The constant custom of the advocates of Popery is to represent their religion as a work of the primitive age. With them it is a Patriarchal figure, beginning its pilgrimage by a Divine summons, and protected by Divine influence; perhaps occasionally touched by the stains, or sinking under the struggles belonging to all human history, but still suddenly purifying its robes into more than their original brightness, and turning its difficulties into the weapons of that warfare which is to end in the sovereignty of the world.

The learned investigation of Protestantism, however, wholly strips this Patriarchal figure of its antique habiliments, declares that every fragment of its ceremonial has been the work of ages when Christianity had fallen into oblivion; that its belief is credulity, its system an accumulation of error, and its spirit an antagonism to the gospel.

On the other hand, the Popish stigma on Protestantism is, that it is a new name, unknown before the sixteenth century. But to this charge the natural answer has been, that a name is nothing; that Christianity was once a new name, and that Heathenism was older than Popery.

The true question is of principle, and then the decision is clear. Popery appeals for its authority to councils and fathers; Protestantism, to apostles and prophets. The doctrines of Rome are to be looked for only in the annals of the Popedom; the doctrines of Protestantism appeal only to the New Testament. "The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants," was the maxim of the celebrated Chillingworth. Nothing commanded by the New Testament can be rejected by Protestantism, nothing contradictory of the New Testament can be received by Protestantism. The appeal of Rome is to tradition; the appeal of Protestantism is to inspiration.

We shall now give the dates, at which the peculiar errors of Popery were engrafted on the worship of the Roman world.

The claim of the Headship of Christianity was the first of the Romish errors, and the fount from which they all flowed. But this claim was first formally made in the sixth century, (A.D., 533,) and was established by the Emperor Justinian. But no mortal power had the right to give, or to assume, this title. The headship of the universal church belongs to Christ alone, who has been made "Head over all things to His church." No human being could be competent to the high duty of governing a church spreading, and to be ultimately spread, through all nations. The government is also spiritual, of which no human being of this earth can have a comprehension. Its seizure by the Bishop of Rome was an enormous usurpation. In about sixty years after, the title was disclaimed by the Bishop of Rome, in indignation at its seizure by the Bishop of Constantinople; but it was solicited again, in the reign of the Emperor Phocas, (A.D., 606,) and has been ever since retained.

It is not to be presumed, that this usurpation was universally allowed. God has not left Himself without witnesses in any age. Successive opponents of Rome, preachers of the gospel, the true Protestants, arose during the dark ages; and a continued resistance to superstition was sustained for the thousand years of the Popish assumption; until, in the sixteenth century, the recovery of learning, the renewed intelligence of the human mind, the translation of the Bible, and, above all, and acting through all, the mercy of God, restored Christianity to the world in the glorious German Reformation, (A.D. 1517.)

The most visible practice of Popery is Mass-worship. This practice commenced early; but we have no direct record of its reception until the Second Council of Nice, (A.D. 787.)

Infallibility was too monstrous a conception to be adopted, but in the utter prostration of the general mind. It was, accordingly, first made an article of faith in the very centre of the Dark Ages, (A.D. 1076.)

But this claim is so repugnant to reason, so contradictory to the common sense of man, and so palpably overthrown by the vicious conduct of Popes, and the contemptible quarrels of Councils, that, even among the Papists, it has been the most dubious of all doctrines—some of the Popish parties placing infallibility in a General Council, some in a General Council united with the Pope, some in the Universal Church. But those disputes, which no human understanding could ever decide, show only the repugnancy of the doctrine itself to the human intellect. Infallibility was, at length, by the mere ignorance of knowing where to place it, quietly delivered into the possession of the Pope. He now presumed to be the acting infallibility of the Romish world.

Yet, immeasurably absurd as this doctrine is, it is the especial and favourite one on which the Tractarians insist, and by which the apostates attempt to justify their guilty desertion to Rome. Infatuated as they are, they have fixed on the very point where infatuation is most infatuated, where perversion most degrades the character of the understanding.

