S [FROM THE JOURNALS OF MARCH 29 & APRIL 5.] To the Editor of the Worcester Journal. That VIR,-W. L. has pronounced the strain of my last letter to be unbecoming the Gentleman. Assertions of this kind are so common with disputants, when they feel hard pressed, that they scarcely deserve notice. What claim W. L. may have to be treated in a more gentlemanly manner, is better known to himself than to me. But I may be permitted to say, in defence, that I am not aware of any ungentlemanly expressions. the strain of my argument was blunt and fearless, I conceive to be no dishonour. That it pains my adversary, is nothing to my discredit. I suppose, every school-boy, when he is whipped, thinks his master very ungentlemanly. However, I have no wish to defend Truth by any means inconsistent with good manners and Christian charity. Yet, he may rely upon it, I shall use the strongest arguments I can collect, and put on them the keenest edge of which I am capable. Against the Errors of his Church, I have drawn the sword, at his challenge, and thrown away the sheath. To prevent the possibility of his covering himself under this pretext, I will now beg of you to obliterate, or return to me for correction, whatever in this, and my future letters, you may detect as unbecoming the gentleman. What you publish, I shall consider as enjoying the respectable sanction of your imprimatur, so far as this-that it contains nothing ungentlemanly. Now for his argument. He will have it, that I have "most undoubtedly mistaken the question." "It was not," he says, "what constitutes the religious creed of Protestant or Catholic." I never said it was. Well, what is it? "It is, does the Catholic Church teach an erroneous doctrine "or "do her dogmatical precepts deviate one iota from the Truth ?” On these points, I have affirmed that his Church teaches many erroneous doctrines-he denies that she does. I call for a standard of Truth or Error. He refuses to agree to any certain infallible test. The question then, it seems, is not what does Popery teach, but is her teaching erroneous. How my subtle friend contrived to distinguish these two propositions, is plain enough-but how he can expect to settle the latter, without reference to the former, I must leave him to say. Whether he thinks Truth and Error can be distinguished on any question, unless the opposing parties agree to a standard of Truth, he has hitherto failed to state; and I have said enough, in my last, to satisfy any candid reader, that this adjustment is a sine quâ non. I have summed up all confession of faith in the Holy Scriptures-by this rule alone I will impeach-but by this rule alone he has not said he will defend, his Church. He has now written three letters, and my used the terms Truth and Error again and again-but always vaguely-and we have yet to draw from him an answer to the question-What is Truth, and where is Truth? He has good reasons, doubtless, for this shuffling. It is a part of the system. His last brings us no nearer to a settled appeal. He trifles, vapours, and endeavours to confuse every thing. He thinks I mistake the question. Unfortunately for him, I am too well acquainted with it to allow him to escape from the dilemma in which he is now fixed. He thinks I am 66 unacquainted with the practice in our Courts of Justice, otherwise I should not have required the accused to open the pleadings." Did I require the accused to open the pleadings? This is quite of a piece with all he has written. I required the accused to say, indeed, whether he will be judged by God's word, or his own Church-and, in his replies, he very much resembles a fellow who, being arraigned for robbery, and asked the usual question, how he would be tried, &c. said, "not at all, my Lord." Happily for myself, if not for W. L. I know too well the practice of Courts, to think of attempting any proof-or of occupying the attention of any Court-without specifying a law that has been violated. But W. L.'s allusion to the impeachment of a criminal does not hold good. In the first place, let it be remembered, he was not brought into Court by me, or any one else. He came into it, and voluntarily threw down a challenge. Is there, then, any thing unreasonable, uncandid, or ungentlemanly-any thing "shy" or "unmeaning," in first demanding of him, by what law, or mode of trial, he will stand or fall-by what test his Truth or Error shall be defended or opposed? He says, with a composure which some may mistake for simplicity, but which betrays the unsoundness of his cause, and his own incompetence to maintain it-"I have fairly and candidly left it to him to prove his accusations by what rule or means he pleases." But can any controversy be settled by the rule