severe. There are writers, who, even when they err, should be treated with respect, because they continue to be gentlemen in their manner, though their matter might be censurable; but when the manner is that of an outrageous gladiator, who, in his unrestrained fury rushes to destroy and insult with ribald slander the object of his hate; such a drawcansir is supposed to have none of those feelings which, if existing in himself, he would respect in others. No man of correct feeling would stuff his article with phrases like the following:"Dangerous Popish tenets;" "Papists inconsistent with their profession;" "Papists better than their profession;" "Papists having no idea of all the ENORMOUS CORRUPTIONS of the faith they acknowledge:" "The Roman Catholic Church is of its own nature a PERSECUTING CHURCH;" "In the ROMISH Church the more consistent she is with herself, the more of the spirit of persecution will she manifest;" "The Romish Church abstains from persecution only from want of power, or want of Roman Catholic faith!!!" The persecutions of the ROMISH Church have exceeded in MALIGNITY, CRUELTY, perseverance, extension and continuance, not only those of all other sects, but even the ANTICHRISTIAN violence of the HEATHENS;" "Horrible MASSACRES, extensive and EXTERMINATING, are perfectly consistent with Roman Catholic doctrine;" "Horrible massacre and extermination of Protestants, must be justified by every consistent member of the Romish Church;" "Shocking as this is, it AROSE UNDOUBTEDLY from the Romish faith;" "The Pope was consistent in his SAVAGE CONDUCT;" "Savage conduct is consistent with the tenets of his infallible Church." Here is a pretty collection of phrases in an article of not two octavo pages. And this man complains of gross writing!!! There is much in habit. The people of America have been accustomed to find Roman Catholics treated in the manner that you have treated us. But, sirs, if I were to write of Protestants as you have written of Catholics, would any vituperation be considered too gross. You deserve worse treatment than you have received. I have been too lenient, too sparing. But should it be necessary for me to take you up again, do not calculate upon much forbearance. I stand in America upon an equality of right with you: and though I have against me vast prejudice, for which the people of America are not to blame: I have to contend in presence of a discerning, intelligent, patient, investigating people, who love truth and will neither strike me down by the hand of power, nor drown my voice in clamour. They are not like the British Parliament, who put the lock of the law upon the mouth of truth. You complain of my personality. First, I believed that writers like you did not deserve to have your feelings so very sacredly protected after having outraged, and wantonly outraged the feelings of your unoffending fellow-citizens. Secondly, I feel too deep a respect, too high a regard, too sincere an attachment towards a great number of very respectable members of the Church to which you say you belong, to wound their sensibility by identifying you and them. Their religion does not urge to such a course as you have chosen; their charity would protect me from your dagger; their patriotism would save me from your proscription; their candour would disclaim any connexion with your misrepresentations; their information would detect your historic falsehoods. Some of them are the descendants of those very men whose Besides this pretty and becoming collec- massacre you would charge upon me, a tion, he compares the Irish Catholics to century before my birth. Your malice WRETCHED CRIMINALS banished" from their would sow between us a deadly hate, country: TRAITOROUS CONSPIRATORS against which, if we permitted to grow, would their country." He denounces the Ameri- poison the air by which we are surrounded. can Catholics to their fellow-citizens, as Whilst we take each other by the hand, "opposed to the spirit of toleration;" as op- and lament our difference of creed, we posed to republican institutions;" as hypocrites unite in charity and affection; we trample whose " FEARS occasion their not inculca- upon your unholy cultivation, and whilst I ting in this country doctrines, which, how-blame and condemn the cruelty of the ever, they believe," as "hiding in America doctrines which they cannot deny." He denounces us, as villanous conspirators of the worst description, "waiting only till the Romish Church shall be sufficiently powerful in this country to seize torches to burn the Protestants, and scourges to persecute them." And this man expects to be treated with courtesy !!! French court towards their ancestors, their kindness soothes down much of that irritation which the British cruelty has created in me. They tell me, and I agree with them, that it is better to weep over the faults of those, who, professing each creed unholily, persecuted those who professed the other: and taught by the unfortunate sequel of this double crime, we shall endeavour to make America more rational, more charitable, more flourishing than Europe was. Neither will molest the other for the profession of a different creed. Neither will charge upon the church of the other, the crimes of the individuals who might be in that church, and therefore I charge not upon the Protestant Episcopal Church, but upon the Rev. Wm. Hawley and his associates the unfortunate article which I have reviewed. I am happy to subscribe myself, sirs, in wishing you adieu, Yours, devotedly, Á CATHOLIC CLERGYMAN. A native of Ireland. Charleston, S. C., March 1, 1825. A SERIES OF CONTROVERSIAL PIECES ON SEVERAL (( [The controversy with the "Mount Zion Missionary," occasioned by some strictures of the editor upon a sermon of Dr. England, preached at Warrenton, Ga., April 5th, 1824, appeared in the "United States Catholic Miscellany," Vols. II., III., and IV., for 1824-5, and 6.] We shall always act towards others, as we would they should act towards us. Our readers shall have from the authors themselves the sentiments upon which we shall make comments. he or those who heard him may think proper to make. After an introduction in which he men tioned the embarrassment under which he appeared, as an advocate of a religion against which the prejudices of the commuchurch whose tenets had been grossly misnity were enlisted as the minister of a which were but little understood in this represented-of a church the doctrines of country, but which he was assured from the convictions of his own judgment were pure, We complain of misrepresentation, we and established on the only sure foundation, shall not misrepresent.