The Celibacy of the Clergy.—After several attempts by ambitious Popes, this doctrine, or ordinance, was established by the tyrannical Hildebrand, Gregory the Seventh, in the eleventh century. The parochial clergy had generally married, and they protested long and strongly against abandoning their wives. But the advantage of having the ecclesiastics, in all countries, wholly separated from all connexion with their native soil and native interests, and the fixture of large bodies of men in every kingdom, wholly devoted to the objects of the Popedom, overpowered the voice alike of nature, justice, and scripture. "Those whom God had joined together" were put asunder by man.

No act, even of the Papacy, ever produced more suffering or more crime. No act could be politically more injurious, for it withdrew from the increase of the population—in times when population was the great want of Europe, and when half the land was desert—300,000 parochial priests, 300,000 monks and friars, and probably upwards of 300,000 nuns; thus giving to a life of idleness, and almost total uselessness in a national view, an enormous multitude of human beings annually, down to this hour, through nearly nine centuries!

But, to give the true character of this presumptuous contempt of the Divine will, and of the primal blessing of "Increase and multiply, and replenish the earth," and of the universal custom of the Jewish covenant, in which the priesthood descended by families; we should know the solitary miseries entailed by monastic and conventual life, the thousands of hearts broken by remorse for those rash bonds, the thousands sunk into idiotism and frenzy by the monotony, the toilsome trifling, the useless severities, and the habitual tyrannies of the cloister. Even to those we must add the still darker page of that grossness of vice which, in the ages previous to the Reformation, produced frequent remonstrances even from the Popes, and perpetual disgust among the people.

The Invocation of Saints.—This doctrine first assumed an acknowledged form in the seventh century. It had been gradually making its way, since the dangerous homage paid to the tombs of the martyrs in the third and fourth centuries. But this invocation made them, in the estimate of their worshippers, gods. For the supposition that they heard and answered prayer in every part of the world at once, necessarily implied Omnipresence—an attribute exclusively belonging to Deity.

Transubstantiation.—This doctrine declares that, when the words of consecration have been pronounced over the Eucharist, the bread and wine are actually transformed into the body and blood, the soul and divinity of Christ. This monstrous notion was wholly unknown to the Christians of the first four centuries. In the eleventh century, it was held that the body of Christ was actually present, without directly affirming in what manner. It was not until the thirteenth century (A.D. 1215) that the change of the bread and wine became an acknowledged doctrine, by the Fourth Lateran Council.

This doctrine contradicts the conception of a miracle, which consists in a visible supernatural change. It contradicts the physical conception of body, which is, that body is local, and of course cannot be in two places at once; but the body of Christ is in Heaven. It also contradicts Scripture, which pronounces that the taking of the bread and wine would be wholly profitless, but by the accompanying operation of the Holy Spirit acting on the faithful partaker of the Sacrament; the language of Christ being—"The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak to you, they are spirit." The whole efficacy is spiritual.

The Mass.—Popery declares that in the Mass is offered continually the actual sacrifice of Christ. This conception arises from Transubstantiation, by which the Host is Christ; and the priest thus continually offering the Host is presumed to sacrifice our Lord, in every instance of the offering!

This doctrine is threefold—that the priest can make God, that flour and water can be God, and that the wafer, which is still but flour and water to the senses, is the Christ of whom it is declared in Scripture that, "having suffered once for all for the sins of men, he sat down for ever at the right hand of God." This monstrous doctrine was long disputed, and, though practically adopted, was not confirmed before the Council of Trent, (A.D. 1563.)

The Half-communion.—This doctrine originated also in Transubstantiation. From pronouncing the Eucharist to be actually Christ, scruples arose as to its chances of pollution; and as the wine might be spilt, it became the custom to give only the bread to the laity, in whose mouths it is placed by the priest. But a mutilated sacrament is none. The consequence of this doctrine is, that no Popish layman ever receives the Eucharist, or has received it during the last four hundred years!—most awful and terrible result of human presumption!

