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Gift of
George L. Fox

THE

PAPAL SYSTEM

FROM

ITS ORIGIN TO THE PRESENT TIME.

A HISTORICAL SKETCH

OF ,EVERY DOCTRINE, CLAIM AND PRACTICE OF THE
CHURCH OF ROME.

BY
WILLIAM CATHCART, D. D.

Philadelphia
The Griffith & Rowland Press
Boston Chicago St. Louis

TO
THE FKIENDS OF PEOTESTANT CHRISTIANITY,
AND
THE CANDID MEMBERS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH,
THIS VVOKK
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY
THEIE OBEDIENT SERVANT,
THE AUTHOR.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
WILLIAM CATHCART,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

PREFACE.

The objects aimed at in this work are to sketch the
birth, growth, and maturity of every Romish belief and
practice; to furnish a contrast between papal and ancient
Christianity, to present all decrees, canons, and other tes
timonies in their original languages and in translations ;
to show the bearings of popery upon some of our cher
ished institutions ; to describe the present observances of
the Catholic Church ; and to give reliable, and generally,
Romish authorities for every important statement; together
vnth the pages, or the booJcs and chapters, by which quota
tions can he verified. This treatise is entirely undenomi
national. It is not intended for the learned, but for the mass of
English readers; and the extracts in Latin and Greek are
designed to furnish proofs of the truth of all leading decla
rations, which can be easily translated in every village,
and in most rural districts of our highly favored land.
Not a few atrocious transactions have been entirely
omitted, because, while they may be perfectly true, the
evidence seemed insufficient to support them.
The Author has never been in the communion of the
Church of Rome, but he hopes that the information
which he conveys to the reader from credible witnesses
will not be less valuable on that account.
Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius
wrote their Ecclesiastical Histories inside the first six
centuries ; they belonged to the Church universal, and en
joy the confidence of the Christian world. The same state-

4 PREFACE.
ment applies to Ireneus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Cyprian,
Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom, Hilary, and in
the main to Tertullian and Origen.
Venerable Bede, William of Malraesbury, Matthew of
Westminster, Matthew Paris, and Ingulph of Croyland
were English monks, who wrote histories from the eighth
to the middle of the thirteenth century which are held in
very high and deserved estimation.
Du Pin was " a priest and doctor of divinity " of the
faculty of Paris in 1688 ; his History, issued in parts,
bears two certificates of approval from the Sorbonne, for
centuries the most celebrated Catholic School in Europe.
The work called '^Ganones et Decreta Goncilii Triden-
tini " — Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent — was
published at Leipsic with the approbation of the Catholic
authorities of Saxony, and is the most important book in
the Roman Church.
The " Catechism of the Council of Trent," issued under
the same sanction and in the same city, can receive no
higher favor from popes and ecclesiastics than for centu
ries it has enjoyed.
Father Paul Sarpi, who wrote " The History of the
Council of Trent," lived and died a Roman Catholic, was
secretary of the first president of that Synod, and was,
perhaps, among the ablest men of the age.
The Vulgate which furnished our quotations has the
text approved by Clement VIII. and Sixtus V. The edi
tion of the Councils by Labbe and Cossart, which we
have frequently used, has the highest reputation in and
out of the papal Church.
May this volume in some humble measure serve the
intei -fits of liberty, education, and true religion.

CONTENTS.

PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES
THE ANCIENT BRITISH CHURCH.
Flanting of the Glospel in England — Persecutions of the Anglo-Saxoi.i —
Landing of Augustine — He meets some of the Ancient British Chris
tians on the Severn — His demands — They reject the Pope — Augustine's
miracle — The test of a holy man — Ethelfrid attacks the Anuent
British — Bangor — Council at Whitby — King Oswy despotically de --ides
the controversy in favor of Rome— Synod at Hertford — The P ,,pacy
crushes all opposition in England  18
THE POPES HAVE NO POWER IN THE IRISH CHURCH F( R MANY
CENTURIES AFTER CHRIST.
Christians in Ireland before St. Patrick — His birthplace — Captivity —Con
version — ^His call to preach in Ireland — No connection •with Ronje — He
invents the Irish Alphabet — His Bible Christianity — Columbanas and
his Bible — Clement — Irish monasteries are Bible Schools — TAey re
jected the Pope — Bishop Dagan refuses to eat with a Popish miasionary
— Pope Honorius, and John the Pope elect, admonish the Irit.h — Irish
missions in France and Germany — Columbanus — Boniface in tiermany
— Ireland not Papal ground in the twelfth century — The En[,lish bring
the Irish into harmony with the Pope  38
THE ANCIENT SCOTCH CHURCH.
The missionary Ninias — Columba, the Apostle of Scotland- His charac
ter — Bridius — lona — Success of Columba — Gospels whicK he wrote —
The Scotch clergy loved the Scriptures — Aidan — His chjiracter — His
love for the Bible — The Scotch clergy and Romish customs — They will
not practise Popish ceremonies — Adamnan abbot of lona becomes a
Romanist — King Naitan, in the eighth century, subdues his country
men t' Rome  30