or means that pleases one only of the parties? or was it ever known that a religious controversy was settled, till the disputing parties agreed to a common standard of Truth and Error? Is Truth a thing of so easy attainment, and Error of so easy detection, that the authority of every volume may decide the question? Surely, Mr. Editor, W. L. is most obtuse in his intellects, and cannot see or most pertinacious in his mistakes, and will not. He boasts of his candour and fairness, and talks alarmingly of his condescension. Where are the former? As to the latter, is he a Bishop, an Archbishop, or a Clergyman of high dignity? he should have told us so, and then we might have known how to appreciate his "condescension." Not being yet informed upon these points, I am not prepared to honour his "condescension," and shall still treat him as my anonymous opponent. The latter part of W. L.'s letter is the most extraordinary piece of composition which the eye has seen for many a day. B After again leaving me quite at large as to authority-he says, "I will abide the decision of the infallible umpire, leaving him to appoint whom he pleases." This is absurd enough, after I had selected the Bible, and that only, and required him to agree to restrict his defence to the same test. But what follows is still more unintelligible-he is willing to admit any umpire, in Heaven, or Earth, as infallible-any judge as final "I will object to no one-no, not to the Bible, nor any thing else." The exquisite absurdity of this cannot be matched in the history of this most voluminous of all controversies. If he will object to nothing, and will bow to any umpire as infallible, then we may cut the matter short, and take him at his word.The Laws and Constitution of Great Britain have condemned the errors of Popery, by abolishing them. The xixth article of the English Protestant Church says, "The Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith." W. L. has bound himself not to object to this authority. What more has he to say? Will his Papistical brethren offer him their thanks for suspending the validity of their system upon this authority? With what face can he retire from this field, after having said "bring forward your proofs clearly and explicitly-I will object to no one (authority)-no, not to the Bible, nor any thing else?" Really, Mr. Editor, 1 am weary of exposing this unmeaning and unintelligible stuff, and might now fairly take my leave of W. L. for I have produced an Umpire that condemns the Errors of Popery-and W. L. has said he will object to no authority that I choose to bring forward—we may therefore expect to hear no more from him. This authority decides the question of Errorand till W. L. eats his words, and objects to this authority, he can have no more to say. But I cannot conclude my letter here, for, though this is an argumentum ad hominem, and a reductio ad absurdum, it is no argument to any other person than W. L. His letter is answered, but my proofs of Errors in the Popish System have not yet been submitted. To these I now address myself. In the first place, the Church of Rome is an enemy to the Holy Scripture-by prohibiting its circulation and general reading; by corrupting and mutilating the Sacred Text; by declaring it insufficient to guide men to salvation; and by assuming to itself an authority above Scripture. 1. The Church of Rome prohibits the circulation and general reading of the Holy Scripture. Proof-See the 5th General Rule of in the Indices Expurgatorii:" Since experience hath taught that, through the rashness, ignorance, or malice of men, more harm than good has arisen from the use of the Sacred Books in the vulgar tongues, therefore all Bibles in any such languages are forbidden, together with every part thereof, whether printed or in manuscript."-"Cum experientia docuerit ex permissione Sacrorum Bibliorum Linguâ Vulgari, plus inde, ob hominum temeritatem, ignorantiam, aut malitiam, detrimenti To come nearer still to Popery in our own times, Leo XII. calls the translation of the Scriptures into the Vulgar tongues, "the perversion of the Bible into the vernacular languages of all nations;" and adds-" From this fact (vernacular translations) there is ground to fear, lest, as in some instances already known, so likewise in the rest, through a perverse interpretation, there be framed out of the gospel of Christ, a gospel of man, or, what is worse, a gospel of the devil." I am aware that W. L. will say, the Church does not prohibit the use of the Vulgar Latin, and of several translations from that-but let us look a littte into this matter. The Church has no standard text, no true basis, for any translation, and has taken the surest means to corrupt all translations. It has rejected the Hebrew Canon of the Ôld, and the Greek of the New, Testament, (Con. Trident. Sess. 4.) and substituted what is denominated St. Jerome's Latin. But St. Jerome made two translations, and confesses that the first was corrupt, and that in his second he corrected many errors that were in his first. -Now, which of these two translations does the Church of Rome Canonize? If Bellarmine is any authority upon the point the corrupt one. He says: "Though Jerome did see some things fit to be changed, and afterwards did alter them yet the Church adjudged the first to be true, and chose rather to keep that for the Vulgar Edition."