Auricular Confession.—By this doctrine, the forgiveness of sin must be preceded by confession to a priest. In contradiction to the whole tenor of Scripture, which declares the forgiveness of sin to depend on sincere prayer for forgiveness, through the atonement of Christ, and on the determination to sin no more: "Come to me all ye that are heavy laden, and I will refresh you."—"Repent ye, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out."

But Auricular Confession, with its subsequent Absolution, actually increases crime, by disburthening the mind of remorse, and by substituting absolution for repentance. This practice was established, as a portion of the acknowledged system of Rome, scarcely before the thirteenth century.

Purgatory.—This doctrine was unheard of in the first four centuries. It crept in about the seventh century, the period of the chief corruptions of worship. It was not sanctioned by any council until the fifteenth century, (A.D. 1438.) Its first establishment was by the Council of Trent.

This doctrine, which is wholly contradictory to the redemption declared in the Gospel, as resulting from the sufferings of Christ alone; declares that every sinner must be qualified for redemption in part, by undergoing sufferings of his own; that he must be personally punished in Purgatory for his temporal sins, to be purified for Heaven. The doctrine is evidently borrowed from the Heathen ideas of Tartarus. It has not the slightest ground in Scripture, and is totally opposed to the whole spirit and bearing of Christianity.

Indulgences.—This doctrine originated in the combination of Purgatory and Saintship. It held, that the merits of the dead might be applied to the wants of the living; and that these merits, not being required for the redemption of the saints, were preserved in the hands of the Church, to be distributed as remissions from Penance, in the first instance, and in the next, from the terms of suffering in Purgatory. These remissions were sold by Rome under the name of Indulgences, and were given for any and every period. These Indulgences extended from a year to ten thousand years. Instances are recorded of their being extended to thirty thousand years! This was the most lucrative portion of the traffic of Rome. It brought in prodigious sums to the Roman Treasury.

Masses for the Dead.—This doctrine was connected with those of Purgatory and Indulgences. By it a succession of solitary masses might be continually carried on, either to relieve the Purgatorial torments, or shorten their duration. But these masses must be paid for either in money or land. They formed the vast funds which endowed the great Romish establishments—the monasteries, &c. Operating on the fears of the dying, the Popish priesthood rapidly possessed themselves of enormous wealth, and, in England, they were calculated to be masters of one-third of the land! The statute of mortmain alone preserved the rest. This prodigious grasp was loosened at the Reformation, and the monkish institutions were deprived of the wealth gained only by superstition.

It is obvious how fatally a doctrine of this order must operate on society. If man could clear himself from the punishment of a life of profligacy by a bequest on his deathbed, his whole responsibility would be removed at once. The fear of judgment would be extinguished throughout his life; he could have no restraint but the arm of society. Masses would be his substitute for morals; and his conscience would be cleared by the acts of others, for years after he was laid in the grave. If Masses could avail, there would be no use in living virtue, to any man who was able to pay for them.

This doctrine, intolerable in the view of common sense, unjust in placing an insurmountable distinction between the rich and the poor, and wholly contradictory to the spirit of the gospel—which commands that "every man shall work out his own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in him, both to will and to do"—was created and continued for its vast profits to the priesthood of Rome.

The celebrated Council of Trent, which, under various forms, sat from 1542 till 1563, collected all these doctrines into a system, and the subsequent act of Pius IV. gave them in the shape of a creed to the Popish world.

We are glad to find that the "Papal Aggression" has awakened the intelligent and important authority of the English bar. On all great questions of the liberties and rights of the empire, that authority is of the most decisive order; and in this spirit we welcome with peculiar gratification a pamphlet from the well-known and eloquent pen of Mr Warren.[23] He commences by this bold and manly denunciation of the Papal interference with the rights of the Church and the privileges of the crown:—

Mr Warren, in taking a lawyer's general view of the subject, strikingly adverts to the impudence of the Papist assertions. It is true that these assertions have now shrunk into a very small compass; that the bravado of "my Lord Cardinal" has dwindled down into a sort of supplication to be suffered to remain here on any terms; and that the "prince" has stooped into the pilgrim, gliding through the filth, vice, and poverty of the Irish colony in Westminster, or, as he terms it, the slums—an expression of extreme vulgarity, which, Mr Warren justly observes, does not belong to the English language, and which, we may as justly observe, belongs only to the meanest of the rabble.