6 CONTENTS.
COUNCIia FOR BEATEN CENTURIES EEHTDIATE PAPAL
JURISDICTION. — THE COUNCIL OP NICE.
Character of its members— Constantine called it — The Pontiff is not pres
ent — His delegates have no important place — The Emperor manages it
—The sixth Canon — Constantine confirmed the decrees of the Council —
All Bishops required to confirm them — Pope Liberius — Hosius, the
leading Bishop of the Christian world  84
COUNCIL OP SARDICA.
t was convoked by the Emperors — The Eastern Bishops — Hosius Presi
dent — Three famous canons — This body was not a general Council —
Deception by the Popes  ,  40
CONSTANTINOPLE.
Summoned by Theodosius — Macedonius — Dignity conferred on the See
of Constantinople — The Pope  4J
EPHESUS.
This Council was called by the Emperor — Nestorius — Cyril was Presi
dent — Celestine  43
CHALCEDON.
Convened by the Emperor — Eutyches — St. Enphemia — Pope Leo's repre
sentatives — The Emperor — The twenty-eighth Canon  43
THE FIFTH GENERAL COUNCIL MET AT CONSTANTINOPLE.
Convened by Justinian— The Pope was in the city, and refused to attend
its meetings  4g
THE SIXTH GENERAL COUNCIL WAS HELD IN CONSTANTINOPLE.
Called by the Emperor— Its Presidentr— Its decree condemning Pope
Honorius as a heretic  ,  4P
ANOTHER COUNCIL HELD IN THE SAME CITY, A. D. 692.
Called by the Emperor— Its thirty-sixth canon— Its decrees were signed
by the Emperor first— Christendom at the beginning of the seventh
century  g^
BISHOPS AND PRESBYTERS THE SAME OFFICERS.
Acts XX. 17, 28 ; Titus i. 5, 7 ; 1 Pet. v. 1, 2— Tertullian— Irenseu s—
Jerome— Augustine— Chrysostom— Isldore—Stillingfleet— Cranmer—
"^^'^^f  58

CONTENTS.

THE EQUALITY OF ALL BISHOPS.
Origin of Episcopacy-Cyprian— Augustine— Jerome — Synod of Antioch
— Hilary — Gregory tlie Great  ,  60

THE MEANS BY WHICH THE POPE BECAME SOVEREIGN OF ALL
CATHOLIC CHURCHES.
The great principle was found in the words : • Thou art Peter," etc. —
This text first introduced at Chalcedon — Leo the Great — Peter becomes
a Deity — Lawrence of Canterbury — Augustine — Chrysostom— Theo
doret — The keys — Binding and loosing — " That thy faith fail not "—
"Feed my lambs" — The Apostles knew nothing of Peter's power —
Peter could have no successor — Universal Bishop — Phocas — Boniface
— Gregory— Mohammedan victories — Eastern Patriarchs crushed —
Papal Missions — Gregory and the Saxon youths — Augustine — Conver
sion of the Anglo-Saxons — Winfrid and the Germans — Papal interfer
ence in the troubles of Bishops — The Pope ever ready for an appeal —
Papal intermeddling with the affairs of Kings — Ohilderic and Pepin —
The Pallium — An honorary gift — Then indispensable to oflace — Purga
tory — Its influence — The benefits conferred by Popes — Their Bishops
— Their sanctuaries — They sent out monks as teachers of all useful
arts — Forgeries — The Donation of Constantine — Decretals — The inqui
sition — oaths  70
THE POPE CLAIMS TO BE LORD OP KINGS AND
GOVERNMENTS.
The Pope gave England to the Conqueror — Pope Adrian gives Ireland
to Henry II. — Pope Paul makes Ireland a Kingdom — England under
an interdict — Innocent excommunicates John — He deposes him from
his crown — He publishes a crusade against him — John is compelled to
resign his crown — Innocent nullifies Magna Charta — Paul III. excom
municates Henry VIII. and declares his throne vacant — Pius V. deposes
Queen Elizabeth — The Pope above all Kings — Innocent IV. deposes
the Emperor Frederic II. — Gregory VII. deposed Henry IV. — "He
can give and take away whatever men have " — Alexander VI. divides
undiscovered countries between Spain and Portugal  100
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
A Council is inspired — The causes leading to the call of the Council —
Those invited — The Presidents — Order of speaking — Authorities to be
quoted — Position of the Pope in the Council — He used sacred bribes
and holy jesters — One of its decrets — Claims of the clergy — De Fer-
rieres — Boy Bishops  186

