the latier two : and that ferocious system of moral and civil persecu- tion which wasted Hungary, and crushed three rnillions of Protestants, for three hundred years ; and closed, in a measure, only with the life, and reign of Maria Theresa.

The other species of Crusade was wholly of a sanguinary nature. The papal bearers o( the cross, their insignia, went forth to butcher, in cold blood, rpan, woman, infant, — who were not Romans ; and cover whole kingdoms with blood, and fire, and havoc! Of this kind, were the crusades against the Moors and Jews in Spain; the Waldenses and Albigenses; and the infidels in the Holy Land. These specimens of wild and infernal mania, were exhibited solely by the ambition and blood-thirsty cruelty of the popes. The last, in the Holy Land, commenced in the year 1096, and it raged, with fury, for two centuries; causing, according to Mons. Voltaire, the death of two millions of men, in the flower of their youth : and ill prepared, we fear, to meet their Judge. For the blood, and for the souls of these niillions of human be- ings, has the Romish church, one day, to give an account to Almighty God.

2. That the Roman catholic church has been avowedly a ferocious, persecuting sect, is frankly admitted by her standard writers. And that persecutions have been carried on, over entire nations, by wholesale, is triumphantly avouched also ; and even gloried in, as exhibiting a notable mark of "the holy and only church." And just in proportion as her temporal power, was united, in adulterous connection, with the spiritual, have the friends of blood and havoc been born and nursed by popery, and turned loose in their unmuzzled ferocity, on the bleeding nations of the earth !

We conceal not that Protestants have persecuted, even unto death. We deplore the existence of that civil law by which the magistrates of Geneva, with Calvin consent- ing, did doom the unhappy Servetus to death. We deplore the scenes enacted in Protestant Britain; and the cruelty to some members of the society of Friends, in the early days of New England.

But, we beg all men, Jew, infidel, and christian, to render justice to the Protestant world ; and mark the radical difference in this matter. There is no doctrine, — no, not one idea in the Holy Bible, — nor in the Protestant creeds, and canons, that teach- es, or invites, or even insinuates a wish to persecute. It is an affecting truth that *'cvil communications corrupt good morals!" Our first Protestant Fathers were nursed, and brought up in Popery. It is mortifying to reflect that they drank in the persecuting spirit, from the breasts of "Holy Mother." That savage lioness taught men to hunt the prey; and revel in hun)an blood! And^ when they escaped from her den, and her devilish training, it took many a long age to eradicate from their bones, and marrow, this king's evil,, — this popish mania! Moreover, the civil laws of each kingdom were corrupted, and poisoned by popery. Intolerance and persecu- tion were enacted in the statute books of all the kingdoms of Europe. The magis- trates of Geneva and .Tohn Calvin did not enact that bloody law, under which Serve- tus suffered. The Romish laymen and priests enacted it! The Protestants did not enact the intolerant laws of England: the Romish church enjoined the ])riest-ridden kings of that realm to enact them. N;iy, so far did Rome carry her [)ersccuting power, even in defiance of the crown of England, that by a law passed under Henry IV., a bishop could convict the subjects of heresy; and, *' unless the convict abjured

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his opinions, or if, after abjuration, he relapsed, the sheriff vras bounc, ex officio, if required hy the bishop, to commit the man lo the flames, without uaiting for the con- sent oflhe crown /" See Blackstone's Com. vol. iv., Book 4, c. 4, Sect. 2.

No vronder, therefore, that it took years, and incredible labors to purify the foiint- ains. and. streams from the pope's unr^'ersal corrosive poison I

When, therefore, a Protestaoi 'persecutes, he acts against the pnre precepts of the Bible, and against all the solemn articles and canons of his holy religion. And, now, no Protestant church persecutes; and the longer, and the farther removed we are from the popish sect^ the more completely is the demon of persecution expelled from every cbnrch, and every family, and every soul, and heart I But persecution is taught as a dogma, and a regular canon, by the pope and all his priests ! No bloody edict has been revoked : they are suspended in the pope'sold paralytic, and withered hand: but never have they been revoked. And never has a breath of disavowal, or even disapprobation gone forth against the persecutions enacted by her. The Roman catholic church persecutes by canon and rule I She cannot even repent of her persecutions. She would inflict a death wound in her own heart, did she disa- vow bloody persecution I For. to retrace her steps, and repent, is to abandon her promimnt attribute of infalHbiliti/ .'

In proof of our assertion, I shall, ^rsf, give your standard authorities, that the Romish church makes persecution an essential, unrepealed dogma of her religion: — and, second, illustrate this dogma by her uniform practice. In other words, I shall show that she makes it a principle of conscience to persecute by the sword of her mouth ; and by the secular sword. And this, I beg leave to remind you, Fathers, is according to the letter of the prediction of St. John, relative to this "'bloody Beast." Revelation xiii. 5, &c. " And there ^ras given unto the Beast, a mouth speaking great things, and blasphemies ; and power was given unto him to continue fortj^ and two months : and he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God ; to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given to him to make war with the saints: and to overcome them "

First: — She persecutes by the sicord of the mouth. This divides itself into two forms of ferocious assault. 1st. Byher brutal mode of cnrsingand excommunicating. In addition to the specimen already given, I shall subjoin a form of what is more common in her discipline. The model is that which was uttered by the pope against his Alum maker, for his eloping from his Alum works; and carrying the chemical secret to England. I copy it from Ledger BooJc of Rochester church: and Henry vSpelman's Glossary, p. 206. And from Prof. Bruce's Free Thoughts: Dr. _M'Culloch's Popery condenined: and Glasg, Prot. vol. i. ch. 5. I abridge it thus : —

"May God the Father curse him I 3Iay God the Son curse him! 31ay the Holv Ghost cmrse him I May the holy Cross curse hiin ! May the holy and eternal Virgin Mary curse him ! May St. Michael curse him I May John the Baptist curse him ! May St. Peter, and St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and ail the Apostles, and disciples, curse him I May all the mart^TS and confessors curse him ! May all the saints, from the beginning of time, to everlasting, curse him I 3ray he be cursed in the house, and in the fields ! May he be cursed -while living, and while dying! May he be cursed in sitdng, in standing, in h-ing, in walking, in workmg, in eating, in

drinking, in mingendo. in May he be cursed in all the powers of his body;

within, and without. May he be cursed in the hair of his head, in his temples, eye- brows, his forehead, his cheeks, and his jaw-bones, his nostrils, his teeth, his lips, his

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVKTISY.

343

throat, his shoulders, his arms, his wrists, his hands, his breast, his stomach, his reins, * * * * his legs, his feet, his joints, his nails ! May he be cursed from the crown of his head, to the sole of his feet! May heaven, and all the powers therein, rise against him to damn him ; unless he repent, and make satisfaction ! Amen."

2. Her doctors conspire against the human race, by strenuously advocating the principles of persecution.

Bellarmine, De Laicis, Lib. iii. cap. 21., is your church's sovereign mouth-piece. He gives a labored defence of the principle of persecution ; or the putting of heretics to death, merely for differing from "Holy Mother," in their religious creed! Here are his words : — "Posse hereticos, &c. That heretics condemned by the church, may be punished with temporal penalties, and even with death. We will briefly show that the church has the power, and it is her duty, to cast oif incorrigible here- tics, especially those who have relapsed, and that the secular power ought to inflict on such, temporal punishments, and even death itself."

Then follows a long list of painful arguments in defence of these ferocious dogmas ; which a christian cannot read without shuddering! He argues from the holy Bible of the God of mercy : from civil law ; canon law; the Fathers; and from reason! This last argument is curious: it is this, — It is a henejit to the heretic, to be sent out of the world, as soon as possible. For the longer he lives, the worse he becomes ; and if he is soon sent off, his hell will be so much lighter !

Thus the cardinal "deals damnation round the land" on all who differ from you : and with a singular species of popish compassion, he is for hurrying all heretics speedily to death; and into hell, in order to make it a little less intolerable !

In chap. 22, Bellarmine answers objections. Luther had taught " that the church of God had never, from the beginning, to his time, burned a heretic : that it was not the mind of the Holy Spirit, that they should be burned." Here is the reply of this cardinal in the name of all popery, —

" I reply, this argument admirably proves not the sentiment, but the ignorance, or impudence of Luther: for as almost an injinite number were either burned; or other- wise put to death, Luther either did not know it, and was therefore ignorant ; or, if he knew it, he is convicted of impudence and falsehood ! For that heretics were often humed by the church, may be proved by adducing a few from many examples."

" Argument second. Experience shows that terror is not useful in such cases. " I reply," says Bellarmine, " that experience proves the contrary — for the Honatists, Manicheans, and Albigenses were routed, and annihilatedby arms.''''

Such, also, is the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas, ii. 11. iii. p. 58. " Ilaeretici possent, &.C. Heretics may not only be excommunicated, but justly killed.'^

And all this is not the doctrine of such intolerant cardinals, and blood thirsty sai7its only. Even Bossuet, all politeness, and all accommodation as he affected to be, in his bigotry, advocated intolerance, and persecution. Speaking of the power of the sword in matters of religion, he says, — " Itcannot be called in question, witliout weak- ening, or maiming the public authority, or power. No illusion can be more dange- rous than making toleration a mark of the true church." "No," adds he, — "the church's holy severity, and her holy delicacy, forbad her such indulgence, or rather softness!" Boss. Oeuvres, Tom. iii. p. 411. Paris, 1747.

But we ascend to higher authority. No pope since the beginning of the 8lh cen- tury can be named, who condemned, or even disap])r()ve(l of porscM-ution ! Popes Urban, Innocent III., and VIII. , Clement, Ilonorius, and Martin, carried out their

344 KoMAN catholic COPiTROVERSl.

avowed dogmas ; and were ferocious patrons of extennination ! Urban II. sirnamed The Turbuknt, in A. D. 1090., declared in his Bull, — " That no one is to be deemed a murderer, who, burning wnth zeal for the interests of Moilier church, shall kill excommunicated persons." See Pithou, corjius Jur. canon, p. 324, Paris Edit. 1687. It is true, Bruys, speaking of him, calls his morals "diabolical and infernal." Hist. Des. Papes, Tom. ii. p. 508. But then, he was no worse than his successors, who faithfully copied his maxims against heretics.

We have the decisions of National Councils enjoining the extermination of heretics, such as that of Toleda, Tours, Oxford, Narbona, and Tolosa. See Edgar's Varia- tions, p. 244. That of Tolosa was pre-emineiit in its fury ; and what is striking, it waged war against the Holy Bible also. "No layman was permitted on the penalty of heresy, to have the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments in his vernacular idiom." This was enacted in 1229 : and has never to this hour been repealed. See Labbeus, vol. xiii. p. 1239. Alexand. His. Eccles. vol. xx. p. 668.