But the organs of Popery abroad have not submitted to circumstances so demurely, and they let out the Popish objects with all the easy insolence of the foreigner. Thus Count le Maistre, in a work translated and published in London, says, "What shall we say of Protestantism, and of those who defend it, when it will no longer exist? Let them rather aid us in making it disappear. In order to re-establish a religion and a morality in Europe, in order to give to truth the strength which it requires for the conquest it meditates, it is an indispensable preliminary to efface from the European dictionary that fatal word, Protestantism." L'Univers, the journal of Popery in France, has no hesitation in pronouncing the Protestant faith in England to be totally undone, and that Popery is only taking its time to make the operation complete.

The Popish organ here has been equally plain-spoken, and pronounced, in the most dashing style, the triumph of Rome, and the return of all Protestants under its yoke, on pain of damnation! Who but must be indignant at this language! But who can henceforth be deceived?

Mr Warren, in reverting to the character and pretensions of the Papacy, lays it down as a fundamental proposition, that "the Pope's avowed spiritual power is pregnant with disavowed political power." He, tells us further, "that we have to tolerate a rival, who condescends to equality only as an advance to ascendency." He then gives the memorable Florentine canon of 1439, which the Romish lawyers regard as containing "the true doctrine of their church," and for the consequences deducible from which all Papists are answerable. These are its words:—

"Moreover, we define that the Holy Apostolic See, and the Roman Pontiff, have a primacy over the whole world!—and that the Roman Pontiff is the successor of St Peter, the chief of the apostles, and true Vicar of Christ!—and that he is 'head of the whole church,' and the father and teacher of all Christians!—and to him, in St Peter, was delegated by our Lord Jesus Christ full power to feed, rule, and govern the universal church, as also is contained in the Acts of General Councils, and in the holy canons!" In this daring proclamation of power, we have the assumption of an authority obviously incompatible with the peace of any nation under heaven, and equally incompatible with the common liberties of mankind—for there can be no liberty where the arbitrary will of a stranger is the fountain of the law, and most especially contradictory to that Scripture which declares that Christ's kingdom is not a kingdom after the fashion of this world. When the question was contemptuously put by Pilate to our Lord himself, "Art thou a king?" the answer was, that he was not a king in the sense of the Roman; that, if he were such, "his servants would fight"—in other words, that he would have the troops and attendance of an earthly king, that he would have resisted and made war. "But now is my kingdom not of this world."

But what is the Papacy, with its princes and pageantries, its armies and intrigues, its cabinets and alliances? In what does all this complicated and systematic mixture in the affairs of the world differ from the kingdoms of this world? except perhaps in its deeper intrigue, in its more perpetual artifice, in its more insatiable craving for power, and in its more habitual gratification of every daring and dangerous passion of man.

And it has felt the consequences. Of all the kingdoms of this world, since the fall of Rome, the Popedom has been the most marked by calamity. There has been no nation whose sovereign has been so often flung from his throne; whose throne has been so often contested with bloody dissension, whose sovereign has been so often a prisoner in foreign lands, whose capital has been so often sacked, whose provinces have been so often in foreign possession, whose population is so miserable, and whose vassalage has been so palpable, so humiliating, and so wretched.

But need we look to the past, when we see the Papacy at this hour? Need we dig up ancient fields of battle, to see how often its armies have been buried; or dive into its dungeons, to see how many centuries of fetters are recorded there against its presumption? Need we break up its tombs to see its shattered crosiers and tarnished tiaras, when we see the living figure that sits in mock majesty in the Vatican, with a French garrison in the Castle of St Angelo?

But the Papist demands religious liberty. The words, in Papist lips, are jargon. He has never had it in any country on earth. Has he it in Rome? Can the man have the absurdity to call himself a freeman, when the priest may tear the Bible out of his hand; when, without a license, he cannot look into the Book of Life?—when, with or without a license, he cannot exercise his own understanding upon its sacred truths, but must refuse even to think, except as the priest commands?—when, for daring to have an opinion on the most essential of all things—his own salvation—he is branded as a heretic; and when, for uttering that opinion, he is cast into the dungeon?—when the priest, with the Index Expurgatorius in his hand, may walk into his house, and strip it of every book displeasing to the caprices, insolence, and ignorance of a coterie of monks in the Vatican?