CONTENTS,

BAPTISM.

Justyn Martyr— Tertullian— Cyprian— Candidates for baptism in the
early Church — Preliminaries — Ceremonies after baptism — Modem
Romish baptism — Chrism in the water — A woman may baptize —
Anointing after baptism— The white dress— The lighted candle— Bap-.
tism of heretics — Baptism and salvation — Protestant children baptized
in Catholic Churches  153
CONFIRMATION.
Its commencement— Tertullian — Basil — The Greek Church — Modem
Romish Confirmation — The form of words — Oil and balsam — Sponsors
— When conferred  165
THE LORD'S SUPPER, THE EUCHARIST, THE MASS.
The Saviour's Supper — The Supper from the second to the sixth cen
tury — The offerings — Posture of communicants — Frequency of observ
ing it — The Eucharist carried home — Ministers send it to each other —
No adoration of it — The communicants — The dying — The dead —
Infants — The Greek Church — St. Augustine — Pope Innocent — Pope
Gelasius— Decree of Trent— Some substituted water for wine —
Some honey and water — Some added cheese — No private masses —
Consubstantiation — The elements symbols — Tertullian — Clemens
Alexandrinus — Cyprian — Origen — Eusebius — Chrysostom — Ambrose
—Augustine— Pope Gelasius— Facundus— Isidore of Seville— From
Consubstantiation to Transubstantiation — Paschasius Radbert —
Charles the Bald — Bertram — Rabanus — Herigar — John Scotus-
Berenger —Trials— Gregory VII. — The name Transubstantiation -
The Lateran Council — It is a propitiatory sacrifice— Christ is in tho
mass, soul, body and divinity— A whole Christ in every particle— Tho
mass worshipped— Commemoration of the wheaten deity— The Eu
charist in procession— A Corpus Christi procession in Spain— Incen-ie
—A wicked priest can change the bread and wine— Half communiop
—Constance— Catholics dislike the change— Demands in Trent for thf
cup— The Pope may give the cup— The words which change thi
elements— The mass a novelty— The Protestant side— The body of
Christ eaten by the Catholic corrupts— Christ's miracles apparent-
The Duke of Buckingham— Divinities growing in the gardens  ./t
THE CONFESSIONAL.
Chrysostom— Ambrose— Augustine— Laurentius— The Emperor Theo
dosius and Ambrose-Penitents at church doors-Different classes o,
penitents-Penance seldom permitted twice— Penitentiary confessor-
Ab9-lution-Confc8sional in tho middle ages-Auricular confession