And what is more, we have the decisions, and the recorded practice of the General Councils, namely, Third of the Lateran, and the Fourth of the Lateran, in 1215. In canon iii. De hereticis, it enacted, — '• Let secular powers, — if necessary, be com- pelled by church censures, — to endeavor, in all good faith, according to their power. to dtstroy all heretics (Protestants.) marked hy the church, out of the lands of their Jurisdiction.'' It then proceeds to enact that if princes refuse to cut off, and destroy heretics, "they shall be accursed, and their subjects absolved from their allegiance." I refer to Labb. Tom. xiii. 934: Bruy's Hist. Pap. Tom. iii. p. 148.

The council of Constance was fullv a match to this, in Satanic severity, and blood-thirstiness. It was convoked in 1414. The pope, 3Iartin V., presided in this assembly. They not only condemned, and burned alive, the holy martyrs Huss, and Jerome of Prague : but issued thsir terrific anathema against the millions of heretics over all Europe : and commanded all emperors, kings, and princes dutifully to proceed, forthwith, in their extermiQation, by fire and sword. And the decrees of this council were applauded, and confirmed by the last council of your church, — the council of Trent, which lent it all the authority which it gave to any dogma of your church. «•

So late as 1825, the late pope Leo XII. exhibhed the sentiments of Rome in our day. In his Bull of a jubilee, he makes two conditions of the faithful "receiving a plenar}' indulgence, and pardon of all sins;" namely, — "the exaltation of the holy Mother church, and the extirpation of heresy.''

So avowedly is this a dogma of the Romish church, that it is introduced into the class book of the college of Mayuooth, in Ireland : and every candidate for the priest- hood is painfully taught it. Here is the sentiment I allude to : — "the church retains its power over all heretics, &c. ; although they may no longer belong to its body : as a general has a right to inflict punishment on a deserter.''' That is, as we all know, capital punishment. See Delahogue^s Tract. Theolog. cap. 8. De 3Iembris : p. 404., Dublin Edit. 1795.

"In fine, I have only to lay before the American public, one extract from the oath which every Romish bishop must swear before he is consecrated. I beg my readers attention to it. "I swear, — that heretics and schismatics, and rebels to our Lord, the Lord pope, or his successors, I will to the extent of my power, persecute and heat down : pro posse persequar et impugnabo. — So help me God, and the holy gospels of God." See Pontif. Rom. De consec. Eiec. Episcop. p. 57. Hence, every Romish

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bishop must, by soleran oath, be a persecutor. He has no other choice. If he is liberal and gracious to heretics, and does not persecute them as far as he can, then is he a deliberately perjured man ! !

Nothing, therefore, is more obvious than this, — that the principle of tolerance and liberality, is not at the choice of any Romish priest, or subject of the Roman court. Intolerance and persecution are as essential, necessary, and integral a dogma of popish faith, and practice, as is the mass, or the papal supremacy! !

And I call on every patriot, and every christian in the United States, and beg their attention to this fact, — that every one of the popish clergy in Europe, and in our Republic, profess, upon their great and solemn oath on the cross, and holy sacrament, to receive, obey, and practice, this principle of persecution., that has thus received the sanction of the vi^hole Romish church; and has been marked, as Edgar says, with the sign manual oHnfallihility ! And this principle they will reduce to practice, under pains of perjury, as soon as they can gain the ascendancy, in our Republic! Then will return the days of the reign of the bloody Queen Mary. Then will be the new reign of Terror, by the fire and the faggot, and the horrid Inquisition, in our once free and happy land ! It is for this that the sons of St. Dominic long and pray! It is for this the Jesuits are toiling over our country! It is for this object the Roman catholic powers of Europe are expending such large sums annually, and pouring in, upon us, myriads of the pope's household troops !

I am, Rev. Fathers, yours, &c. W. C. B.

LETTER XXXVIII.

TO THE LORD ARCHBISHOP, AND THE LORDS BISHOPS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, IN THE UNITED STATES.

Ferocious Cruelty an Essential Attribute of Popery.

" I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored Beast: she was arrayed in purple and scarlet: and I saw lier drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." — St. John.

Reverend Fathers: — The patience with which you have been pleased to listen to my exhibitions, shows at least, this much, that you feel deeply on the subject. I now invite your attention to it for the last time.

Second, and last: — These principles of persecution, which are peculiar, and essen- tial to the Roman catholic religion, have been, with scrupulous fideliiy, reduced to practice, in innumerable terrific instances.

The persecutions of the Waklenses, and Albigenses, — the genuine successors of the ancient apostolic /iaZicAr c/iwrc/j,, after the church of Rome began her fatal a[)ostacy, have been regular, and protracLed from generation to generation. Pope Innocent III. succeeded in calling into the field 500,000 warriors against tlu in I France alone brought 200,000 men as her share. The carnage on both sides, was appalling, for the Waldcnses defended themselves. Tlie leader of the persecutors was I'hirl Mont- ford ; and his name will pass down witli deeper, and deeper iidainy, as truth j)revails» and history wields her im|)artial ])en.

When the city of Beziers was taken by the crusaders, in 1209, the Albigenses were

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SO mixed with the papists, in the inele of battJe.'that the warriors did cot know theif G\^Ti. ''Kill ally'' cried the papal missionary Arnauld, '-and God will know his oicn !" Seven hundred christians were slain by the papists in one church; 6U.00O perished, in ail ! This last is the number set down by 3Iezerev and Velly : Edgar p. 252. When the city Lavaur was taken, the governor and his lady were cruelly murdered : SO gentlemen were slaughtered in cold blood ; 4(J0 christians were burned alive ; and all the rest of the citizens indiscriminately put to the sword ! Velly, vol. iii. 441. 454.

TMieu Languedoc was invaded by these monsters, or?e Jiundred thousand Albigenses fell in one day ! See Bruys, vol. iii. 139. Houses were burned, females violated, towns, and cities laid in smouldering ruins. Gallantlv did the brave christians defend themselves : and some idea of their havoc may be conceived, before they were exter-., minated, from the fact, that 300,000 crusaders fell dead on the plains of Languedoc I " And for the blood of each one of these is the Roman catholic church accountable to God : as well as for that of the christians ! For she brought the war.

But who can travel in minute detail, over the lands visited by the demon of popish intolerance and persecution? Who can follow him in his butcheries of Moors. Jews, and Christians in Spain and Portugal, in the times of Charles Y., and his son Phihp ! What must have been the carnage of the commons, when this king witnessed an Auto da Ft. ia which 2S Spjnish nohUs, were burned at the stake, before him, all at one time!

What man has yet conceived the agonies, and bloodshed of the christians who fell in Spain. Portugal, and Italy, before the demon of poper;/ succeeded in extinguishing the Reformation, in the sixteenth century ?

Who can follow the demon of popish intolerance and persecution, over the plains, and mountains of Bohemia ? What tongue can tell the horrors of popish persecution inflicted on three milhons of christian Hungarians, during no less than three centuries ?

Who can conceive the horrors of the French massacre at Merindol. at Grange ! Wlio can conceive the infinite horrors of the St. Bartholomew massacre, at Paris! "The streets," says a popish historian, — "were paved with dead bodies, and the mortally wounded; the gateways were literally choked up with them. There were heaps of them in the squares: the small streams were filled with human blood, which flowed in great torrents to the river. Six hundred houses were repeatedly pillaged." See3Iezerai, Hist. De France, Tom. ii. p. 109S. Paris Edit. 1646.

Similar massacres were continuously enacted, at the same time, at 3Ieaux ; at Troyes: at Orleans; atNevers: at La Charite : at Toulouse ; atBourdeaux: at Lyons 1 France was drenched in the blood of Huguonot christians, in the reign of Charies IX. 1

Wliat pen has ever, yet, done justice to the sufferings, and barbarous slaughter ol the French christians, under Louis XIV., when that odd compound of relisrious fcjgotry, and savage ferocity, revoked the edict of Nantz; and drove a nation of Pro- testants to the gibbet, the dungeon, and perpetual exile !

What hand has yet delineated the horrid scenes of war, and massacre, by the Duke of Alva, on the plains of Holland I What history has yet recorded all the sufferings of British christians; the sorrows, and deaths of the Wickliffiies, and Lol- lards. andCuldees. and Protestants .'

What tonsuehas ever vet told the tale of the christian church's sufferings, in Ir^

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land, previous to her being over-run by popery, in the close of the twelfth century : and of her Protestant children of later days, by assassinations, and the most revolting Irish massacres ! Her sighs, her groans, and tears, and blood have never been re- corded on earth. They are known only to the Most High : they are recorded in the book of divine remembrance alone !

Now, nothing is more evident on the page of history, than this fact, that all these persecutions, and massacres were done at the instigation, and by the command of the popes. They never concealed it : they actually gloried in it. To use the disgusting cant of papal hypocrisy, — " It was all in the way of purifying the nations from heresy ; and of extending the Catholic religion!" The Letter of Pius V., is yet ex- tant, in which he stirred up Charles to the Parisian massacre. See Finch's Rom. Controv. p. 140. And several historians, Roman catholics, record the rejoicings at Rome, by pope Gregory Xlll. This mournful, and atrocious, and national murder of Protestants, was celebrated at Rome with extreme pomp. The pope led the way in savage exultation; and solemnly offered thanks to God for the massacre of the Huguonots ! A medal was struck to commemorate this victory over humanity, and the christians of France; an engraved, London fac-simile of which is in my posses- sion. The literary Roman catholic can see a perfect description of it in Bonanni's Nummismata Pontiff. Rom. Tom. i. p. 336 ; Rome, 1699.

Besides this, every one who has seen the paintings in the Vatican, must have seen three pictures, got up, and exhibited for centuries to commemorate this massacre. The first exhibits the admiral Coligny mortally stabbed : the second, the admiral butchered in his house, with all his family : the third exhibits king Charles IX., approving the massacre !

In order to enable you to form some faint idea of Roman catholic persecutions, I shall set down the following estimate of the numbers that have fallen vic'ims to the intolerance, and sanguinary religion of Rome. And I beg leave here to introduce it with the remark, that had the pope, or a council, or the Romish church ever seen fit to disavow, and lament over these wholesale, and national murders, and massacres,— those in that communion should never have heard one reproachful word : — never have met one charge of persecution and murder, from us. But Rome has never dis- avowed the principle; never condemned, nor protested against the blood-guiltiness of these massacres, by their pope ; and their forefathers. Hence that church, like every other incorporate body, is chargeable with the debt of that bloodshed ; as really as if they had been aiders, and abettors, and the most manifest accomplices ! If you. Fa- thers, or any one in your communion, have ever disavowed this dogma of your church ; or condemned her former persecutions, by any act, or decUration whatever, show us the bull, or the edict. I here challenge all your literary men to produce any disavowal, or one solitary confession authorized by the pope, or church of Rome, in opposition to the principle, or practice of persecution.

