conformable to truth." What Sovereign can be safe, WHAT PEOPLE can be VIRTUOUS, where principles of so infernal a nature ARE recognised and inculcated?"-As to the safety of Sovereigns, I shall leave that subject for another number, and content myself for the present with shew reformers themselves, that the step which they had made to reform Popery was more productive of vice and immorality than of virtue and honesty. And I shall further shew, that this enlightened country, which can boast so much of its religious institutions, such as Hibernian Societies for the Conversion of Irish Papists, Church Missionary Societies, Bible Societies, Evangelical Societies, Methodistical Societies, Societies for the Conversion of Jews, with various others which I cannot now recollect, and last, though not least, a Society for the Suppression of VICE, cannot truly boast of the progress of its inhabitants in the practice of virtue, but, on the contrary, that, at the present period, it exhibits a scene of immorality and irreligion which must sink the character of Eng STATE OF MORALS. N my numbers for October and November last, I commented upon an atrocious article inserted in Cobbett's Register, under the signature of "An Observer," in which article the writer attempted to affix the most diabolical and infernal principles on the Catholic religion, but which I clearlying that it was the opinion of the first proved, by the production of historical facts, to be nothing less than a collection of infamous and base calumnies on the faith of our forefathers; and that if there was any foundation for the existence of such principles as those attributed to Popery by the base and hypocritical writer, they were to be found in the effects produced by the attempt to reform the Religion which had civilized and instructed the minds of our pagan ancestors, and which taught our forefathers to erect a Civil Constitution, from the privileges of which six millions of his Catholic countrymen are unjustly excluded, merely because they believe in the same faith, and worship God in the same form, as those who framed the Great Charter of British Rights.The senseless writer having, it may be supposed, conceived that he had car-lishmen in the esteem of foreign naried conviction to the minds of his readers, and nine out of ten, I am firmly persuaded, were stupid enough to believe him, he concludes with putting the following question to them, for the purpose, we may conjecture, that they should form the conclusions natural to be drawn, if the picture which the scribe had given of the doc trines of the Catholic church were ORTHOD. JOUR. VOL. III. tions, and ought to make the liberalminded, the candid, the truth-telling Mr. Cobbett ashamed of his countrymen, and teach him for the future to be more careful how he attempts to libel those who differ from him in religious principles, and who prefer adhering to that religion which was the faith of the most virtuous divines, the most disinterested statesmen, the most B upright lawyers, and the most intrepid | leagues of practising the most diabo warriors of all nations, whose names are recorded in the page of history. A religion which was professed for centuries by the WHOLE of Christendom, and which, according to the statement of the late Mr. Fox in 1805, might reckon one hundred millions of believers in Europe alone. The crusade of the Reform was begun by the instigation of the enemy of mankind; it was raised by men of the most immoral character; its progress was marked by a train of diabolical acts which stain the annals of our country; and its chief supporters were falsehood, forgery, calumny, and oppression. To substantiate the picture which I have here drawn, I shall not, like Protestant accusers, bring forth witnesses who are interested in the cause. I shall confine myself to the testimony of the reformers themselves, and they shall bear witness to their own works. The celebrated Protestant professor Zanchius thus complained of his colleagues :- "I am indignant when I consider the manner in which most of us defend our cause. The true state of the question we often, on set purpose, involve in darkness, that it may not be understood: we have the impudence to deny things WE ASSERT lical and irreligious means to accomplish their ends - -means such as Mr. C. has been warring against himself, but which he has latterly employed, with considerable acrimony, to set his readers against the Pope and the Jesuits, and create a jealousy towards his Catholic countrymen, at a moment when they are combatting the attacks of a host of foes, and seeking to gain that rank in the pale of the Constitution, of which they were deprived by the bigotry and injustice of former days. But, let us now hear the great apostle of the Reformation, Luther. "Formerly," says he, "when we were seduced by the Pope, EVERY ONE WILLINGLY FOLLOWED