-Miscellany. "DR. ENGLAND. "Rarely has a pulpit orator received such encomiums as have been bestowed upon this Roman Catholic Bishop. Many have heard him and acknowledged his powers. That he has a popular address and talents considerably above mediocrity cannot be denied. For without these he could not command the attention of an enlightened community, who are not, to say the least, prejudiced in favour of the Catholic religion. We shall suspend our opinion of his sentiments, till we give an abstract of the only sermon which we have ever heard him deliver it was on Monday last, at the opening of court at Warrenton. As we rely upon our memory alone, we shall not pretend to draw all the lineaments of this discourse with an accurate pencil, and we would crave his indulgence for the unfinished and mutilated manner in which we shall present it, promising, at the same time, to submit to any corrections which either -he observed, that the Roman Catholic was a persecuted religion-that we had not the means of knowing its principles-that the books which are dispersed among us, from which our information is derived with respect to the Catholic Church, are replete with falsehoods- that they were forged across the Atlantic and palmed upon the world by the very persons who had persecuted them there, that they might have some excuse for their cruelty; that if their tenets were such as were represented in these books, he would abjure the faith of his church-that the Roman Catholics were persecuted by the first settlers of this statethat the principles of toleration were unknown here till after the Declaration of Independence that even since that time the prejudices of the community against them had abated but little-that though the num. ber of members attached to his church was exceedingly limited in the United States, yet as a body throughout the world, they always were a vast majority of professed believers; that at no period within a num ber of centuries have they been less than one hundred and fifty millions-that at the present time their number exceeds one hundred and eighty millions, and are found in every part of the world-that their church had existed in its present form for eighteen hundred years, and that it pointed out the way in which, according to the deepest convictions of his own soul, he ought to worship the God of his fathers. Touching the misrepresentations which had been made of his church, he observed, that they were accused of being hostile to republican institutions. This charge he denied, and adduced the Republic of Venice, several Italian states, San Marino several of the Catholic states of Germany, and the Swiss cantons, as examples of republics that owed their origin to Catholics. Recurring to our own history, he observed, that in the first settlement of this country, the Puritans of New England persecuted all but Puritans, and the High Church of Virginia, all but the members of the church, while Catholic Maryland alone manifested a spirit of toleration. In further proof he mentioned the venerable Charles Carroll, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, a Catholic who pledged a million of dollars on the issue. The religion of his church, he said, was compatible with all kinds of government-that was left entirely with man, but matters of faith rested upon the authority of God. utterly condemned the measure, because it did not allow the accused to confront the accuser. Another objection. The Roman Catholics are accused of granting indulgences to commit sin for a stipulated sum paid to the priest. This he affirmed was never a doctrine of his church. What connexion, he asked, can there be between giving money to a priest and the pardon of sin? Man, he said, could not grant a permission to sin, nor even God himself, because it would be contrary to the sanctity of his nature. It carried on its very front too much absurdity to gain credit. Society would never have existed if such a doctrine had prevailed. For every person could then, with perfect impunity, by paying a small stipend, plunge a dagger into the bosom of his neighbour neither the person nor the property of any would be safe. As the greatest statesmen and jurists that the world has ever produced have been Catholics, it was the supremacy of folly to suppose that they would sanction any such doctrine. With respect to the principles of his church, he observed, that they held but one, and that was doing what God told them to do. This principle he divided into three branches. God has told us to believe-we believe. God has told us to practise-we practise. God has told us to adhere to certain ordinances-we adhere to them. Religion is not a matter of opinion but of faith. But how do we know that God has spoken to man? By a miracle? What is a miracle? That which is contrary to the common ope But the Inquisition is a part of the Papal system. This he also denied, and argued that if it were, it would have existed wherever the Roman Catholic was the pre-rations of nature, and which none but God vailing system. That in no Catholic coun- can effect. When something is done which tries was the Inquisition established, with no created