Here, then, before God and man, I do most solemnly charge on you, F^uhcrs, and all those in open communion with your persecuting churcli, this blood guiltiness which has ever rested on her !

There perished under pope Julian 200,000 christians: and by the French massacre, on a moderate calculation, in 3 uioutljH, 100,000. Of the Waldcnses there ]ierished 150,000 ; of the Albigenses 150,000. Tliere perished by the Jesuits in 30 years only, 900,000. The Duke of Alva destroyed by the common hangman alone, 36,(00 per- »0D8; the amount murdered by him issetdown, by Grotius, at 100,000! There per-

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ished by the fire, and tortures of the Inquisition m Spain, Italy, and France, 150,000. This does notinclude the exiled, those confined for life : aod those who died in conse- quence of hard usage, after they had escaped. In the Irish massacres, in which w^ere displayed all the horrid arts, and tortures of the Spanish iDquisition, there perished 150,000 Protestants! Besidesthose who were burned in bloody Queen Mary's time, or who died on the scaffold, — 22,000 were driven into exile, after losing their all.

To sum up the whole, the Roman catholic church has caused the ruin, and destruc- tion of a million and a half of Moors in Spain ; nearly two millions of Jews, in Europe! In Mexico, and South America, including the islands of Cuba and St. Domingo, fifteen millions of Indians, in 40 years, fell victims to ipopery. And in Europe, and the East Indies, and in x\merica, 50 millions of Protestants, at least, have been mur- dered by it !

Thus the church of Rome stands forward before the world, "the woman in scarlet, on the scarlet colored Beast!" A church claiming to be christian, drenched in the blood of sixty-eight millions^ and Jive hundred thousand human beings! And, horrible as this is, what is all this guilt, and overwhelming damnation, compared to the infinite guilt of her seducing, and sacrificing, if grace prevented it not, — the souls of hundreds of millions of her victims, on the altar of Moloch, and of dooming them, so far as her fatal influence can go, to the pains of the second, and never-ending death !

Can any christian, in the sober exercise of reason, conceive this sanguinary power, to be a branch of Christ's pure and holy church !

Can any politician believe that such principles can make their votaries good and orderly citizens !

Does not outraged humanity utter its execrations of these tenets, in the deepest tone of irrepressible indignation; and pronounce the Roman catholic church the pre- destinated son of perdition: and the ivorst enemy, on earth, of the human race! — Rev. Fathers, you can answer this, if you will permit j'our consciences to utter their unrestrained response. But, whether you will answer it, or not, here, — you must answer it at the bar of eternal justice, soon. And there is no concealment, no eva- sion there !

And, now. I have done. I appeal from you, in your present delusion, and mortal error, to you, as you shall see, and feel, — when at the bar of God's eternal justice! There I shall meet you; and you will meet me, before my judge, and your judge! And thereupon, I appeal you, and your predecessors in office, of your guilty deeds against God's holy cause, and saints, to answer for them, before God's judgment seat !

It will be known there, at the bar of Christ, in the light of eternity, whether your cause, or our cause, was the cause of God, and of our country ! And whether, or not, our ancestors, massacred by the Roman catholic church, were the saints and martyrs of God !

To my Divine Master I humbly dedicate these Letters : imploring his pardon for any thing that is wrong in them; and his blessing on whatever is proper, and useful, in them, to vindicate His gospel, and His royal honor, and prerogatives against the grand rebel, and usurper !

Farewell, Rev. Fathers, I have spoken plainly, because I am on a perfect fooling of equality with you, — occupying as high a rank of office in the Protestant Reformed church, as you do in the Roman catholic church ! I have spoken boldly, — because I am a free man, and no Romish slave ! I have spoken often indignantly, — yet I trust

ROMAN CATHOLIC CONTROVERSY. 349

in charity, — because I have been rebuking an intruding foreign power; an audacious conspirator against the liberties of our repubUc ; — a cold-blooded usurper ; who has taken the crown from ?Ae head of Him, "on whose head are many crowns:" and who has trampled the gospel, audits ordinances under his feet: and who has out- raged the feelings of humanity : and who has taught high treason, and sown discord in every nation in Europe, in South jf^merica, and Mexico: and who has excited almost every war in all these lands, from time immemorial; and who has deluged the earth with the blood of the martyrs of Christ ; and the martyrs of patriotism, for their country's cause !

Reverend Fathers, farewell forever! We part, to meet no more again, until we mieet, front to front, at the judgment seat of iilmighty God ! One of your number has gone to his account, since I first wrote these Letters. I do humbly pray that the rich grace of God may be given to each of you who survive; to rest on you; to guide you into all truth ; and, finally, conduct you into the mansions of glory ! Amen.

I am. Reverend Fathers, yours, &c. W. C. B.

A CARD. TO THE PUBLIC.

I now retire from the field of the Roman catholic controversy : because it is proper to stop, when one is done. I have kept possession of the field, undisputed, by any priest, for the last six months. But, I retire with an assurance, in the words of Mc- Gavin, — -that I am ready to return to the discussion, at an hour's notice, if any moral, regular, and respectable popish priest shall choose to renew the contest.

I tender my affectionate regards to Mr. Vandewater, and Mr. S. E. Morse, and to all those editors who have published the first edition of these Letters: and to all those distinguished christians, and politicians, who kindly sustained me, and cheered me on, in this arduous controversy. — May God bless all the churches of our Lord Jesus Christ; and prosper our government, and our beloved country. And in his most benignant goodness, may He avert from us, and our children, popery, the most pestilential of all evils in church, and in state ! Amen.

W. C. Brown LEE.

New- York, Nov. 25, 1834.

31

NOTICE,

The reader will find some quotations, and statements repeated in a few instances. This was deemed necessarj to elucidate our argument. In p. p. 256, 257, a quotation from a Greek father (usually bound up with Justin Martyr,) has been, by mistake, repeated, and ascribed to the martyr. We have studied to be accurate, yet there are some Errata. In tiu-ee instances, only, is the sense injured by them : viz. In p. 132, 1. 8 from the foot, for folloicins. r. foregoing; in p. 317. 1, o. from the foot, for icith, r. without: in p, 325, 1. 19, from the foot, before sincerely insert the word not. In the other instances, the errors are in letters. The following is a list. In p. p. 5, 6, read Augustinians : in p. 34, 1. 26, r. lose : p. 46,1. 23, r. Gregory VII. : p. 68, 1. 9, from the foot, r. Acts II. : p. 75, 1. 20, r. sumrnam : p. 80, ]. 16 v.you, and then youTj in the same line : p. S3, 1. 20, r. belongs: p. 97, 1. 13, strike out the repetition: p. 100, 1. 9 from the foot, r. confessor: p. 155,1. 12, r. antediluvian: ]>. 190, I. 27, r. say: p. 205, 1. 25, r. throw: p. 264, 1. 6 from the foot, for jr^zsr. is: p. 323. 1. 22. for httmo r. homo : p. 330, 1. 24, r. the pope renews. —

APPENDIX.

I. ON THE COMPARATIVE NUMBER OF ROMAN CATHOLICS.

First. In arriving at our conclusion on " the minority'''' of the Romish church, we should deduct from its numbers those who avoived infidelity ,vand treated Popery with ridicule. Here is one great deduction; say one- fourth?

Second. Deduct the Christians, of various names, who held the doctrines of the Waldenses, and were nominally papists. This class was immensely numerous.

"These Waldenses," says Rainerus, — "were in nearly every country." "They are multiplied through all lands," says Sanderus. " They have infested a thousand cities," says Ca3sarius. " They spread their contagion through almost the ivhole Latin world,^^ says Ciaconius. " Scarcely any region remained free and untainted from this pestilence," says Gretzen. And Poplinar says "they have spread not only through France, but nearly all the European coasts : and appeared in Gaul, Spain, England, Scotland, Italy, Germany, Bohemia, Saxony, Poland, and Lithuania." " Their numbers in those places," says Benedict, "were prodigious," " invaluerunt, they prevailed," or exceeded in numbers. Says Newburgh, — "they became like the sand of the sea ; without number; multiplicati esse, super numerum arenae videan- tur." See Labbeus; vol. xiii. p. 285, Newburgh, ii. p. 13, Edgar, p. 54. "Their number was prodigious in Sarmatia, Constantinople, Philadelphia, and Bulgaria." See Mathew; Paris, 306.

And rriany of these were no mean men. Those who favored the Waldenses, were found in all ranks of society, from kings to peasants. Hence the singular circum- stance which occured at the battle of Muret, so fatal to the pious Albigenses. Among the slain was found, after the battle, a knight in black armor. On examination it was found to be Peter, the king of Arragon, — that very monarch who had negotiated between the pope's legate, and Beziers. Near him lay one of his roj^al sons, with many nobles, and gentry, and vassals, — '•'■who while ostensibly sii'pjiorting the Romish church, had, in disguise, been assisting the Albigenses !^^ Jones' llist. vol. ii. p. 133.

During these ages, may we not deduct from the Roman catholic ranks one-half more in Europe ? The above surely v/ould authorise something like this.

Third. We deduct the Albigenses and Waldenses; the Bohemian brethren, Lol- lards, aud all classes of primitive christians in the churches of England, Wales, Scotland, Spain, and Ireland, who were in a pure, and flourishing slate before the emissaries of Rome overran them. What vast numbers of pure christian churches flourished in Scotland, Spain, and Ireland, before the Romans introduced popery among them !

Besides, the number of the Waldenses who lived in a bod3s was prodigious, in addition to those, who were scatteretl over (he bosom of the poi)ish churches. The diocese of Passau alone contained 80, 000 of Ihem. And Daniel, vol. iii. p. 510, says that they "had covered with their errors, all Languedoc, both nobles, and ])opu- lace!" "There," says JJernard, Epist. 40. — "the Roman temples were left with- out people, the people w^ithoul pastors, and the pastors without respect." And we may form some idea of the number of these people in the Vallics, from their sending an army to defend themselves, of 100,000 young meri! And also from the French

352 APPENDIX.

sending 300,000 men against them. The Pope-sent Crusades against them, as he did against the Saracens of the East. And for nearly 200 years these christians defend- ed themselves, and set the Anolence of their enemies at defiance. "They injured the church in the West," says a Romish author, — "as much as the infidels in the East." And "at one time, they had nearly overwhelmed the holy warriors of the cross, and had hoped to establish heresy on the ruins of Romanism !" From this we may form some idea of their immense numbers!

I wish we had accurate data to show the proportions existing between them, and the Romanists. How erroneous must be our conception of the numbers f/ten opposed to the Roman catholics, from the modern statistics of Malte Brun!