If the legitimate and noble boast of the Englishman is, that his house is his castle, what is the house of the Italian Papist, but his dungeon? If the Irish or the English Papist demands "Religious Liberty," let him demand it of his master the Pope. If the Papist desires it, let him break the Popish fetter, and emancipate himself. Till then, we must look upon his claim as lawlessness instead of liberty, and hypocrisy instead of religion.

But, before the Papist requires more than toleration, must he not show that at least he tolerates? If, in the Popish kingdoms of the Continent, fear or policy has produced some degree of Protestant toleration, what is the condition of Protestantism in the capital of Popery; and, in its most important point, freedom of worship? To this day, no English Protestant is suffered to worship within the walls of Rome.

The Americans, with a sense of national right, of which it is a scandal to England not to have adopted the example, have insisted on having a chapel—a solitary chapel!—in Rome; while the English have been forced to run from one lodging to another, to hide in holes and corners, and to exhibit to the Roman rabble the sight of Protestants sneaking to a worship indebted only to connivance for its being suffered to exist at all! From 1815, the year in which we gave liberty to the Pope, their worship was held only in private rooms for the ten following years, even to which the English were prohibited from going in carriages. They must go on foot! From 1826, the condition of their worship is thus stated on the authority of the chaplain:—

"In that year, the English congregation migrated to a granary outside the Flaminian Gate. In the upper part of this huge building, a space, large enough for a congregation, was hired. It was reduced into shape by lath and plaster; it had a ceiling of canvass to hide the rafters and cobwebs, and carpets laid over straw, for covering the mud floor. The rats and mice ran races over the canvass above the heads of the worshippers; the pigs, in great numbers, squealed in concert in the story below; and sometimes the donkeys, laden with sacks of corn, disputed the common staircase with the congregation. On one occasion, the competition was more serious. The first story of the building was hired for a menagerie, and on a Sunday morning we found the wild beasts in previous possession."

Can any vulgar display of intolerance exceed this humiliation? There is not a beggar in Rome who does not stand on tiptoe, at the sight of the English going to their barn. There is not a saucy priest, who does not turn up his nostrils at the sight. And yet the population live on the English expenditure. If the English were to leave Rome for a twelvemonth, half their population—a population of lodging-letters and valets—would starve. We certainly can feel no compassion for any degree of contempt which can be heaped on the English residents, who desert their own noble country for the coffee-house life of the Continent. The men who can abandon their duties to England (and what man is not without his duty?) for cheap wine, gossip, and grimace—the race of sullen selfishness and perpetual vacuity—are justly punished by foreign ill-usage. But still, the insult is to the religion of England, and it teaches us the real feeling of Popery in power. Let the Protestant ever suffer the predominance of Rome in England, and he will then only know what Popish power is in its nature, its fierce recollections, and its grasping ambition. In the mean time, let him look at the Protestants creeping through the "Flaminian Gate" to their Barn, outside the walls of Rome!

What right can those have, who so loudly proclaim themselves the spiritual subjects of the Papacy, to demand here what they refuse there? Are they to insist on privileges, where their condescension only amounts to pigsties? What would become of their levees and lectures here, if we laid them under the Roman rule, which sends "controversialists to jail?" Is it not the fact, that no Protestant can be buried within the walls of Rome; and that no inscription can be placed on a Protestant grave, without being subjected to the Roman Censor; who scratches his pen over every syllable referring to the hope of a Resurrection?

Those statements have been repeated in every public journal of the empire. Who has contradicted them? Have we not, then, a right to demand the liberty which we give? or, if refused by the dwarfed and beggarly sovereignty of Rome, ought we not to act with the insulted dignity of the first kingdom and truest religion of the world?