GOOD WORKS; but NOW people neither say nor know any thing but how to get all to themselves, by EXACTIONS, PILLAGE, THEFT, FALSEHOOD, USURY, &c." (Luth. in Serm. dom. 26, post Pent.) → It would seem by this that father Luther had a different opinion of Popery than Mr. Cobbett or his Correspondent; but he undoubtedly spoke feelingly and from his own knowledge. Luther knew better than the scribbler in the Register; he had been educated in the school of Catholicity, and so far from doubting whether a Papist could be virtuous, he the most IPTV FALSE: the here says, that when the people be WHAT IS most impious doctrines we force on lieved in Popery EVERY ONE WILthe people as the first principles of LINGLY FOLLOWED GOOD faith, and orthodox opinions we con- WORKS. The next witness I shall demn as heretical: we torture the produce is John Calvin, the second scriptures till they agree with our own apostle of reform.-He observes, "Of fancies; and boast of being the disci- the thousands who renounced Popery, ples of the fathers, while we refuse to and seemed eagerly to embrace the follow their doctrine: to DECEIVE, to gospel, how few have amended their CALUMNIATE, to ABUSE, IS OUR FA- | lives? Indeed, what else did the MILIAR PRACTICE: NOR DO WE greater part pretend to, than by shakGARE FOR ANY THING, PROVIDED WE ing off the yoke of superstition to CAN DEFEND OUR CAUSE, GOOD OR give themselves more liberty, and to BAD, RIGHT OR WRONG. O what plunge into EVERY KIND OF LASCItimes, what manners." (Zanchius ad VIOUSNESS." (Calv. l. vi. de Scand.) Stormium, tom. viii. col. 328.) What To this may be added the testimony will Mr. Cobbett, the great admirer of Bucer, who says "The greater of truth, say to this? Here is the de- part of the people seem to have emclaration of a fellow-labourer in the braced the gospel only to live at their Reformation, who accuses his col-pleasure, and enjoy their lust and lawless appetites without controul. | pit incendiaries cried out, that the Hence they lend a willing ear to the doctrine, that we are justified by faith only, and Nor by good works, for which they have no relish." (Buc. de Regn. Christ. l. i. c. 4.)—So much for the declarations of the Reformers of Popery as to the virtuous practices of their new proselytes; let us now see the effects produced in our own country, by the spirit of Reform which pervaded the nations of Europe in the 16th century. Heylin, in his History of the Reformation, says, "The open lewdness in which many lived, without shame or remorse, gave great occasion for their adversaries to say, that they were in the right to assert justification without works, since they were to every good work reprobate. Their gross and insatiable scrambling after the goods and wealth that had been dedicated with good designs, without applying any part of it to the promoting of the Gospel, the instruction of youth, and the relieving of the poor, made all people conclude that it was for ROBBERY, and NOT for REFORMATION, that their zeal made them so active."The same historian, speaking of the immorality of the lives of many of the professors of the gospel, adds, "By these things, which were but too visible in some of the more eminent among them, the people were much alienated from them; and as much as they were formerly set against Popery, so they grew to have kinder thoughts of it, and to look on all the changes that had been made, as designs to enrich some vicious courtiers, and to let in an inundation of VICE AND WICKEDNESS UPON THE NATION."--Collier, also, has given us the following statement of facts, which I recommend to the attention of Mr. Cobbett and his correspondent. "Elizabeth," says he, "completed the Reformation by the same methods it was first begun among the common people. When the preachers had inflamed their ignorance, pushed them to sacrilege and fury, and blown them up to this pitch of distraction, the pul places where idols had been worshipped ought to be destroyed by the law of God; and the sparing of them, was reserving the accursed things:-and thus every building with a steeple was a mark of the beast, a seat of idolatry described by Moses, a house of devotion for the Amorrites. By the help of THIS DIVINITY the Churches were all rased, or battered; the beauty of the great towns scanda lously blemished; and the public ornaments of the kingdom laid in rubbish. The communion plate was made prize, and the bells, timber, and lead set to sale in the markets. Registers and libraries were destroyed, and the remains of learning and antiquity thrown into the fire. The grave was no protection against these zealots. They rifled monuments and tombs, did what they could to extinguish the names of those in the other world, and murder them in their memory. To see (says he) noble structures consecrated to the honour of the ever blessed Trinity, where all the articles of the Apostles' Creed were professed, the Christian Sacraments administered, and all the inspired writings received as such; places where there was no Polytheism, no addressing devils, no roasting of children, no licentious worship, so much as pretended; in short, where there was no resemblance of a parallel with the heathen idolatry, mentioned in the Old and New Testaments; I say, to see the houses of God thus ravaged and rased, the furniture made plunder, and the Church estates seized, gives a frightful idea of some of these reformers; and to consider the fact without knowing the whole history would almost make a man believe some rough unconverted nation had made an invasion, and carried the country."