93 LETTER IV. CAUSES WHICH PROMOTED THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS. "THE holy English Church," says Baronius, "hath always gloried in having produced so great a teacher as the Venerable Bede. But her apostate sons have rejected him, and go after false apostles in his stead, who, erring themselves, and leading others into error, follow after Satan. Wherefore, when such an accuser stands up against them before the judgement-seat of great God, they shall receive sentence of damnation."* Amost Roman Catholic opinion,.. and more Cardinal than Christian-like! "Our dear * "Tanto Doctore jure semper gloriata est sancta Ecclesia Anglicana: quem cum rejiciant filii desertores, qui, loco ipsius pseudo-apostolos errantes, et in errorem mittentes, abeuntes retro post Satanam, sunt secuti; in futuro sæculo ante judicium magni Dei, tanto instante accusatore, sententiam damnationis accipient." (Quoted in the Life of Bede prefixed to his Works. Col. Agrippinæ, 1612.). countrymen," says Cressy,*" will do wisely to attend to the affrighting admonition of the learned Cardinal." If this good man's judgement had been commensurate with his industry, he might have found enough during his diligent perusal of Bede to make him hesitate in subscribing to this sweeping condemnation, and to have made him doubt whether he could indeed appeal to the Venerable's authority in his own justification for having forsaken the Church of England to enter the Benedictine order. Corrupt enough the Romish Church was in Bede's age, heaven knows! but it was very far from having reached the height of its corruptions. But credulity was the characteristic weakness of Father Cressy's mind. He believed all the legends with which Bede's history is filled as implicitly as Bede himself had believed them:.. perhaps more so: for Bede thought it his duty as an historian to relate * Page 583. + It is, however, worthy of notice, that he qualifies it in his translation of this passage, and instead of pronouncing sentence of damnation upon the English people, which Baronius does in a tone of infallibility, as if he were Pope instead of Cardinal, Cressy slips in, that "they have reason to apprehend it.” In his epistle to King Ceolulph, after stating from what sources his information was derived, he concludes thus: Lec what he found written or had heard; and while he repeats fables which to us are gross and palpable, the manner of his relation is such as completely to approve his own perfect veracity. And this leads me to the subject of monkish miracles. You complain, Sir, that I treat the miracles of your Church with contempt and ridicule: it would be well if they called forth no other feeling in a sincere and ingenuous mind! You tell me that a Roman Catholic may disbelieve them all* without ceasing to be a Roman Catholic: and you askift it be either just or generous to harass the present Catholics with the weaknesses of the ancient writers of their communion, and to attempt to render their religion and themselves odious by these unceasing and offensive repetitions?" Is it quite consistent, Sir, thus to cry mercy upon this part of your case, and yet to rely at one time upon the very fables which you abandon at another? For toremque suppliciter obsecro, ut si qua in his quæ scripsimus, aliter quàm severitas habet, posita repererit, non hoc nobis imputet, qui (quæ vera lex historia est) simpliciter ea quæ famá vulgante collegimus, ad instructionem posteritatis literis mandare studuimus. Page 46. + Page 48. Rather than interrupt the text, I chuse here to protest against Mr. Butler's repeated and injurious insinuation. you boast of a perpetual succession of miracles in the Romish Church, as a perpetual proof that it is the true one. You give them up in the detail, and appeal to them in the gross. This is something like your proposed rule of controversy, and your Maynooth rule of faith, in which we are told that you are not required to believe in the Saints whose names are in your kalendar, whose churches and whose altars you attend, whose relics and whose images you venerate, whose festivals you keep, and whose legends* make a part of your liturgy. Methinks, Sir, this manner of playing fast and loose with opinions, of advancing at one time what you have renounced at another, as may happen to suit the bearing of your immediate argument, savours rather of law than of logic; it belongs to the practices of perverted subtlety, not to the use of right reason. The subterfuges of disputation are always unworthy; they are especially misplaced when we are looking for the realities of historical and religious truth. This, Sir, is your position:† "that if Roman Catholics prove a constant succession of mira Truly, indeed, did Bishop Jewel say, ea legunt in templis suis, quæ ne ipsi quidem dubitant esse mera mendacia et inanes fabulas. Apologia, p. 123. ed. 1591. † Page 40. cles in their church, they consequently establish the truth of her doctrine." Now I advance as a position, not less certain, that if Protestants prove a constant succession of frauds in that church, the Papal system is what I have pronounced it to be..a prodigious structure of imposture and wickedness. You have said that the words Superstition and Idolatry are the burthen of the Book of the Church :* if they are not the burthen of the present volume, it is because one that will be even less palatable, must more frequently be used. Superstition and idolatry call as much for pity as for condemnation, but there is nothing to qualify our detestation of imposture; and if I do not substantiate that charge upon the Romish Church, let me be held for a calumniator by posterity! The Book of the Church contains facts enough to substantiate it, in the series of frauds which are there noticed, as natural and no unimportant parts of the narrative, from the bodily flagellation of Laurentius in a vision, down to Father Garnet's miraculous miniatures on straw. But you are pleased to call for authorities, and in a manner too as if it had been my plan to withhold them because none * Page 338. H |