being can do, we know God is the exception of Spain, Portugal, Burgundy, there. But we cannot comprehend a miraand in a few other small states-that the cle. We believe a million of things which church had existed for twelve centuries be- we cannot comprehend. I speak, I cannot fore the Inquisition-that it was a civil tell how-it is a mystery to me. You hear, enactment which had no more connexion I cannot tell how. I raise my arm and crook with their religion than the penal code of my finger-I cannot tell how. The sun any other country has with its religion- shines, the grass grows, fishes live in the that it owed its origin to the civil state of the sea, all is a mystery which no philosopher society, the Moors becoming so base that has ever been able to explain. But how do they would not testify against each other, we know that God has spoken to man, or and to prevent a recurrence of the injury that a miracle has been performed? By which had been sustained in consequence competent witnesses, witnesses who had no of their ravages, it was resolved to punish interest to deceive, and who could not dethe principle wherever they could find it, in- ceive even if they had an interest in it. On ferring from the principle the overt act-that the testimony of these witnesses we believe. clergymen were selected as the most proper Now if the Scriptures were true eight or ten persons to test the principle-that they ex- centuries ago, they are true now. Every ercised their office with the greatest lenity syllable of the Scriptures we believe to be in accordance with the laws-that though the word of God. But two men may read the Inquisition had existed in Catholic coun- the same passage of Scripture and each give tries, nothing appeared from its history that a different interpretation to it. They cannot it formed any part of their religion-that he | both be right, and they may both be wrong. Now who is to decide? There must be an umpire, and that is the province of the Church, the collected wisdom of the bishops who deliberate upon it, and their ultimate decision, must give the true interpretation. What the majority of the bishops determine to be the doctrines of Scripture or the ordinances of God, we are bound to adhere to as infallible. In giving the foregoing abstract we are not conscious of having misrepresented any of his positions, yet we are fully sensible that the force and symmetry and connexion of the discourse are by no means preserved. If they are a persecuted people we wish not to be the persecutors. If we have laboured, in common with other Protestants, under prejudices without foundation, we pray that they may be removed by the light of truth. In the remarks which we shall subjoin, we would not intentionally throw a straw in the way of those who are following in the path of our Saviour. While it becomes the Christian to overlook minor differences, yet there are principles so radically erroneous that he cannot acquit his conscience without bearing his testimony against them. Our means of becoming acquainted with the Roman Catholic religion are not so limited as the learned bishop may suppose. We have Catholic as well as Protestant books we have books too which have been written by persons who professedly maintained no greater interest for the one than the other. We have records of facts which nothing but the greatest incredulity can discredit. We have books published in Catholic countries which the ecclesiastical authority has condemned, and books on which no censure has been passed. We, therefore, cannot want the means of information necessary to become acquainted with the principles and character of the Roman Catholic Church. From a critical examination of all the sources from which information with respect to that church is derived, the following appear to be doctrines which have been peculiarly favourable to its existence and power. 1. That the government of the Church is monarchical, and that the Bishops of Rome are invested with supreme power over all churches and over all ecclesiastics. 2. That the Pope possesses temporal power over all the goods and possessions of all Christians, to dispose of them as he pleases, even to the transferring kingdoms from one to another. 3. That the laws of the Pope are obligatory, and bind the consciences of all men. 4. That the civil power ought to be united with the ecclesiastical-so that the Pope is not only a spiritual pastor, but a temporal prince. 5. That ecclesiastics are not subject in any respect to the laws of temporal princes. 6. The election of pastors they consider as belonging to bishops, but especially to the Pope-so that no one is acknowledged who has not been ordained by them to office. 7. That the Pope is subject to no human tribunal-that he is superior to councils, and that he is infallible in the exercise of his authority. 8. That the sacred Scripture owes its authority to the Church (i. e. the Pope,) without whose testimony we should be no more bound to receive it than Livy or the Koran. 9. That the Church has a right to determine what are the articles of faith which should be believed. 9 10. The decisions of the Pope in matters of faith are infallible, for he cannot err. 11. He is the interpreter of Scripture, and the arbiter of all controversies which may arise. 12. No one of the laity is permitted to read the sacred Scriptures unless he shall have obtained leave of the bishop. The reason which they assign for this is their obscurity. 13. Knowledge is, therefore, excluded from being the foundation of faith, and ignorance is considered as having a better title to be connected with faith. 14. Implicit faith is highly recommended. 15. They define faith to be a general assent to all things revealed by God and proposed to us by the Church, written or unwritten. 16. They maintain that there is no necessity of translating the Scriptures into other than the Latin tongue, which was consecrated on the cross. 