CONTENTS. &
established — The priest truly absolves — No confession by letter —
Secrecy — Posture of the penitent — Penitent's first request— Questions
of the priest — Catholic Prayer Books and indelicate questions — The
priest must be answered — Deaf confessors — The Scriptures  198
EXTREME UNCTION.
The Greek Church anoints to restore — Jonas of Orleans — Council of
Chalons — Unction from the ninth century — Adopted in the Council of
Florence — Tho parts anointed — Ceremonies in apolying the unction... 319
THE SACRAMENT OF HOLY ORDERS.
Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons — Metropolitans -Patriarchs — Deacon
— A.rchdeacon — Deaconess — Subdeacon — Acolyte — Exorcist — Reader
— Doorkeeper — Singer — Copiatse — Parabolani— Cardinals — Choice of
Pope — Decree of Trent — Grace given by ordination— Tonsure— Its
shape — Ancient Scotch — Ring and crosier — St. Patrick's staff — The
mitre — The tiara — The keys — Official garments of the clergy  235
MARRIAGE.
A church arrangement in early times — First cousins forbidden to marry
— The widow who married before a year — Sponsors and marriage —
Marriage with a deceased wife's sister — Second marriages — Third mar
riages — The ring — The solemn kiss — Joining right hands — Council of
Trent — Marriage one of the seven sacraments— The Church can in
crease impediments — a single life — ^Matrimonial causes— All times not
proper for marriage — The parish priest and marriage — The prohibited
degrees — Dispensations — Marriage received in a state of grace — Dif
ferences of religion and marriage — Vowing chastity and marriage —
Divorce — Mai-riage forbidden between Catholics and heretics — The
children of a Protestant marrying a Romanist — Ceremonies at a Catho
lic marriage  286
THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY.
No authority from Christ— Clergy married in second century — In the
third — In the fourth a stigma was placed on clerical marriage — The
Council of Nice — Paphnutius — Many married bishops — Council of
Toledo — Synesius — Council of Carthage — Council in Ireland — Celi
bacy in the sixth century — The Council of TruUo — The wives of the
clergy openly acknowledged in the West — Gregory VII. attacks the
marriage of priests — The opposition — Gregory's weapons — Marriage
among the clergy in the sixteenth century — The Council of Trent —
The embassador of Bavaria — The Emperor Ferdinand — Charles IX. —
The German clergy — Celibacy triumphs — The Pope and the Greek
married clergy at the Council of Florence The luanied Maronite
priests  344

10 CONTENTS.
CATHOLIC JUSTIFICATION.
Improper views, and curses  *"'
PURGATORY.
Nowhere in the early Church— Praying for the dead in the end of the
second century— Bede's purgatory— King Charles'— The dread of pur
gatory — The Greek purgatory — Masses and alms-deeds   -  263
INDULGENCES.
At first a long Church penance — Among the Arians a fine taken for
penance — The same custom in England — Works of supererogation —
Bull of Clement VII —Bull of John XXIII.— John Huss— Leo X.—
Tetzel — His mode of conducting business — Tax on special sins — Form
of an indulgence — Trent decrees them wholesome  270
THE WORSHIP OP RELICS.
Relics in the fourth century — The cross of Calvary discovered — The cross
of Apamea — The cross in Persia — A portion at Constantinople — in
Rome — in England— in France — ^in Venice— The blood of Christ in
England— The holy lance— Christ's robe — His likeness— The holy
staircase — The cradle of Jesus — His manger — A garment of his mother
— Her hair — The chains of Peter — His chair — The Baptist's head —
St. Alban — Blood of Januarius — Simon Stylites — St. Genevieve —
St. Martin— St. Guthlac— The head of King Edmund— St. Wereburge
— St. Thomas Aquinas — St. Thomas A'becket — Oaths taken on relics
— Relics in Palestine — Infatuation about relics — Decree of Trent  280
MIRACLES.
The river opens for St. Alban — Constantine cured by baptism — St. Dona-
tus kills a dragon — Flies and gnats — A Jewish boy and the Eucharist —
Masses loose chains — Chrism brought from heaven — St. Mamertus and
a great fire — Holy water — St. Swithin and a basket of broken eggs —
St. Dunstan and the Devil — The curse of a priest — Dogs — A palsied
man — A lion and a serpent — A woman full of devils — The Saviour and
St. Francis — A miracle in Ireland  297
INVOCATION AND WORSHIP OP SAINTS AND ANGELS,
Bortholomew hears Guthlac — Guthlac hears his monks — Pope innocent
and St. Edmund — St. A'becket and the Straits of Dover — Litany of
the Sainti  304