Fourth. Next deduct the whole Greek church which opposed the Romish church. These christians covered the modern Russian dominions in Europe and Asia: they covered European and Asiatic Turkeys — which is now Mohammedan! They took in Greece proper, and all her thousand isles. They extended over Syria, Mesopo- tamia, Asia Minor, Palestine, Georgia, and Mingrelia. From one fact stated in one of my letters, we may form some idea of the number of christians in this church. ThePatriarch of Constantinople governed, in the eleventh centur^^ 6.5 metropolitans, and upw^ards of 600 bishops. And these bishops must have had many hundreds, if not thousands of officiating priests under them. Some bishops of Europe have had 11,000 priests under their ghostly care. . ~ Fifth. The Nestorians were another immense class of christians. These extend- ded their dense population over Asiatic Turkey, Arabia, Persia, Tartary, India, China. Cosmas, as quoted by Montfaucon and Edgar, says, that "in the sixth cen- tury their churches and people were infinite, — unnumbered." The writer Yilricius Tom. i. p. 76, states that there was " a numerical superiority of the Nestorians and the Jacobins (named from St. James the Apostle) over the Greek and Latin churches !" Canisius quotes for his authority, an old writer, stating the same calculation. Polo, who had spent seventeen years in Tartary, and was in the employ of the Cham speaks of their immense numbers, scattered over Tartary, China, and the empire of the Moguls. ^L_Paris+,Godeau_, and Thoraassin attest "their diffusion through India, Persia, and Tartary," and add that "their multiplication in the North, and \^East, was nearly to infinity :"—" lis s'y muliiplierent presque a I'infini, &c."

Sixth. The class of christians called Monophysians were " spread over more than forty h'ingdoins.''^ Then the Ab^-ssiniau Christians " boasted a Christian empire and establishment.'" The myriads of these have never been estimated. An- cient writers speak of christians there as innumerable. Seventh, there are the myriads of the Armenian churches of the East. Besides the country which gives them their name, they were spread over Cappadocia, Cilicia, Syria, Persia, the isles of the Mediterranean, India, Turkey, Poland, Transylvania, Russia, Hungary. At Julfa alone, near Ispahan, there were .30,000 of these Christians; 20,000 of their families, or about 120,000 persons, resided in the province of Guilam. These facts are stated b}^ Chard in, in his Travels. Forty thousand families, or 240,000 indi- viduals of them, reside in India, engaged in the inland irade: and 200,000at Constan- tinople, and on the Bosphorus. Chardin, vol. ii. 97. The Armenian Patriarch at Antioch, has under him 14 metropolitans, and a thousand bishops!

Eighth. The Syrian churches have counted immense numbers. They had occupied western India, with their prodigious host of members, for more than 1200 years before they had ever heard of the name of the pope, or the Rcmish chtn-ch. With the visit of Vasco di Gama, "the infernal spirit of popery and persecution invaded that apostolical church." Godeau reckons their population in Comorin, Coutan, Malabar, at 70,000 persons: ^ut, the historian adds, " their numbers toward the West and North, and Cochin, are much greater."

Then, there were the Egyptians, whose See was at Alexandria. Who has ever numbered the christians there; and all along the Southern shores of the Mediterra- nean, even the prodigious numbers of African christians which flourished from the infancy of popery; and boasted of such men as St. Augustine, and St. Cyprian !

I repeat the words of Edgar, whose testimony I prefer to Malte Brun, or any

APPENDIX. 353

modern papist, who has not entered into the estimates of the comparative numbers in ancient times; nor examined the statements of these fathers, and travellers, now quoted by us: " The European, the Asian, and African denominations that dissented from popery were four times more numerous than the partizans of Romanism, when, prior to the Reformation, the papacy shone in all its glory. Popery, instead of universality, which is its vain boast, was never embraced by more than a fifth part of Christendom." Variations of Popery, p. Q7, Dublin edition.

TI. TAXLE CANCELLARIiB APOSTOLICiE; ET TAX^ SACRiE PENITENTIARI^, THE pope's bank; or chancery tax BOOK.

I have before me, these Tax^ in two different editions : First, Taxce, from the archives of the "Roman Chancery," in the British Museum, Nos. 1650, 1651, 1652. The money is marked in Grossi ; it is in the original Latin.

Second: — An edition in the original Latin, with a French translation; having the the text as copied and corrected by Antoine Du Pinet, Lord of Noroy, in Franche- comte. Rivet drew the exact copy of his edition from the Paris edition of the Chan- cery Book, of A. D. 1520. Voetius also exhibits the ancient editions; and Bayle, in his Diet. Article Banck. Claud D'Espence, a popish doctor mentions "Zes Taa:es De la chancellarie apostolique ;" as a book well known in his day; and holds it up to odium; see his Digr. ii. ad Epist. ad Titum. cap. 1. There were three editions of the Taxa at Paris; one is dated 1523; two, at Cologn, one, dated in 1532- two at Venice ; one at Wirtembergh, dated 1538. The copy from which I take my extracts, is printed from that of Pinet, of 1564. It bears date of 1744. Several editions were published by Protestant doctors in the 17th century : they were care- fully printed from the early Roman catholic editions. No literary man now denies the authority of this genuine Romish work, 1 refer to the edition now before me and the statements of Dr. Drelincourt, and Mons. Bayle, in defence of its authen- ticity. The following I offer as a specimen, in addition to what I have given; the pages marked, are of the edition of Pinet, which I use.

" Absolutio, &c. Absolution, in form, for a dying person, the tax is, 14 carlins." See p. 73. "Absolution for a confraternity, or a Societas, 50 carl." — p. 74. Abso- lution of a priest for celebrating a clandestine marriage, 7 carl." — p. 88. " Absolution of a priest for keeping a concubine, and a dispensation for his irregularities, &c. 7 carlins." — p. 89. " Absolution of a layman for keeping a concubine, 8 carlins." p. 89. [It is one carlin more wicked in him, than in a " holy priest !"]

"Absolutio pro eo qui matrem, sorrorem, aut aliam consanguinem, aut comma- trem, carnaliter cognovit, taxatur ad 5 carlinos." p. 89. "Absolutio pro eo qui vir- ginem dejioravit, 6 carl." p. 89. " For forging apostolical dispensations, 17 carlins." p. 94. "For simony, 6 carl." p. 90. "A layman killing any ecclesiastic less than a bishop, provided he present himself at the apostolical seat, is taxed at 7, or 8 or carlins." p. 94. " For a layman killing a layman, 5 carl." p. 96.

From Titulo XX. I copy the following. "Absolution for him who has killed his father, his mother, his brother, sister, wife, or other relative, tax is 5 carlins* provid- ed he be a layman: if any of them be of clerical rank, he must, besides that fine visit the apostolical scat." p. 97, 98. In Titulo XXL, entitled Additions of absolu- tions, this crime is taxed at "1 ducat, 5 carlins." p. 102, "For strikin tone's wife and causing a miscarriage, 8 carlins." p. 98. " For a woman louse poisons to cause' abortion, tax, 5 carlins." p. 99. In Titulo XXL, p. 103, the female doing this, "is taxed 1 ducat, 6 carlins." "For pushing oneself into holy orders without \he bishop's license, tax, 2 ducats." p. 102. "For a priest who strikes another priest after mass 3 ducats." p. 103. "But if he beat him before he celebrated the mass, the tax is 2 ducats." p. 103. [In the first case, thewafer god is in him; in the last it is not .'] "Absolution and permission to bury a suicide in holy ground, 1 ducat, 9 carlins." p. 104. "For a |)rie.si cutcring holy orders by simony, 4(lucats, 4 carlinsi." p. 105 " For an abbot or bishop killing a man, his tax is .50 tournois, 12 ducats, 6 carlins.'' p. 123. " For killing a bishop, or abbot, or any superior prelate, the tax is S6 tour^ nois, 9 ducats." p. 136, These arc among "the additional taxes."

3i*

354 .ippL>"Dix.

In Titulo XXXII. and XXXHI. I find the feUoiriag: "Absolution for a mao kiiii-ug a wife, the same as killing a faiher, or mother, 4 tonmois, 1 ducat, 8 earlins.** p. 139. '"Dispensation to the man who has killed his wife, to marry another wife^ the tax is 8 tnmois, 2 dacats, 9 carlins." p. 139. " For killing an iniaat, 4 tour. 1 due. 9 carl." p. 139.

" Absolution for theft, sacrilege, burning hoa«es« rapine, perjury, 36 toor. 9 dBC." p. 145. ^'Absolution of a priest for the most licentious deeds, 36 tour., 3 ducats.'^ p. 154. " Absolutiou and dispensation for a priest keep'D? a concubine, 21 totir. 5 due, 6 carlins." " Absolution of a Nun for fomicatior .5 ducats.*' p. 155.

•'Absolution erf" an adulterer, 4toum.'* "'Absolution c: . :i f&retny act of ymr

cleaimesSt 6 toum. 2 ducats.*' p. 156-

" Absolution for incest with a sister, amother, oranynearrel?v>r. 4 •oiim."'p.l56. " Absolution for one guilty of adultery, and incest, 6 toum." p. 157. '^AbaoJMtio De Bestialiiate, et Sodomia^ 90 toum. 12 ducats, 6 carlins." p. 158.

This is a specimen of the Pope's Chancery Book, whiefc —t^^ -r^^-=:! \- rapal authority, to be denied, and held up by all priests, "as a tdc .. : Pnh-

testaofits." But editions still exist, in Europe, that were prin t . 1 ' . : i-^e

it could nrtt have been iuTented by them. Besides, as we ha r I

mish doctors of more pure morals, have declaimed against i:. : ,

ized book. And it is an historic^ fact that this denial was r : . . - i ■

discovered by the papists, that the book had fallen into the Pil;:;:ii-:: _:lZ i; . B^z.:, why deny the ^jok of tari£f, when every one who goes to conte^on does pay : and every friend of souls in purgatory must pay for ma^es to bring them out !

I beg leave to add one curious quotation. At the end of the chapter of "Absolu- tions to marry within a certain degree," and "in case of divorces," it is added, — * - Nott ictU : graces and dispensations of this kind, are not conceded to the poor : be- cmise they ham no means; itiierefore they cannot he comforted/'* See foUo XXIII., Edit. 1520: and p. 208. Edit, of 1625: also FoUo 130/Eii:. :f 1543 : and p. 19 o[ the Edit, which I use.

In reference to the n?oney set down here, I shall :: y ' ^-^ fs /:i:?.~tons. A ToMmow weighed 2 Deniers, 7 graii^: there were 58 ::i : A Ij:.:u, a gold

coin, valued, it is supposed, at cent dix sols. A Carlin is ::ie ssjzie as die Gros. It is a small silver coin, valued at 7 sols, in France.