The great error of Protestants, in their legislation on Popish questions, is, to believe that the same rules of morality exist in the Church of England and in Popery. The pamphlet applies itself with full effect to the facts of the case, by giving the Papist oath, and contrasting it with the Papist performance.

"The essential items of the Papist oath of 1829 were—'I do not believe that the Pope of Rome hath, or ought to have, any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence, directly or indirectly, within this realm. I disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present Church Establishment, as settled by law within this realm; and I solemnly swear, that I never will exercise any privilege, to which I am or may be entitled, to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion or Protestant government in the United Kingdom.'"

What must be the contempt felt for all Popish promises, when we see this oath, and see the conduct of the Popish body ever since it was taken! "With what feelings," says Mr Warren, "any one who has taken this oath, can peruse and approve of the Bull of Pius IX. and the Pastoral of his pseudo-cardinal archbishop, and contemplate with satisfaction what has been recently done by him and others in professed conformity with that Bull, I am perfectly at a loss to conceive."

And in this honest difficulty of conception every true Protestant will coincide with him. But let us look to the natural result of this palpable callousness of conscience.

The sacredness of oaths is essential to the existence of society: the man who is not to be believed on his oath is self-banished, self-disfranchised, self-excluded from all the rights of society; for the obvious reason, that, if all men were equally false, society must dissolve. Such a man is no longer entitled to the protection of law. And the same rule is inevitably applicable to any institution which thus sets itself at war with society. Popery is anti-social. This sentiment is the substance of a letter by the late Bishop Watson; a man of a rough and almost republican spirit—a bold advocate for liberality, almost to the verge of Liberalism—and, though a vigorous arguer against Paine and his infidelity, yet as sturdy a disclaimer of all submission to prejudice as any radical orator of our day. We quote the pamphlet.

In a letter to the Duke of Rutland, in 1784, the Bishop says—"I particularly agree with you in relation to the (Roman) Catholics. No man on earth, I trust, can have more enlarged sentiments of toleration than I have. But the Church of Rome is a persecuting Church; and it is our interest and our duty, on every principle of religion and common sense, to guard ourselves against her machinations." He then gives the expression of the great Lord Clarendon—"It is the duty of Catholic subjects in a Protestant country, of priests as well as the laity, to abjure the Pope's supremacy, ecclesiastical as well as temporal."

The Popish advocates lay great weight on the patronage afforded to their parliamentary demands by the Cabinet of Pitt; who evidently made the grand mistake of supposing that spiritual dominion could be disunited from temporal—a mistake as great as supposing that the command of the limbs could be disunited from the power of the mind. But the views of the Minister were founded merely on political objects, while the true question was one of religion. The argument is thus summarily answered:—

"Let me remind you that an illustrious statesman, William Pitt, in the very last speech which he delivered in Parliament, expressed himself on the subject of Roman Catholic emancipation in the following remarkable language:—'I never thought that it would have been wise to throw down rudely the guards and fences of the Constitution. But I did think, that if the system I alluded to had been adopted, it ought to have been accompanied by those checks and guards, and with every regulation which could have given respect and influence to the Established Church, to the support and protection of the Protestant interest, and to the encouragement of every measure which could tend to propagate the example of the Protestant religion.'

"His splendid pupil, Canning, the most ardent friend of Roman Catholic emancipation, also thus expressed himself: 'Go as far as you can, with safety to the Establishment. Do not exact from them terms that are unnecessary, but be rigorous in imposing such conditions as shall free you from all real, I had almost said all imaginary, danger.'"

These are important opinions, which should teach us how to act. We have seen those guards and fences broken down; we have seen every protective condition accepted, and finally scoffed at, and we are at this moment at once insulted and injured by the cool and contemptuous violation of every promise which was required for the safety of the Church—of Protestantism.

But the whole system of concession was founded on ignorance, carried on by faction, and suffered by infatuation. That unhappy concession is the only blot on the tomb of Pitt, who made it in ignorance: it is the chief among the many blots on the tomb of Canning, who made faction his auxiliary, by first sacrificing his Toryism; and it covers with the indelible contempt, due to the traffic of principle, the whole paltry and perfidious generation who, subsequently, under different garbs, but with the same physiognomy of worldliness, have droned and drivelled and died off in the shadow of the Treasury. What the majority of those men thought, is a subject too low for memory; what they did, is to be seen in the scars of the Constitution.