CONTENTS. 11
THE WORSHIP OP THE VIRGIN MARY.
Mary a goddess — Jehovah stern — The worship of Mary began in Arabia
— She gives Pope Leo a new hand — Elfleda and Mary — She heals a
clergyman— She appears to St. Godric— She visits St. Simon Stock-
Prayers to Mary by St. Ephraim— St. Bernard— Devout Blasius— St.
John Damascen — St. German — Ildefonsus — Litany of the Blessed Vir
gin — Mary the author of salvation — Two ladders to heaven — The tri
angular Trinity — Four persons in the Godhead — Novel source of Mary's
merits — Religion of Italy the gospel of Mary — The Council of Trent
— The Catechism of Trent — Gregory XVI. — Christ rebukes his mother
— Scripture, common sense, and the worship of Mary  312
THE WORSHIP OP IMAGES.
Images scarce in the first three ages — Leo the Emperor and images — His
son and Image worship — The Empress Irene and the worship of
images — Charlemagne denounces image worship — The Council of
Trent^Creed of Pope Pius IV.— Catechism of Trent— Pables—A
statue of Jesus — An image of the Virgin — The Bambino— An old
image of Jesus — Gregory XVI. — The Roman Church removes the
Second commandment — An Italian's astonishment  828
PAPAL INFALLIBILITY AND THE COUNCIL OF 1870.
Infallibility a miracle — What is it ? — Liguori — Cornelius Musso — Absur
dity of it in John XII. — Benedict IX. — Alexander VI. — Catholics in
hosts rejected it — Council of Constance — Forty speeches against it in
the Vatican Council — Discussion suppressed — Manning's admissions
— Pope Honorius a heretic — Pope Vigilius takes two opposite sides of
a question of faith — The Vatican Council — its numbers — rules — The
first Constitution on Faith — the second — Several points decided — The
decree of Infallibility — Its results — " Faith and morals " — A universal
tjranny  840
THE FREEDOM OP THE PRESS.
The fearlessness of Protestants— The Committee of the Council of Trent
on the Press — The tenor of nine rules — The tenth rule entire — Punish
ment at the discretion of a bishop or inquisitor — Galileo in the Inqui
sition for Science  350
INTENTION IN THE PRIEST NECESSARY TO THE
VALIDITY OF A SACRAMENT.
Decrees of Trent on Sacraments generally — The canon on Intention—
A Pope may not be a Christian, and all his acts nullities, if intention
was wanting — A dying priest confesses the want of intention in many
r«8es  351

12 CONTENTS.

SECRET SOCIETIES.
Antipathy to Freemasons and Odd-Fellows — Bull of Clement XIL
against Freemasons — Trial of a Freemason in the Inquisition — Arch
bishop Cullen on Freemasons and Fenians — The Confessional and
Masonry or Odd Fellowship  361

THE FAMILY AND PUBLIC WORSHIP, AND THE BOOKS
OP PROTESTANTS.
The Irish Catholic naturally kind — BQs anger when a tract is given him
— His creed — He is questioned in the Confessional — " The Mission
Book " — " The Garden of the Soul " — Penances — The restraints of a
moral convent  864

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PUBLIC EDUCATION.
The need of education under a free government — Rome no friend of Edu
cation — Mexico — Spain — Ireland — The Eternal City— Seymour — Rome
wants all schools under her control — Naples — Gladstone — Spain —
Rome must have separate schools in Protestant countries — Pius IX. and
Protestant and Jewish schools in Austria — The Bible in the public
schools — Priests want a division of the school funds — " Godless
schools" in Ireland — "Mission Book" — " Have you sent your chil
dren to heretic or godless schools f " — The priests wish to isolate Catho
lic children — They will not give the Catholic masses light — St. Patrick's
schools, Edinburgli— A people trained from childhood among us, and
yet not with us — The patriot and our school system  368

SINS TAKEN AWAY BY GIFTS AND FAVORS.
Gifts to obtain pardon built churches and monasteries — St. Eligius— Offa,
king of Mercia— Bertulph— Bthelwulf— Beorred— King Edgar- Wil
liam Rufus— Canute— King John —Henry III.— Burmah and kind acts
—Marquis of St. Martin— Seymour buys a mass in Rome— Receipt—
—"The Mission Book "—Decree of Trent— Gavin— One mass counts
for a hundred by Papal privilege to some places  378

NO SALVATION FOR PROTESTANTS.
Rome consigns to perdition all who reject her faith— Creed of Pius IV.
—Bull "In 6'(B»a J5oOT»m "—Bishop Hall  ogj