-Had this horrible picture of the virtuous proceedings of the Reformers to amend and purge Popery been drawn by the pen of a Catholic, it might have been consi dered as too highly coloured; but coming, as it does, from the hands of of which were broached by the different Ministers in the successive reigns, in order to traduce and stigmatize the Catholics as the contrivers and abettors of their infernal schemes, and thus render them odious in the eyes their dissenting countrymen. Were the doctrines of Popery of that diabolical kind as laid down by the writer in Cobbett's Register, could it be rendered necessary for the legislators of this country to make a law to HANG men merely for embracing it? Protestants, we may reasonably suppose that the description falls short of the horrid atrocities and blasphemous scenes which were exhibited in those days. With these facts before our eyes, may not Catholics, with a a greater degree of truth and justice, ask Mr. Cobbett-What people can be virtuous where deeds of so wicked and abominable a nature were legalized and encouraged? Yet such was the -case, as we gather from the said Pro-testant historian (Heylin). "For," says he, "though Parliament consist-Yet such a law was passed in the reign ́ed of such members as disagreed among themselves in respect of religion; yet they agreed well enough in one common principle, which was to serve the present time, and PRESERVE THEMSELVES. For though a great part of the nobility, and not a few of the gentry in the House of Commons, were cordially affected to the Church of Rome, yet were they willing to give way to all such acts and statutes as were made against it, out of fear of ·losing such lands and statutes as they were possessed of, if that religion should prevail and get up again; and as for the rest, who were either to make or improve their fortunes, there is no question to be made, but that they were resolved to further SUCH a reformation as should most visibly conduce TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF THEIR SEVERAL ENDS."-Can we wonder, reader, from the description here given of the effects of the Reformation, that the sober and thinking part of the people should prefer the superstitions of Popery, as the safest road to Heaven, and the most virtuous code of morality on earth, to the vicious and delusive doctrines of Evangelical Liberty. That such was the fact, and that the leading politicians and courtiers of those days were alarmed for their temporal interests, which they had aggrandized by the spoliation of the property belonging to the Church, which was also the patrimony of the poor, we have only to refer to the statute-book, and to the various plots and conspiracies of James I. Yes, reader, such was the bloody murdering principles of Popery, that the meek and innocent professors of Protestantism passed law, not to punish the Catholic for state treason and rebellion; not for murder and sedition; nor for felony, or calumny; no, no; these crimes were forbidden by Popery: it was therefore judged necessary that the person who was so wicked as to embrace that faith which, but a few years before, was the creed of the whole of Christendom; it was judged necessary, I say, in those days, that that individual, who should presume to exercise his own free will in the choice of the road he should take to carry him to heaven, should be hung, drawn, and quar tered, and his bowels burnt, if he was hardy enough to choose the religion preached by the apostles, and which had been the faith of his forefathers for several centuries! Oh! the meekness, the mildness, the consistency of the professors of Protestantism! Mr. Cobbett, in comparing the events interwoven with, and which are the result of, the late continental peace, may "be deeply afflicted with the restoration of the Papal Hierarchy, the Inquisition, and the Order of the Jesuits-Powers that (he says) we know have committed ten thousand more cruelties than the deposed Napoleon," but will he, can he produce one instance of such a Penal Code against the Professors of Protestantism in any Catholic country similar to that which even now disgraces our Statute Book |