But when the mighty orb of Pitt undergoes an eclipse, it must be by a body of no slight magnitude. His wisdom was actually thwarted by his magnanimity. Himself the soul of honour, he evidently imagined that Popery was capable of honour.

"What would William Pitt, what would George Canning, say?" exclaims Mr Warren, "were they still alive to read the Bull of Pius IX. and Dr Wiseman's Pastoral? and what would they do?"

We think that we can answer the question. If Pitt denounced the grasping ambition of French republicanism, if Canning lashed the low absurdities of Radicalism, with what indignant justice would they not have stript and scourged an aggression which unites more than the ambition of the one, with more than the absurdity of the other! With what lofty vengeance would Pitt have trampled down the haughty usurpation which dared to degrade England into a province! and with what sarcastic ridicule would Canning have stung the bloated arrogance with which, from a palace almost a prison, an impudent monk dared to control the liberties of England!

But what would the Papal assumptions be, if uttered by any other sovereign? Let us suppose that Austria ventured to send a dozen of her monks here to carve the land into dioceses. What would be the universal exclamation, but that Austria was mad; and that the first monk who made the attempt should find his only diocese within the walls of Newgate. What if France declared England a province? Can we doubt that our answer would be a declaration of war? And is a beggarly Italian—a fugitive from his own territory, a priest flying for his life in the livery of a footman—to offer this insult with impunity? But if we are told that Pius IX. is a different personage from his predecessors, a Liberal, a man of the new school—tempted, by misrepresentations from his emissary monks here, to make a usurpation against his nature—let us hear the pamphlet:—

"Let us go to the fountain-head. Pope Pius IX., who, on his elevation to the supreme Episcopate, addressed an elaborate Encyclical Letter to 'all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops,' dated 9th of November 1846, and which, to the eyes of any person in whom exists a single spark of true protestant Christianity, appears surcharged with blasphemous presumption, falsehood, and bigotry."

In this document, the Pope solemnly and formally asserts his claim to be the Vicar of Christ on earth! declares that God has constituted the Pope a living authority to teach the true sense of his Heavenly revelations, and to judge infallibly (infallibili judicia) in all controversies on faith and morals, and that "out of the Catholic Church there is no salvation;" and he bitterly denounces our "most crafty Bible societies," (a denunciation simply against the Bible itself, for there are no notes of any kind in the Bibles thus published.)

In this letter, "the Pope will be found, in the year 1846, to use the essential terms of the Florentine Canon, which has been in force for four hundred and eleven years, and under whose sanction, consequently, have been perpetrated, by the Papal authority, all the enormous crimes and offences which history records against it during that long period."

Mr Warren then quotes, as illustrative of the Pope's assumed supremacy in temporals over the Papist everywhere, a conversation detailed in evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons.—'I said to him, (a respectable Roman Catholic,) suppose the Pope and his Council announced that the King of England was a person who should be deposed—would you feel in conscience bound, as a Roman Catholic, to obey?' He answered, 'Certainly not, because it would be contrary to Scripture.' I asked whether he or his church was to judge of Scripture? He replied, 'His church.' I then asked, 'If the decree was so worded, that the Pope and Council affirmed it to be not contrary, but according to Scripture, that a heretical monarch should be deposed, how would you act?' He admitted, 'that he should feel himself bound by the decree, because it was for the Pope to judge of Scripture, and that, as a Roman Catholic, he should obey him.'

In this conversation we have a perfect specimen of Popish casuistry. The man is suffered to believe that he has a conscience, and that he is ever obedient to Scripture. But Popery still holds him fast, and if regicide should suit its purposes, he can give the blow with a safe conscience. What must be the religion when such is the morality?