CONTENTS. 1 3
THE MASS IN LATIN.
THE WORD " LATIX " IX THF. GREEK TONGUE CONTAINS THK
MTifBKR OF THE HK.VST.
The beast of John— His number — Ireneus and xatstfos — "Latin" a
proper name for the Church of Rome— Prom thirty to seventy nations
spoke Latin in the Vatican Council — Pope Vitalian and Latin— The
decree of Trent  889
SINCERITY OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS.
A conviction among Protestants that they are hypocrites —Their training
— Protestants to them are enemies of truth— Their education gives no
leligious light — The priests are full of earnestness —They build the
churches — Luther and his parents— A miracle about our Indians  393
HYMNS AND THOSE WHO COMPOSED THEM.
Singing in the primitive Church — Singers not always saints— Hymns in
second century — The doxology — The angelical hymn — The Thrice-lioly
— The Hallelujah — The Benedicite— Clement of Alexandria — Hilary —
Ambrose— The Te Deum — Arius — Chrysostom — Ephraim the Syrian —
Bede— Csedmon — A hymn by St. Patrick — Hymns of the Greek Church
— Protestant hymns in Catholic churches —Hymns to St. Aloysius — St.
Rose — St. Rodriguez — St. Ignatius — St. Elisabeth — Blessed John
Berchmans-St. Philip Neri— St. Patrick— Blessed Peter Claver  396
ROMAN CATHOLICS WHO WERE WORTHY OP ALL
HONOR.
Sir Walter Scott's injustice to the Covenanters — Leighton — Claverhouse
— Distinguished Romanists — Bede — Charlemagne — The barons who
secured Magna Charta— Roger Bacon — Matthew Paris — William Tell
— Sir William Wallace — Columbus — John Gutenberg — Charles Carrol
of Carrolton  40£
THE INQUISITION.
The inquisition— Dominic^His mother's dream — Spanish Inquisition —
Laws— All ages and classes under it — The accused never sees the accu
sation or witnesses — Advocates — Everything must be secret — A libe
rated Jew — No leligious services for prisoners — Nothing of the outside
world known — Every Catholic bound to accuse a heretic — Inquisitors
use hypocrisy — A girl destroys herself and several relatives — Dead here
tics tried — The body of a dead lady dug up and burned — A prisoner tor
tured for evidence to convict him— Catholics suffer —Maria and Jane
Bohorques— The torture room — Ropes cut both arms and thighs to the
bone in eight places — Both shoulders are dislocated — All joints dislo-
oat°d— Grepaed 'eet and a hot fire --The arms dislocated and the body

14 CONTENTS.
whipped— The victim on an iron instrument applied to his back— The
Satanic virgin— Torture of a woman — Llorente— The Sanbenito— Chil
dren and grandchildren share in punishment — An Auto da P<^ in Portu
gal—Inquisition in Rome in 1848— Suggestive memorials— Pius IX.
canonizes a barbarous Inquisitor — Inquisition and Catholics— Only
Rome had an Inquisition— Victims seized at night — Never heard from
except at an Auto da ¥i  418
THE SCRIPTURES.
The Bible— The books that were in it — Josephus- Melito of Sardis —
Earnest efforts to place the Bible in all languages— The clergy hate the
Bible in the thirteenth century— Council of Toulouse— Wycliffe's
Bible — His bones burned — Council of Trent — Decree declaring inspired
the Scriptures, Apocrypha, and the unwritten word of God — The Vul
gate the only Bible of the Catholic Church— Private judgment for
bidden — A Catholic Bible in the vulgar tongue is prohibited — No Bible
in any book-store in Rome— Students at Maynooth and the Bible  438
THE POUR GREAT POUNDERS OF MONKISH
INSTITUTIONS.
Popularity of Celibacy — Antony — His birthplace — Liberality — Influence
— Habits- Benedict fled from Rome, hid at Sublacum — He founds
twelve abbeys — He locates on Mount Cassino —His Rule — St. Dominic
— Born in Spain — He founds an order — The Inquisition their favorite
invention — St. Francis — He was charitable — His unattractive appear
ance — He secures the confirmation of his order — His sermon to the
crows, magpies, and kites— His success  444
THE JESUITS.
Loyola's birth— He is wounded — He is converted — He gives himself and
sword to our Lady of Montserrat — -He retires to a cave and writes his
only work — At thirty-three he goes to school — He is sought by the
Inquisition as a heretic— He founds his order — His motto— His mem
bers—Novices — Scholars — Coadjutors— The Professed — The officers —
Laws for the order- They are all spies on each other- The Society's
chief aim to fight heretics— Mode of working— Education of the great
—They make everything easy— Wicked maxims quoted by Pascal—
They confess kings— They allowed converts in India to retain heathen
ism — The Jesuit a gentle lamb to the masses of Catholics — Loyola com
mends the cunning of Satan to the imitation of two Jesuits — They cringe
to Louis XIV.— The fifth branch of the order are spies everywhere —
The Jesuit puts on any garb— religion— or calling— They were ex
pelled from Spain — Portugal— France— Naples — Parma — Russia— Sup
pressed by Clement XIV.— They poisoned him— They were reestab-
Ushed by Pius VII  449
ookcldsiok  45,1)
Appendix  457
Index.  47j,

PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES-
WHEN IT BEGAN,
AND THE MEANS BY WHICH IT SUCCEEDED •

The Bishop of Rome claims absolute and lasting kingship over
all the churches of Christ on earth ; and he presumes to assert that
he has exercised this authority by the gift of Christ from the first
planting of Christianity.
Before tracing the outlines of that marvellous history in which
Roman pontiffs are seen marching from victory to victory, until
they waved their spiritual swords in undisputed triumph over tha
prostrate form of western Christianity, and sat down as conquerors
in the throne of the Church designed for her Heavenly Head, we
shall first show by uuimpeachable witnesses that no papal king
reigned over the earthly spouse of Christ for many ages after his
ascension into Paradise. We shall appeal to the ancient churches
of Britain and Ireland ; to the great councils of the first seven cen
turies ; and to the admissions of eminent fathers about the equality
of presbyters and bishops at the beginning, and of all bishops a
little later for infallible testimony, to prove that the bishops of
Rome had no dominion over the universal Church for hundreds of
years after Peter's supposed presence in the city of the Csesars.
THE POPES HAD NO JUKI8DICTION OVER THE ANCIENT BRIT
ISH CHURCH FOR THE FIRST SEVEN CENTURIES.
The authorities differ about the men who first planted the Gos
pel in Br'tain. Some hold that Joseph of Arimathea and twelve
others, about A. D. 63, introduced salvation among the islanders.
Others declare that Paul preached the glad tidings in England.15

16 THE ANCIENT BRITISH CHURCH.
And others affirm that Britain was converted by missionaries sent
from Rome, A. D. 176, by Pope Eleutherius, at the request of
Lucius, an imaginary English king.*
According to Matthew Paris, the faith of Jesus was first
preached to his countrymen in A. D. 167.t Neander J declares
that the Gospel reached the Britons as early as the end of the
second century ; that it came to them, not from Rome, but from
the East ; and that in very early times the Britons were a Chris
tian nation. They differed widely on some points from the Roman
Church, and were in perfect harmony on these questions with the
Eastern Churches. This latter circumstance renders it all but cer
tain that some Greek missionary, like Irenseus of Lyons, was their
first Christian teacher.
After the invasion of Britain, in the middle of the fifth century,
by the Anglo-Saxons, the churches were plundered, burned, or
turned into heathen temples by these idolaters, and the Christian
religion was threatened with extinction in every section of their
future home. They might be described as rivalling the fiercest
monsters of persecution of any age. They destroyed the temples §
of Christ ; they slew the priests at the altars ; they gave the Holy
Scriptures to the flames ; they showed their contempt for the vene
rated tombs of the martyrs by covering them with mounds of
earth; and the clergy who escaped had to hide in woods, and
deserts, and mountain retreats. And after seizing and wasting the
whole land, they compelled the wretched remnant of the ancient
Britons *o fly from their ruined churches and blood-stained homes,
and to settle in " Cornubia,|| or, as it is called by some, Cornwall ;
Demecia, or South Wales; Venedocia, or North Wales." And
there they clung to the faith of Jesus.
8t. Augustine lands in England.
And as he and his forty brethren are soon enriched with a large
list of converts among the Anglo-Saxons, he learns something of
the ancient Christian inhabitants of England ; and, being a man
* Q^oflrey's British History, lib. iv. cap. 19.
t At A. D. 596. X Vol. iii. p. 10. Boston, 1869.
S Matt. Paris, at a. d. 464. J Id. a. d. 5S6.