In fine it appears, that in each country, the priests si:?/: ^I Jr .::c 'o the current money of the realm; and to the poorer, or richer c::: :—- e:i — e knaves who

appli^ for relief, and a good bargain in this perish •.raiS^c :; ^:^.:.l iiz'.s." — See Revel, xviii. 13.

m. GROSS IMPITRITT E^JOIIVED ET PIPES A2<^D C0r5CILS.

In the Decretals of Grstian. I' : : ' t ?^^ t ; r. " r comi-

cil of Toledo:— "Qui nonhac ; :. He

^ho hasnota wifeoMg**inihr - _e."

In the 17th canon of that CO u: ~ t i - — C iiabere lic:-.im est unam tantum aut uxorem, aut ; : It is lawful ibr a chris- tian to have only one wife ; or :e, a concubine." Pi- thou Corpus Jur. canon, p. 47. P E r T L : ^ C oncil. Tom. i. p. 737, 739, 740, states the same ; an : . ^ - : -i^ council were confirmed by Pope Leo. Edgar's Var. of Popery. . 0 J. T > : rririisiicii ssvs Gisn-n, ex- tends to the clergy and laity; Hist- of JSe -ts, XI. 7.

IT. iyr>i.x zx?r?.;-AToaros-

~£z^ :-- T^r : ^ I- , is given by a Spanish Roman catho-

:^ ^ L ' - - , ' Says Mr. Fejada, — ** The Indexes Ex-

^ ^; _ . ^ ^r rr: cafholic; and in which there

> : : t: Kt should have added, — ^wbere

r^ T — r 1- R :: rrirsts c(Hidescend to per-

purg; is no

APPENDIX. 355

To give an idea of the Index, I shall quote a specimen of the manner, in which Rome treats her sainted fathers. I copy out of Soto Major's Spanish Index Expur- gatorius, of A. D. 1667. The Inquisitors direct, in p. 52, an expurgation of St. Atha- nasius, by striking out the following doctrines of that father. " God alone is to be adored. Angels are not to be adored. Christ alone is to be adored. The body of Christ is not corporeal food, but spriritual. No creature is to be adored : for that is to follow the Arians, and the heathens. The sacred scriptures are in themselves sufficient for the discoveries of truth." Let these be stricken out.

In p. p. 56 and 57, we find St. Augustine put into the crucible to be expurgated of certain doctrines, offensive to Rome. And hence, the scandalous deception of our priests, M^ho affect to be amazed that we should quote these doctrines out of this father after he had, by these doctors, been purged of them. The following are some of them. — " Why angels, or just men refuse to be adored. We do not raise temples to them. The superstitious abstinence froju flesh. What Christ said about eating his flesh is spiritually understood. In Augustine's time, no one set himself up for bishop of bishops. Two sacraments flowed from the side of Christ. Works necessarily follow faith. Before God we are justijied by faith. The use of images is prohibited^ The book of Maccabees is apocryphal. See p. 58. The saints are to be loved, and imitated, not worshipped. It is a sin to place the image of God in churches." p. 59o These precious doctrines are ordered by the pope to be expunged. And this being declared by their master, the priests have, thence, the audacity to affirm that St. Au-

em

giistine never taught th

Under the head of St. Chrysostom, the following words, of this father, namely,— " Priests are subjected Jo princes,^^ are made to suffer papal expulsion. Seep. 703. — • To this I add the Inquisitor's damnatory sentence on Lewis Vives, who had taught that the king's poiver and majesty is inferior only to God on earth. This in p. 65, is ordered to be " expurgated." — As the best book on the subject, 1 refer to Mendham's Literary policy of the church of Rome, exhibited in an account of the damnatory cata- logues, or Indices, both Prohibitory, and Expurgatory. Lond. 1320. And to the Lond. Prot. Journ. for 1832, p. p. 781, 782.

V. Confession.

The form of a Roman catholic's confession at the feet of the priest. "I confess to Almighty God; to the blessed Mary, ever Virgin : to blessed Michael the archangel; to blessed John Baptist: to St. Peter, and St. Paul; to all the Saints, and to you^ father, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, in word, in deed, &c. &c, See Ordinary of the Mass. — Thus, we see, the victim of this imposture, is made to con- fess to the "dead men, and dead women," called saints, and to the priest, just as he does to Almighty God I

VI. Absolution. — See Letter xii. p. 220.

It is usually said by many Protestants, and by all Roman catholics, that the priests do not pretend to pardon sin in granting absolution : but that they simply declare sin to be remitted to the penitent, by God. I shall quote a document, and leave the reader to decide how far ignorance and imposture have propagated this sentiment. Here are the words of the decree of the Council of Trent, which, as every priest knows, is of more authority in Rome, than the Bible. " <St quis dixerit, fyc. If any one shall say that the sacramental absolution of the priest is not a judi- cial act, but a naked ministry of pronouncing and declaring that sins are remitted to the person confessing, provided only that he believes, &c. let him be accursed." Hence it is not sitnply a declaratory, hiil formal and judicial act of the priest, sitting as judge; and in Christ's stead, uttering the sentence of pardon to the victims of his imposture ! Concil. Trid. Sess. 14. Can. 9.

INDEX

Absolution, — God only pardons sin, 92; refu tation of, 218.

Allix's defence of the Waldenses, 27.

Ambrose, defended against Dr. Varela, 80; is no idolater, 80, 81; on the succession, 210 on images, 113; on prayers in unknown tongues, 216: against absolution, 222:— against the popish rule, 225 ; and transub stantiation, 237; and purgatory, 257.

Anecdotes, — of a horse and the host, 115; of bees and the host, 143; of the souls in form of Crabs in velvet, 143; of a popish maniac exorcised, 144: of St. Peter's chair, 144; of an ignorant priest, 148; of a priest and a Dutch Dominie, 180; of a candid cardinal and his chaplain, 248; of the Jesuit who could not even with the help of the devil find a text to support purgatory, 249; of a priest and a nobleman, 251; of priest Thom, and a poor widow, 252 ; of the chief of the house of Gordon, 277; of the vicar of Croydon preaching against printing, 330 ; of a young medical student at the confes- sional, 331.

Anthony St. miracle of, 107.

Antiquity, whether a mark of the truth of the Romisli church, 150.

Apocrypha, not belonging to the sacred canon, 38; refutation of its claims, 229.

Aquinas, St. Thomas, on prayers in unknown tongues, 21C.

Archbishop, anecdote of an Italian, 84.

Arian cobler, C3; origin and exposure of this popish sophism, 76.

Aristotle's absurdities employed by papists on transubstantiation, 235.

Ass, feant of thC; song sung to it by the priests, 140, 141.

Athanasius, on the rule of faith 74,225; on images 1J3; on saint and an el worship, 214; on the apocrypha, 230 <' on transub- stantiation, 237; on purgatory 258.

Attribiiles of popery, — impurity, 321 ; impiety and arrogance, 322; treachery, 325; intole- rance, 329; cruelty, '.V.VZ.

Auction for souls, at Irish fimerals, what, 252.

Augustine, against the popish rule of faith, 72, 22-^; (Icfended from Dr. Varela's quota- tions, 81 ; on pupal suprcaiacy, 94 ; saint

worship, 96, 214 ; against retaining the scriptures in a dead tongue, 99; on "the Rock," 206; on images, 213; on prayers in an unknown tongue, 216; on the worship of the Virgin Mary, 218; on the pardon and absolution ofsins, by the priests, 222 ; on the apocryphanot being canonical, 230; against transubstantiation, 239; and the mass, 245; and purgatory, 258,

Auricular confession, originated by fanaticism^, 113; a novelty, 152.

Authority of the church of Rome, not the cause of the Bible's authority, 30.

Auto da Fe, description of a Spanish, 338.

B

Ba'ptism, not established by tradition only, 68.

Barnabas' epistle, 62.

Baronius, on the wickedness of the popes, 37, 38.

Basil, against absolution, 223 ; and the popish rule of faith, 226; and purgatoiy, 257.

Becket, Thomas a, more honor paid to this saint, than to Christ, 123, 279.

Bellarmine, on papal supremacy, 43, 44, 75, 83, 89: on the rule of faith, 75; on the suc- cession, 111; he taught the supremacy of spiritual power over civil governments in temporal things, 313 ; his atrocious defence of persecution, and extermination by fire and s\vord, 343.

Bells, popish baptism of, 136.

Bernard, St. again.^,t transubstantiation, 239; and the mass, 245.

Bible, see Scriptures.

Bishop, every Roman prelate is bound by his oath to persecute, 344.

Blasphemies of popery, specimens of, 44, 46, 79.

Bolsec, the priests quote this infamous man against the Reformers, 15, 26.

Bonaventuro, St. a singular blaspiieming fa- natic, 97.

Brunswick, the old Duke of, his curious bar gain witii the Romish priests, for the life insuranr.c of his soul, 9, 14, 139.

Uullinger, quotation from, viiulicatcd, 24.

IJufler's Lives of the Saints, monstrous mira^ clcs in, 142.

358

INDEX.

Call to the ministry, Roman priests know not even the meaning of it. 47

call it i' our interior spirit," "private spirit," 15; their system necessarily opposed to this liberty, 43 : God the only Lord of the con- science, 92 ; papal usurpations on it, 122.

Calvin, vindication of, from popish slanders,: Conversion of three Romish priests,. 241 25; case of Servetus, papists enacted the Conversion, papal, \vhat it is, 81 ; evangelical laws, under which he suffered, 341. I conversion, not admitted on popish princi-

Canon, council of Carthage on the, 38; de-j pies, 81. daring the apocrypha not of the canon, 38 ;' Corpus Christi, festival of, originated by gross no canonical book lost, 61 ; priests absurd-' fanaticism, 114. ly insist that the Bible should do that by in- Councils', and popes' power, 19, 20: two

ternal evidence, which can be done only by. councils quoted against purgatory, 259.

external evidence, in reference to its canoni-, Crabs in velvet, souls coming out of purgatory

city-, 7S; the Greek church cudgelled the in the form of, 143, 144.

church of Rome into orthodoxy, respecting Creed of Protestants, priests' opinion of, 78 ;

the canon, 119. ' ' in scripture texts. 146.

Canonizing, power of, 106. Cross, the wood of worshipped by papists.

Card well refutes Curtis on his charge of er-, 139: farther proof and specimens, 282.

rors in the English version, 79, 89, 90. ; Croydon, vicar of, his saying about printing,

Catholic churcli of Christ very different fi-om' 330.

the Roman catholic church of the pope, 24. Crusades, two kinds of, 340; specimens of Catholicity, on the claims of the popish church 341.

to this attribute. 153. Cup, or wine, abstraction of, in the eucharist,

Celibacy of priests and nuns, a novelty, 98;! a popish novelty, 99.

it originates infinite licentiousness in the Curse, specimens of the papal, 342.