And this view leads us to the true question on which the whole subject turns. In the eyes of the Tractarians, the controversy is simply between an old church and a new. In the apologies of the apostates, it is simply between Papal infallibility and private judgment. Thus, the whole is diluted into a mere metaphysical inquiry, while both suppress the entire practical reality of this tremendous superstition. In those tranquil subtleties and meek submissions they both labour to conceal the fact, that if they are to be Papists, they must be worshippers of the Virgin Mary; they must be worshippers of imaginary saints; they must be worshippers of stocks and stones, as the images of those imaginary saints; and they must be prepared to do the bidding of the Papacy, even though that should amount to the dissolution of society; for to this they must come. This is their yoke. To this every man who apostatises is bound for life: he must drag the whole length of the chain.

Strong curiosity is now excited by the approach of Parliament; and the inquiry into the measures contemplated by the Cabinet is intense. In the midst of the numberless conjectures hazarded at the moment, a letter from the Bishop of Durham to a body of his clergy has appeared; which, when we remember that the memorable letter of the Premier was addressed to the Bishop, and that a correspondence on the subject may have been continued, seems to throw a light on the Ministerial intentions, and probably has been written for the express purpose.

The Bishop, after observing that the question of religious liberty to the Roman Catholics could not possibly require "that a foreign potentate should be permitted to insult a great nation, trample on the rights of a sovereign secured by law, and disturb the peace and good order of the Established Church," proceeds to state his conception of the necessary measures of protection.

"In order to prevent such evils, it may be necessary to provide—

"Some restrictions upon the introduction and circulation of Papal Bulls in this island.

"To prohibit the assumption of Episcopal titles conferred by Rome, and deriving the name from any place in this country.

"It may also be desirable to forbid the existence of monastic institutions, strictly so called.

"Nor can the residence of any Jesuits appear otherwise than injurious among Scotch and English Protestants. This Order is well known to have shown itself so dangerous, that it was suppressed by Clement XIV., 1773, with the approbation of all wise and good men. What species or amount of merit may have brought them again into favour with Rome, I profess myself unable to determine. But I am sure you will agree with me that a body of men, whose principles and conduct have been so justly reprobated in (Roman) Catholic countries, cannot be looked upon as desirable neighbours among Protestants like ourselves.

"To some such measures as I have thus pointed out, it may in all probability be found necessary to resort; and they may not improperly be referred to in petitions presented to Parliament in the ensuing Session."

Of course it would be essential that, in the exclusion of Bulls, all documents asserting any similar authority over the Popish subjects of the realm, as "Apostolical Letters," "Rescript Ordinances," and, in short, every paper claiming a public right by the Pope to govern the Papists in England or Ireland, and in any portion of the British empire, should be distinctly comprehended. We must not suffer ourselves to be cheated by names. Similarly, it will not be enough to put down convents and monasteries, so called, but every institution in which Popish vows are taken, binding the rash and unfortunate people who take them, for life. Here, too, we must not be cheated by names. Similarly, we must put down not merely Jesuits, so called, but every Order of foreign monk-ism, let it hide itself under what name it will. Rome is all artifice, and we may be well assured that, whether under the name of Oratorians, or Preachers, or Brethren of the Spirit, the craft of Jesuitry will be exercised to make its way into England, and keep its footing here.

The Bishop's letter makes no direct reference to Ireland. But in Ireland there are two millions of Protestants; and if Protestantism is to be triumphant in England, it must be protected in Ireland. As to the right, the justice, and the necessity of those measures, and many more of the same kind, there can be no doubt on the mind of any rational being. Lords Beaumont, Norfolk, and Camoys, Roman Catholics, have openly stated that the operation of the Papal Bull, is incompatible with temporal allegiance to the Queen. The pamphlet from which we have quoted so largely, from a sense of its merits, disposes of the question in reference to the British Constitution; and the united feeling of the nation, which has already, in the purest spirit of Christian men, exclaimed "No Popery," must now, in the most determined spirit of Freemen, exclaim, "No Surrender!"

Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh.

[23] The Queen or the Pope? The Question considered in its Political, Legal, and Religious Aspects. By Samuel Warren, Esq., Barrister-at-law.