-(Bellarm. De Verbo Dei, l. 2. c. 9.)-This was a voluntary choice of error!! Another most famous Popish author says that "many errors were corrected by Jerome in the old translation: and likewise there are found in our new editions, many falsifications, solecisms, barbarisms, and many things amiss; some things changed, others quite omitted, and the like."-Sixtus Senensis Bibl. 1. 8. Yet this is the standard of the Popish Church, for the sake of which all other Versions, made directly from the original all ancient manuscripts, are to be laid aside, and all this because the Church of Rome still chooses to adhere to a very inaccurate and corrupt translation, which the author himself pronounced so, and which owed its existence at first to those very originals from which the more modern and more correct translations into the vernacular languages have been made. If then the basis of all such Versions as they have published, be corrupt, the translations are likely to be doubly so. Therefore no Roman Catholic can be said to possess a true standard of faith, or an accurate representation in his own tongue, of the words which the Holy Ghost teaches. 2. The Church of Rome has corrupted and mutilated the Word of God. Proof-by mixing up with it the writings of fallible men, contrary to the general testimony of the early Fathers, that the Apocrypha is no part of Revelation, and in defiance of the clearest demonstration of its falsehood and absurdity. The English Roman Catholic version, called the Rhemish, contains numerous corruptions and perversions of Scripture. Take, for instance, Rom. xi. 5. The true version of the original is given in our common Bibles, the Rhemish is, "And if by grace: not now of workes. Otherwise grace now is not grace." The latter half of the verse is totally omitted:-" But if it be of works then is it no more of grace; otherwise work is no more work." 1 Cor. xv. 57, the Apostle says, "We shall not all sleep.' The Catholic English says, "We shall all indeed rise again." The Apostle says, "We shall all be changed." The Catholics contradict him, and say, "We shall NOT all be changed." Heb. xi. 21, the Apostle says, Jacob "worshipped leaning on the top of his staff;" or, literally, without the word leaning— "worshipped upon the top of his staff." The Catholic version is contrary both to the original and to the sense which the Fathers, their favourite authorities, have put upon it. For St. Austin says, "By faith he worshipped God, when through age and sickness, he was scarce able to stand, but was forced to rely or lean upon a staff." The Catholic version appears purposly rendered to countenance the use of images—“ ADORED THE TOPPE OF HIS RODDE." In Luke xi. 2, they have mutilated the Lord's Prayer, omitting the words and clauses following, which are all contained in the original:-"" Our" before Father; "which art in heaven"—"thy will be done in earth as it is heaven”—“ but deliver us from evil.”—They have mutilated the ten Commandments. The second forbids imageworship, and it was therefore entirely omitted in the manuals of the Romish Church, prior to the Reformation. The tenth Commandment was divided into two, in order to keep the number complete. The second Commandment, for an obvious reason, was left out of the Office for the Virgin Mary, printed at Salamanca, by order of Pope Pius V. in 1588, and in the English Office at Antwerp, 1658. At length, however, by dint of controversy, they were constrained to insert the second Commandment in the Douay Catechism, printed at London, 1811. But it appears as part of the first, and with the word adore for bow down-a most artful alteration. But to this day, in Ireland, the second Commandment is obliterated from the Decalogue, in the most popular Catechism used among the Irish Catholics. See Butler's Catechism, Dublin, 1811. I could multiply such proofs of the unjustifiable attempts of Roman Catholics to corrupt the Holy Scriptures, but I wish to complete in this letter the proof of all the items contained in my first proposition, and therefore proceed: |