Romish church. 186. Curtis' collection of errors in the English

Chancery book of the pope, tariff prices of Bible, 79, 89; Cardwell in reply, 89, 90.

sin, 45"; Appendix II. Cyprian against the apocrypha, 230; and

Chair of St. Peter, ludicrous anecdote of the,' transubstantiation. 237 ; and purgatory, 256.

144. iCyril, — against absolution, 223; against the

Charles V. the emperor a tool of Clement! popish rule of fahh, 226; and the apocrypha,

VII. 32S ; his noble answer in the case of'

Luther, 323. i

Chastity^ its meaninsr among popish priests, I t\

321. ' '^ , . '

Chillingworth on the rule of faith, quoted, Damasus, against the mass, 245.

19, 36. ; Damnation, power of, claimed by popes, 323,

Christians, number of, compared to that of 324.

papists, 201, 202 ; and Appendix I. iDavid, St, of Scotland, popish miracle by,

Chrysostom St.. on '-'prophetic remains," 61 ;' 109.

on the rule of faith, 74, 227 ; against the in-i Deism of N. Y, priests proved, 10, 12, 34, 54,

vocation of saints, 96 ; on the text of " the 59, 60, 76.

Rock," 209; against absolution by priests. Deists, — necessary tendency of popery to pro-

222 ; and transubstantiation 239 ; and the duce and increase them. 90. 225.

mass, 245 ; and purgatory. 258. I Demons, doctrine of, in the Romish church,

Church of God, never cut off', 42 ; not always 324.

visible, ^-not visible in Israel in Ahab'5time.|Despotism essential to the genius of popery,

42; doctrinalmarksof, 91; separate from! 17,306,320,322.

the state always when in her purest condi- Devil, — Luther a pupil of the, refuted, 25.

tion.92. :Di\'isions of Protestants, one real cause of

Circle, the vicious, the priests resort to this; their apparently greater number, 5; the

form of false logic. -58, 64. i divisions of papists, excessive, 5, 15.

Civil power, over magistrates, and temporal Doctrinal conti-adictions of popery. 285,

things, claimed by popes. 44. jDoctrinal marks of the true cliurch of Christ,

Clemens Alex, condem ns absolution by priests, j 91, — 93.

223: asrainst transubstantiation, 233; andjDoctrines and rites of popery, originated by

the mass. 246. fanaticism. 110 ; popery at open war with

Conclave of cardinals choose iico popes at the! Bible doctrines ; 285, 236, 293.

same time. 16-5. .Douay translation, its glaring errors, 71; not

Confessional, immoral influence of, on the authorised by the pope, or "church," 88:

230; and transubstantiation, 238; and pur- gatory, 257, 258.

minds of priests, 129; and on servants. 129, 130. Conscience, liberty of, 9; papists deny this liberty, 9, 30, 43, 76; their disingenuous manner of replying to this charge ; they

122 ; the priests' lame and Jesuitical defence of it. 133. 1.34. Duke of Brunswick's curious bargain with the priests about the insurance of his soul's life, 9, 14, 139.

INDEX.

359

Dutch christians of Holland, sufferings and massacres of, 346, 347^

pish ceremonies ; his Jesuitism and false hood exposed, 315, 316; he contradicts in his book the words of a papal Bull, 316

English version of the Bible, the papists have no autliorised one, 72.

Epiphanius against saint invocation,

against the worship of Mary, 218, against purgatory, 259.

Eusebius, against transubstantiation, 238

Excommunication of vermin, 142 ; annual ex- communication and cursing of Protestants by papists, 315, 342.

Exorcism of a demoniac pretended, an anec- dote, 144.

F

Fair sex of Spain, and Romish priests, anec- dote of, 189.

Faith, new articles of, power of the pope to enact, 83, twelve new articles added, 83, 85.

Faith of Roman catholics what? 33, 34, contradicted by express texts, 148, carbona- ri an faith, 182,

Faith of God, no foundation for it in popery, 284 5 the popish doctrine of Intention ren- ders faith, and hope, and salvation utterly uncertain to them, 297, 301.

Fanaticism of the Romish church, 15, 105, 106.108,113.

Fathers unanimous consent of, not in exis- tence, 11, proof of this, 72, 73.

Field, Dr., Vindication of, from popish quota- tions, 24.

Francis, St. miracles ascribed to him, 108.

French christians, sufferings and massacres of them, 346.

G

Galileo's sentence of condemnation, unre- pealed by the pope, to this day, 301 ; say- ing of one of his companions, respecting his judges, 302.

Gelasius, the pope, against transubstantiation, 237.

Generations, the 14, textual difficulty of, in Mattli. i., solved, 66.

God's singular family group, according to popery, 106.

Gordon, anecdote of the chief of the house of, 277.

Governments, civil, convulsed b}'^ popery, 287, 289; hostility of pop(My to lil)erfy, 306, danger to our fr(M; institutions from its frc- serit conspiracy against our republic, 306, 307, 308; Bellarmine and other writers on the subjection of civil powers to the spiritu- al, 313; farther shown from the bishops', and priests' oath to the pope, 318, 322.

Grace, doctrines of, in the Romish church, 82; Trent fathers on them, 82, 83.

Gregory, the saint, and pope, against papal supremacy, 95; on succession, 110; con- demns penance and absolution 223; and the mass, 245.

Gregory, pope^ "the hell hrand,'^ an ultra on supremacy, 82.

Gregory Nazianzen, against purgatory, 257.

Gregory Nyssen, against saint invocation, 96; against purgatory, 257.

Gregory XVI. the present pope, an idolatrous worshipper of Mary, 97.

II

Hampton conference, speeches there against "translations of the Bible," 79, exposure of this, 89.

Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost, always ridiculed by the priests, 28, 48, 50, 51, 77, reason of it, 84, 100.

Hebrews not without the written rule for 14 generations, 59.

Hebrew text, reply to the priests' injurious re- flections on the, 72.

Herbert, Lord, a fanatical deist, 104.

Heretic, definition of, at the priests call, 16.

Heretics, no faith to be kept with, a regular popish dogma, proof, 326 ; specimens, 327, 329. _ .

Hilary, on the succession and " The Rock," 110; condemns absolution, 223; against the popish rule of faith, 226; against tran- substantiation, 237; against purgatory, 256.

Holiness, succession of Home cut off by the loss of 161, — But ];)opish holiness is con- veyed l)y the most atrocious of men, 164, — their idens of it, 184.

Holy Mother church, — the priests cannot even agree in telling us what it is, 11, 33.

Holy Water, origin of, 137; in popery it takes the place of the Holy Spirit, 323.

Hooker, vindication of him from popish quo- tations, 24, 38.

Horse, devmdiy ivorships the mass, a popish miracle, 115.

Huss, a martja- of Christ, by the popish dog- ma, " keep no faith with heretics," 166, 32^.

Iddo, book of, noticed, 61. Idolatry of popery, 10(). see imnges. Ignatius against transubslantintion, 237. Images condennied by councils, 81, 82; their

use a novelty in the clirint'uin world, 98;

condennied by scripture and the fathers, 212,

213, 274, 277, 283; three factions in Rome

respecting inuigcis, 278. Immorality of popery, 45; tlie mother of

deism aiul vice, 286, 287 ; full exposure of

this, 288, 321. Impostures of p(<pery, 105, 142.

360

INDEX.

In cosna Domini, analysis of this bull, 317. Jesuits,— raaxims and practices of, 85. 87, 129, Index Expurgatorius, one of the mighty Avea-: 130.197; character of, 131 ; a solemn ap-

pons of papal power, 333. ; peal and warning against their prcstnt con-

Indulgences, sources of wealth to the Romish spiracy, 319 ; tlfeir secret oath bv which

priesthood, 2'22. they are banded together, copy of it, 329.

Infallibility. — the papists cannot agree in de- Joan, the pope, 62.

ciding where it lies, 19, 32, 75, e9 ; it has'John the apostle ; the popish doctrine of sue- not settled any divisions in the R. C. church, ^ cession and supremacy, load him with con-

11, 21, 46; Ludicrous error of our priests on tempt and insolence, 93.

this ; they assert, repeatedly, that the use of Jones' defence of the character and doctrines

their infallible rule of faith', makes those in- of the Waldenses, 27.

fallible who use it, 14, 60, 84. 103 ; their Judas.— a part of the rope with which he

leading maxim is, that the promise of infal- hanged himself, among '' the holy relics,'^ sX

libility is made by Christ, to oral teaching, Rome, 107.

not icritten inspiration, 34; infalliUUtij, and Judge of controversy, the Holy Ghost, speak-

iheir do^ma of intention irreconcilable, 4S; ing in the Word, 3 ; passim m the Letters ii.

theirvicious circle on this, 121 ; Bellarmine's iii. iv. v.

doctrine on this. 323. Judgment, rights of each person's private,

Inquisition, 332 ; this grows out of the very ridiculed by priestly intolerance as '^ the in-

nature and aim of popery, which thrives terior spirit," io, 43.

only by despotism, 333; definition of. 333, Justin Martyr, against transubsrantiation, 238;

334; history of its rise and progress, 334 ; and the luass, 245 ; and purgatory, 256, 257.

some countries never submitted to it, 335;'

Inquisitorial law, curious origin of it, 335;' K

Inquisitor, definition of an, 335; picture of;

— 336; the interior, 337; various tortures, Kettle, anecdote of the cooper, and Patrick

337, 340 ; number of those who perished by O. B., 32.

it in Spain, 340. ;Kings of Europe, have, for generations, been

Intention, papal docti-ine of, fatal to their' "the pope's liangmen,"' 334.

priests, and their rites, 43 ; it bids defiance Knox, John, ludicrous slander of by the pa-

to their infallibility, 48; striking specimen; pists, 26.

of Jesuitism in defending, and covering it,j

50,76; an examination of its fatal effects; L

. on the Avhole system of popery, 297, 301. Internal evidence of the Bible confounded by Lactantius. on imaoes, 213 ; against the mass.

priests, icith external, 78: and passim. Intolerance one of the grand attributes

popery, 329. Irenseus against ti-ansubstantiatiou. 237. Italic, old, version of, older than Jerome's,

the Vulgate, 69.

\ 246; against purgatory, 256. of Laity, treated by the Romish priests w'ith in- ! science and contempt, 57. Laodicean council against the apocrypha, or 231; vindication of "the. 231.

iLatin prayers condemned by scripture and the Irish catholics, an earnest appeal to them, on ?7;e fathers,'214, 215; and by'Cajetan, 216. wore^f?/ of popery, and in behalf of the an- Leariiing. hostility to it. an essential element cient and pritnitive religion of their originalj of popery, 301; specimens of its retaining ancestors in Ireland, 232. i the sentiments of the Dark Ages, on common

I science, 301 ; its ludicrous condemnation of J I Bishop Virgil for believing in antipodes;

I and Galileo, for believing in our doctrine of I the solar system, 301, 302. g Leo X.. the pope, claimed power to enact new ; articles of faith. 83. Levins, Mr , his peculiar taste for the low^, dis-

James, Dr. his Bellum Papal?. 87.