17. They assert that the sacred Scriptures are imperfect, and do not contain all things necessary to faith and practice, which defect is supplied by traditions preserved in the Romish Church. 18. That there is no need of any argument besides tradition; so that all the innovations which they have made in the worship of God are supported by having recourse to traditions. We will pass over the doctrine of absolution with all its appendages, and the works of supererogation which are made up of the superabundant sufferings of Christ and his saints, a vast treasury of which the Pope has at his disposal, lest we may mistake them as applying to the doctrine of indulgences, as it is commonly understood among Protestants. If the above have been the doctrines of the Church (and what has been is now, for the Church is infallible,) we find many things which it is impossible for us to reconcile with the word of God. How is it that Christ said his kingdom was not of this world, and yet the vice-regent of Christ exercises a temporal power? How is it that the doctrine of traditions is condemned by Christ, and yet the successors of Christ built their faith upon them? How is it that the Church is infallible when one council and one Pope has reversed the decrees of another? What logic is that by which the authority of the Pope is proved from the Scriptures, and the Scriptures from the authority of the Pope? We know not but that the Catholic religion is compatible with every form of government, but it is a matter of fact that the Popes have claimed a dominion over the civil power of all governments. That even the Senate of Venice, when they suppressed by an edict, in 1767, the Inquisition in all the smaller towns, and reduced their power to a shadow in larger cities, and extended the liberty of the press, they did it in steady opposition to the repeated remonstrances of the Court of Rome. The Roman Catholic religion may be compatible with a republican form of government, provided the temporal and spiritual supremacy of the Pope is acknowledged. For if they once possessed a divine right over kingdoms, they must possess it still if they have once claimed temporal as well as spiritual supremacy, they must always claim it, or the doctrine of infallibility must fall. With respect to the Inquisition, if one hundredth part of what is said of it be true, it must receive the execration of every individual who has the least feeling of humanity. But we are told that it forms no part of the Catholic religion, that it is a mere civil enactment, that has no more connexion with Papacy than the penal code of this state has with its religion. For argument's sake we will admit it. But we must be permitted to revert to its origin, and the means by which this ghostly engine has been supported. Under the protection of Raymond VI., Earl of Toulouse, the dissenters from the Church of Rome increased rapidly in Narbonne, Gaul, and the countries adjacent. Pope Innocent III. informed of their success, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, commissioned Ranier and Pierre de Castelneau, and sent them as legates extraordinary into the southern parts of France, to perform the benevolent work of extirpating heresy, without regard to the means by which it should be effected. These spiritual champions soon associated with them others, among whom was the Spaniard Dominic, founder of the order of Dominicans. And if they did not inflict capital punishment upon any of those whom they could not convert by exhortations and arguments, we know not what credit can be attached to any ecclesiastical history. In common parlance they were called Inquisitors, and from them the formidable and odious tribunal called the Inquisition, derived its origin. Inquisitors were placed in almost every city where there were any suspected of heresy, even before the Council of Toulouse in 1229, at which Romanus, Cardinal of St. Angelo and Pope's legate, presided, where it was decreed that there should be a Council of Inquisitors in every city, consisting of one priest and three laymen. But this was superseded by Pope Gregory IX. in 1233, who entrusted the Dominicans with the important commission of discovering and bringing to judgment the heretics that were lurking in France. This is the period from which the full establishment of the Inquisition may be dated. And although it may be a civil enactment, it owed its origin to the Romish Church, and it has received the sanction of most, if not all the Holinesses to the present day. What must we think of those who founded this horrible institution? Ah! and what must we think of those who have supported it? If it was not established by the Popes, who established it? They have sanctioned itthat is enough. We turn now to the doctrine of indul gences. Did we understand the bishop when he said this was never a doctrine of his church? Does he deny that the traffic of indulgences was begun by the bishops in the twelfth century, and afterwards monopolized by the Popes? Did they not publish a plenary remission of all the temporal pains and penalties which the church had annexed to certain transgressions, when their coffers wanted replenishing? Did they not go further, and usurp the authority which belongs to God alone, by impiously pretending to abolish even the punishments which are reserved in a future state for the workers of iniquity? If we rested these facts on Protestant history alone, they might be objected to as interested and calumnious testimony. But Catholic writers mention it as well as Protestant. It seems to us, therefore, too notorious to be denied. If the Church of Rome has been corrupt, let her ministers confess it. It will not add to her glory to attempt to throw a flimsy veil over her past deformities-nor will it entitle them to any more credit on other points which they may wish to establish. Her spotless |