Januarius. St. the annual miracle of melti his blood, at Naples, 143.

Jasher, the book of, noticed, 61.

Jerome, — his Latin version of the Scriptures! altered in the Vulgate, 69, 70; Jerome quo-: ted on the popish rule of faith, 73- 228; on! the Latin version, 88; against papal supre-' macy, 94; on the text of "the Rock," and, succession, 207. 209 ; he condemns penance,; and absolution. 222; against the apocrypha.'

gusting, and ribaldrous, specimens, 28, 30, 31, 86 ; his cowardly insolence in insulting ladies, 86. 87, &c. : specimen of his blas- phemy, 79, 90; calls Dr. B. his opponent A LIAR, 147 ; his appropriate protot^-pe, an officer of the court of the king of Assjria, 171; the epitaph, 172. 230; and transubstantiation, 239; and the Liberality, and toleration of sentiment never mass, 244 ; and purgatory, 258. i known in the Romish church, 313; not al-

Jerome of Prague, a martyr of Christ, by po-! lowed on Roman cathoUc principles, proof, pish treachery, 116. 323. - - j ^"^^' ^"^•^•

iLibertv. the genius of popery is in deadly i hostility to," 47, 77; pure Christianity the

Jesuitism, instances of in N. Y. priests, 50, 85, 87 ; its spirit, 169, 197.

tNDEX-

parent and nurse of true liberty, 92 ; an ap- peal to Roman catholic laymen on this, 178, 193.

Liturgies of the Oriental churches opposed to transubstantiation, 240.

Logic, — curious specimens of Romish logic, 34, 85 ; N. Y. priests employ as an argument againstthe divine rule of faith, the abuse of it by evil men, 76 ; specimen of their logic on their church's antiquity, 150 ; in their claims to catholicity, 154.

Luther's character vindicated from the slang of our priests, 24, 25, 119; anecdote of him and an ignorant priest, 148.

M

Magistrates, papist contempt of, 322. In Eu- rope they were, for centuries, the pope's "spies and hangmen," 334.

Man of Sin, a peculiar title of the Romish hie- rarchy, 321, 323, 325.

Marcellinus, the pope, an idolater, 75.

Marks of their church claimed by papists, an- tiquity, 150. See Catholicity, &^c.

Marry, forbidding to, peculiar attribute of the popish apo Stacy, 324.

Mary. See Virgin.

Mary St. a torturing machine of papists, 338.

Mass, a substitute for our Lord's atonement, 81 ; a mere novelty, 98 ; it w^as originated by fanaticism, 114; w^orshlpped by a horse, a popish miracle, 115; superstition of it, 136 ; bees worshipping it, 143 ; full exa- mination of it, refutation, — by reason, 242; by Scripture, 243; by the fathers, 244 ; rea- sons why popish priests cling to this grand invention, as their last hope, 246 ; various convenient masses, 247 ; picture of a high mass inpontificalihus, 268.

Matrimony, thrown into confusion among pa- pists by the priests' doctrine of Intention, 300.

Maxim, a useful one in controversy, 13.

Meats in lent, 138 ; allowed lately to be eaten on Saturdays, 224; forbidden by popery, 324.

Middleton quoted on the pagan origin of po- pish rites, 264, 268.

Miracles, popish, 106, 107, 108, 109, 1J5.

Misquotations and textual perversions by pa- pists, instances of, 14, in reference to 2 Pet. i. 20; and our rule of faith, 54. 58,— in reference to 2 Peter iii. 16, " hard to be understood," 57, glaring instance of, 95.

Misrepresentations, 75, 76, of Dr. Curtis and priests, 79, specimen of, 102.

Molina's works noticed, code of Jesuitism, 183, and 263.

Monkish orders, seven of them, founded by fanatics, 111, — they cause distractions, 204.

Morals, Popish, 129, infamous maxims on, 130, 194—199,— quotations, 263.

Mortmain law of England, cause and orii^in of, 246.

Mother of God, a name of blasphemy, 96, 97, 103 ; this involves the Eutychian heresy, 105. Epiphanius and Augustine on this, 218.

N

Nathan, book of, noticed, 61. Nazarene, Christ called a, 67. Nicholas, Dr. Melchior, his vindication of Luther, noticed, 25.

O

Oath of Jesuits, and papists, not to be relied on, 326; their own secret oath, 329.

Oath taken by Roman catholic priests, and bishops, 318.

Objections and misstatements of priests, ex- amined, see Letter VL part i. 55.

Odor of sanctity, popish meaning of, 107.

Oral instruction not to be separated, as the priests insist, from the use of the Scriptures, 68.

Ordination, and episcopal consecration, no Romish priest can prove his, 47, 48.

Origen, quoted, 209 ; on prayers in an un- known tongue, 216; against the Roman catholic rule of faith, 227 ; and the apocry- pha, 2-30; and transubstantiation p. 239.

Pagan origin of popish rites, 106, 137* 264 — ' 268 ; pagans outdone by papists 331.

Parents, appeal to, on Jesuit seminaries, 192.

Patrick, St. miracles of, 108, 109, defence of him from popish legends, note, 139, 232.

Paul, F. his saying of the Trentine fathers, 85.

Penance, superstition of, 138, impiety and deism of it, 221; source of wealth, 222.

Persecution, essential to popery, 127 ; differ- ent kinds, 340; it is a dogma of popery to persecute, — it is enacted by its councils, and advocated by its doctors, 342 — proofs, 343, 344 ; each bishop is sworn in to per- secute, 344 ; specimens of massacres and persecutions, 345, 348; numbers killed, 347.

Pp:ter, 2. Epist. of, ch. 1. 20 ; perversion of by Romanists, 14.

Peter, whether at Rome, no pope, 160; para- ble of him, 173, spirit of antichrist shown, _174,_178.

Pius ii. the pope, ,^neas Sylvius, quoted, 7o, 159.

Pix, or box containing </tc wafer god, curious pagan origin of, 266.

Pollution an essential clement in popery, 289-

Pontifical and priestly arrogance, wielding the power " to damn," 17.

Pontifical high mass, curious picture of this theatrical show, 268.

PopK, the pontifex maximus ; the lord god in the Roman church, 19, 41 ; his tcmpordl

INDEX.

power aft'ected to be disowned by American Roman catholics, 20 ; he must be in fact, a god, if he do what the Roman catholic rule of faith requires him to do, 22; papal succession cut off, 36; wicked popes, 36. 37, 45 ; the pope appoints new articles of faith, 43, 83; the names of our Lord arro garitly given to him, 43, 44; he calls him self " God," 44, 323 1 specimens of the character of popes, 45, 46; "a god upon earth," he pardons sins ; makes new gods, or saints ; and thus adds to the number of the objects of worship; 56, 57; pope Joan, 62 ; the pope made by -^a^isis^ ^patcr fa- milias,^' in the place of Christ, 83, 89 : spe- cimen of atrocious popes, and yet vicars of God, 162, 163; frightful scenes at Rome, by the conduct of popes, 163 ; three antipopes uniting to make a barter of the church, 165 ; worse than any civil tyrant in any land, 167; a pope's idolatrous prayer at the con- secration of images, 280 ; they bring all things, for sale, into market, for money, 290; the adoration of the pope at his elec- tion, 323; a pope's public rejoicings on ac count of the French massacres of the Huguonots, 347. Popery, it labours to conceal, in our land its real tenets, 40; its genius strictly mo- narchical, and despotic, 41; its hostility to the freedom of the people, and to republics 41, 195 ; its spirit and doctrines the same now, unchanged, as in the Dark Ages, 41 126; its nature, and atheism, 44, 123, 127 its revolting immorality, 45, 188, 189 ; the no velty of its essential doctrines and rites, 91 it is a system of forgeries and novel inven lions; proof. Letter viii. part i., 87, 93, 187, 232 ; its dogmas, and rites originated in fa naticism, 105, 115; family group of its gods, 106 ; it peoples the world with saint-idols even as the pagans did it, with hero-idols 106; offices of its idols, 106 ; it has lost the spirit of Christianity, 126 ; it claims the pow er of " damning" its enemies, 128 ; the vices and ignorance of its votaries, 128 the marks and notes of its church, 149 ; its passport given, for the usual consideration, to any dying man, to heaven, 149, 150; its images, 152; at/tree headed monster in it. ■which cut off its succession, 164 ; it nevei reforms, never improves, on its own avowal 191 ; it is a very broken, divided, and dis tracted sect, 202, 203, 205; its claims to pardon sin, and absolve, refuted, 218; it is a system of pious frauds to plunder nations successfully ; proof, Spain, 252, 253 ; its deplorable moral condition in popish lands ; its tenets cause the evil to wax worse and worse, 262 ; it is shown to be perpetuated paganism, 264; proof: contrast of it, and paganism, S65; its frightful idolatry, 274, 283; gymptwus. and elements of its ruin, 284; its po]lution.^~§89-f-it is at war with ijhe gospel of ChfisV, on essential particu

lars, proof, 293; every doctrine, ritej nnd " efficacy of grace" in it, rendered utterly uncertain ; and its whole system abortive, by its extraordinary doctrine of Intention, 297, 300; its essential attribute of despot- ism, 306 ; its six grand attributes discussedi 320, &c. ; the number of those who have been murdered by it, 347, 348.

Popish authors quoted relative to the popes, 37 ; blunders of, about ordinances, 83.

Power, Dr. solemnly appealed to God that he, and the priests encouraged the reading of the Bible in the vernacular tongue, — yet no authorised version in English. 88, 122 ; his lame defence of it, 133; specimen of the saints to whom he prays, 163.

Precepts, the ten precepts of God repealed, practically, by popery, 288, 289.

Predictions, Romish priests fill up these, as recorded in Scripture, 194.

Priest of a false religion, character of, 331.

Priest, an office as used among the papists, unknown in the New Testament, 47, 48.

Priesthood, a ghostly aristocracy and nobility in popery, 57 ; impure by their very office, 129, 188, 189; its legal existence rendered uncertain by their own doctrine of Inten- tion, 297, 300.

Priests, of New-York, — boast against our rule, the Bible, as Paine did, 78, 116; their un- fairness, 84,85,115, 118; the attributes of their logic, 87; specimens of it, 101; their spirit indicative of popery, 104, 116, 119 i they borrow all the little they say, out of old Mumford, and Milner, 105, et passim: their violence against the holy Bible, 116, 117, 133; their unguarded admission against their own saints' legends, 119 ; they charge false miracles on Protestants, 119 ; two sin- gular admissions drawn from them, 122 ; they aim at personal violence, 131 ; Dr. B.'s card on this, 132; their acerbity of style^ 133, 147 ; they call Dr. B. '' a liar,'" 147 ; their aim utterly defeated, 148 ; their maniac logic, 150, 151 ; their final Letter, and re- treat, 167.

Primitive Christianity of Ireland and Spain before popery overran them, 91, 93, 225.

Pi-otestant, and papist, contrast of, on an es- sential point, 84; Protestant divisions, reply to charge of, 84 ; Protestants' harmony in doctrine, 153; contrast of the Protestant and popish claims to have the true faith, 156 ; Protestant parents appealed to on Jesuit seminaries, 192; Protestants have persecut- ed, instances, 341; radical difterence be.^ tween the principle prompting them, and that of the papists, 341.

Purgatory, a novel invention, 98, 152, 260; it was originated by fanatics, 113 ; the raoot-» ed question if priests know who are in it, 142 ; miracle oF visibly letting out souls, in form o^ mice, 142; as crfliff in ye\\H, 144; anecdote of a priest who had purgatory in his house, 180 ; it is the temple of mammon,

INDEX-

248; curious remark of a cardinal about it. 248 ; history of it, — a pagan fiction import- ed; neither the Jesuit Cotton, nor the devil, could find a text for it, 249; the eight dun- geons in purgatory for eight castes of hope- ful sinnei-s, 250 ; the real use of it, 251 ; specimen of popish extortion by this, in Spain, 252; refutation of purgatory, — from reason, and Scripture, 253; the monstrous absurdities of it, 255 ; it sets out the priests before the public, as inhuman monsters 256; condemned by the best of the fathers 256; by councils, 259; has not the unani- mous consent, and therefore, wants even po' pish evidence, 259.

a

Quotation.-^;, unfair ones, valuable maxim on

,16,

R

Rack, tortures of the, 338.

Reformation needful in Rome, 260 ; quota- tions of her writers urging it, 261.

Reformers vindicated, 24, 26.

Relics, origin of, a mere novelty, 99 ; rare spe- cimen of them, 107, 281, &c. ; worship of them, 282 ; farther specimens, very curious 303; the ridiculous folly of these will work the final ruin of popery, 302, 305.

Religion, contrast between the true and the false, 292.

Republicanism, — poperv's essential doctrines in deadly hostility to it, 195, 196, 308, 313, 322 ; proof from the oatli of priests, and bishops, 318 ; its present conspiracy against our republic, 306, 308.

Reuchlin's saying of the Latin version, com pared with the original Hebrew and Greek 88.

Rites of Romanism, founded in fanaticism, 113.

Rock, text of the ; criticism on it ; the senti- ments of the fathers on it, 205, 207.

Roman catholics, earnest appeals to them, 178, 182, 232, 241.

Roman church, in the 4th century, rejected the epistle to the Hebrews, 119.

Romish system, or popery, is the perpetuation of paganism, 2G4, 268.

Roscoc, and tjie laconic senate, 16.

Rucellai's judgment on the political tendency of tlie bull In cama Domini, 318, 319.

Rule of faith, 7, 8. 9, 12, 16 ; our sentiments on this, always misquoted by papists, 23, 54 ; the cijurch of God had always the same rule of faith, 59; no books of the sacred canon lost, 61.

Rule of faith, among papistm, 7, 17, 21,31; their rule is the church, 149 ; their errors in thi« matter. 9, 10, 11; their avowed rule a cumbrous load, 21, 120; their infaUihUi rule made up o^ fallible materials, 7, 11 ; the real origin of this papal dogma, 19; rciutatioii of the papa] rule in ttn argUmftntpi, IP, 3fi, S4,

Sabbath, change of, not determined by tradi- tion only 68. Saints, invocation of, a novelty, 95; origin of, 96 ; opposed by the fathers, 96 ; the la- borious services imposed on each by pa- pists, 106; reported miracles of, 109; spe- cimen of wicked men made saints, 162 ; saint worship condemned by scripture and the fathers, 213, 214; specimen of extraor- dinary saint worship 279, 283 ; farther no- tice of the labours and services of these saints, 280.

Sanctity of Romanism, reviewed, 184.

Scarlet colored Beast &c. notices of, 330.

Schisms in the Romish church, view of the, 162.

Scriptures, no obscurity in them, 9, 13; their authenticity and genuineness, 9, 10, 52. 53. their inspiration, proofs of it, 8, 9, 12, 18, 51, to 55 ; confession of this wrung from the priests, 17; evidence of this, external and in- ternal, 51; historical evidence, tradition, 52; no inspired books lost, 53 ; our English ver- sion the priests call " most abominably cor- rupt," 79; Dr. Curtis' collection of errors, Dr. Cardwell's exposure, 79 and 89,90; Walton's judgment of our version 89 ; Selden's 89; Geddes', 89; keeping them in a dead language, a popish novelty, 99; fathers quoted, 99, 100; priest's renewed attack on them, 101, 102; their sophistry exposed, 103 ; Scriptures prohibited by the Roman catholic church, 135; anecdote of a papist, and a Bible, 181.

Selden, his judgment of our version of the Bi- ble, 89. _ ^

Servants, priests' instructions to, at the con- fessional, 129, 147.

Society, and marriage among papists thrown into confusion by the popish doctrine o^ In- tention, 300.

Spirit of God, speaking in the Bible, the only judge of controversies in doctrines, 3, 7, 8 ; the priests' perversion on this, "the interior spirit, " ' ' our -private spirit,^^ 15, 23, 30 ; they always misquote our definitions, 54, 58.

Spirits,"^evil, successfully battled by Romish saints, 109.

State always in union, with the church, in Roman catholic lands, 314.

St. Sacrament a Romish idol, 136 ; fiirther spe- cimens of its idolatrous worship, 283.

Statues and images work miracles, 110.

Succession, apostolical, of the papists totally cut off, 35, 38 ; review of it, 159.

Supererogation, base superstition of, 140.

Superstition of popery, 135, incense ; holy water, charms, 137; condemned by reason and Scripture 274, 283

Supremacy, papal, four sects of faith in th Romish church on this point, 19,20.124; Bellarmine's ultra views of it, 75, 83; ori- gin of it, 93 &:.c. resisted by councils and the fathero. 93, 35 ; j"arrin^lcmentB an4 faVt'ioTiB m Rnme on u] 294. ^97.

I>'DEX.

T

Tax Book of popery, tariff prices of sin, 191 ; and Appendix ii.

Temporal power of the pope, 124, 125. anec- dote to illustrate it, 125, 126 ; proof of this claim by the popes, 308, 312, 322; far- ther proof, 326.

Tertullian, on the rule of faith, 74, 226 ; against papal supremacy, 94; on succession, 110 ; on images, 213 ; transubstantiation, 238; the mass, 246; and purgatory, 257.

Testament, the new, not v.'ritten, say the priests, bj- Christ's command, 34.

Textual difficulties solved, 65; 3Iatt!i. i. Luke iii., 31atth. xxvii., and chap. ii. 23 — 68, 67.

Theodoret, against papal supremac}^, 94; against saint worship, 96; on the succes- sion, 210; against transubstantiation, 238.

Tortures of the Inquisition, 337, 340.

Tradition, historical, an evidence of the inspi-|

ration of the Bible, 18 ; the priests reject all; Virgin Magdalen, popish miracle by her, 107. liistorical traditions, except simply those of: Vulgate, one of the worst translations of the their ow^n sect, 31. ! Bible, 14; N. Y. priests' defence of it, 65;

Traditions, papal, their fanaticism, exti-ava-j exposure of it, 69; Clementine and Sextine gance, and impiety, 55, 56 ; apostolical tra

Varela, Dr. retreats, yet, Parthian-Iike, keeps up a retreating fire, 12 ; his daring attack on the only rule of faith, the Scriptures, 12, 16 ; reply to his Letters, 80 ; specimen of his misquotations, 82 : ludicrous blunder of his about •' ordinances," 83.

Vicars of God, three perjured ones, in Holy Mother, at once, 166.

Vicious circle, — this false logic emjiloyed by papists, 58, 120, 121 ; they deny it, yet use it, at the same time, 64 ; they employ it on traditions, 120 ; and on their infallibilitv, 121.

Virgin Mary, specimen of her worship, ren- dered by papists, 96, 97; this idolatry con- demned by Scripture, and the fathers, 217, 218 ; she is the great goddess, the Diana of the Romans, — farther specimens of proofs 281.

ditions, 68, 69 ; the priests' vicious circle on

them, 120. Traffic with heretics forbidden by the Man of

Sin, 335. Translations, the priests' ludicrous assaults

on them, 14. Transubstantiation, a novel invention. 98;

refutation from Scripture and the fathers,

233 ; the papists sustain their doctrine bv

editions of it, 70, 71, 88; Jerome's saying of the Latin version, 88 ; there is no aiitlwr- ised version of the Bible in English, by the Roman church, 88.

W

Waldenses vindicated from the atrocious slan- der of N. Y. priests, 26, 27 ; testimony in their favor, by two inquisitors, and a pope,

one of the absurdities of Aristotle, 235; itj 27,28; their terrible sufferings and massa-

brutalizes a man; it compels its believersi cres by papists, 345, 346.

to disbelieve the evidence of their senses, ' Walton, quoted by the priests as favoring

235 ; a believer in it can never he a witness their Vulgate, 65 ; this is not correct, 89.

in any case, 235 ; condemned by eighteenlWars in Europe for ages, caused, mainly, by

of the fathers, and the eastern liturgies, j popery, 166, 204.

237, 241. Wax candles, lamps, — origin of, among pa-

Treachery, a grand attribute of popery, 325., pists. 138. Trinity, representation of, in the popish idol- Wenefride, St., three popish miracles in her

atry, 106. i life, 108.

U iWesley, John, vindicated from the wanton-

! charges of N. Y. priests, 23, &c. Unanimous consent of the fathers, the popish White slaves, Roman catholic lands, the coun-

system destitute of the, 72, 75, 209, 216, 217. ; try of, 330. Union of church and state, characteristic of|

popery, 314. Unitarians at one with papists on an essential

point, 235. Unity claimed by Roman catholics, no such

thing among them, 5, 6; cause of their ap- parent unity, 5 ; the only kind of union

among them, 6 ; review of their affected York

unity, 200, 220. Usher, a good advice of his to popish priests

relative to purgatory, 260.

Xavier, St., popish miracles in his life, 109.

Y

th

cardinal duke of, referred to ; the book containing an account of a synod held by him, gives the lie to bishop England's statement. De Bulla, In ccena Domini, 316,

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