THE ANCIENT BRITISH CHURCH. 17
of considerable self-importance, he demands a conferenue witli
them, that he may compel them to change their religious customs,
and recognize the pope and himself as their masters. The bishops
and teachers of the ancient Britons meet him at Augustine's
Oak,* on the Severn ; he there proposes that they shall give uji
their time of keeping Easter, and adopt the pope's ; that they shall
administer baptism according to the custom of the holy Roman
Church, and preach the word of God to the Anglo-Saxons ; and if
they will yield on these three points, he offers to tolerate patiently
their other customs, though contrary to his. Augustine strongly
urges these demands. He insists, too, that they shall receive him
as their archbishop, and the pope and Church of Rome as authori
ties to be respected and obeyed. Deynoch, abbot of the cele
brated monastery of Bangor, whose opinion in the ancient British
Church was most influential, replied : " We f are all ready to listen
to the Church of God, to the pope at Rome, and to every pious
Christian, that so we may show to each, according to his station,
perfect love, and uphold him by word and deed. We know not
that any other obedience can be required of us towards him whom you
edU the pope, or the faiher of fathers. But this obedience we
are prepared constantly to render to him, and to every Christian."
When neither Augustine's prayers nor arguments could secure
compliance, Augustine proposed a miracle to decide which is the
true way to the heavenly kingdom. A blind man is brought for
ward, whose sight | the bishops of the Britons could not restore.
Augustine, however, had better success ; for, on bowing the knees
and begging the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that sight
might be given to the eyes of one, that thereby the grace of spir
itual light might illumine the hearts of many believers, immedi
ately the eyes of the blind were opened. But the Britons, either
supposing that the healing was no miracle, or that it was not from
God, obstinately refused to give up their customs. Some time
after, a larger number of the British clergy met Augustine in con
ference about the same controversy ; and before entering the coun-
sil the British priests took advice from a " holy and discreet man,"
who led the life of a hermit, and who told them to follow Augus-
•Matt. Paris, at a. d. 603. f Neander iii. 17. J Matt. Paris, at a. d. 603
2

18 THE ANCIENT BRITISH CHURCH.
tine if he should prove himself to be a man of God, and he in
formed them that thev would discover this by his humility. U,
said he, " the words of the Lord mark his spirit and hfe; ' Learn
of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart,' it is to be believed that
he beare Christ's yoke himself, and offers the same to you." And
he told them that they should let him reach the place of meeting
first, and if he arose to greet them on entering, he had the Sa
viour's humility; but if he sat still, he was proud, and they must
have nothing to do with him. Augustine did not arise, and they
rejected himself for their archbishop, and his Romish traditions.
" The servant of the Lord,"(?) as Matthew Paris says,* then threat
ened that if they would not have peace from the Anglo-Saxons as
friends, they must have war from them as enemies ; and soon
after, at the instigation, it is judged, of Augustine, Ethelfrid, a
powerful king of the Northumbrians, assembled a large army at
the city of Legions ; and, just as he was about to make an attack
on the Britons, he observed their priests in large numbers, stand
ing apart, engaged in prayer for the success of their brethren ; and
on learning the object at which they were aiming, he said : " If,
then, they cry unto their God against us, in truth they fight
against us, though they do not bear arms ; for they assail us with
their prayers." He, therefore, attacked them first, and slew 1200
of them ; then he destroyed the army of the Britons, called " im
pious " by Matthew Paris ; but an army not unworthy of the name
of holy patriots, when viewed in the light of liberty and an open
Bible. Most of the priests came from Bangor, an institution which, ac
cording to Paris, was divided into seven parts, with a ruler over
each, and in which no section had less than three hundred monks.
Bede f gives precisely the same account about the meeting with
Augustine ; the three propositions ; the blind man whose eyes were
opened, who, he says, was of the Saxon race, not of the British ;
about the meeting of another synod ; about the hermit's advice in
reference to Augustine's humility ; about Augustine's sitting pos
ture ; and finally about the rejection of Augustine's religious inno
vations ; and his insolent claims to authority over British churches.
" Matt. Paris, at a. d. 604. f Book ii. chap. 3.

THE ANCIENT BRITISH CHURCH. 19
He also describes the slaughter, by Ethelfrid, of the British
army, soon after; and of the twelve hundred priests who prayed
for its success, most of whom were from the monastery of Bangor,
with its seven departments, each division containing more than
three hundred monks, who all lived by the labor of their own
hands. And good old Bede actually thought this slaughter a
mark of the vengeance of heaven against "perfidious men, because
they had despised the offer of eternal salvation," when, in reality,
they only despised the insolent usurpations of Augustiue, and the
pope who sent him, and maintained the rights of a nation's
Church, which, in the language of Neander,* " withstood for a
long time the authority of the Romish papacy." For seven hun
dred years, the British Church maintained its independence of the
See of Rome, and some portions of it most probably till a much
later period.
Geoffrey of Monmouth f states that when Augustine came, he
found in Britain seven bishoprics, and an archbishopric, all filled
with devout prelates, and a great number of abbeys, by which the
flock of Christ was kept in order. He describes, in glowing
terms, the most noble Church of Bangor, with the seven divisions,
of which Bede and Paris speak, each section with more than three
hundred members ; he pays a generous tribute to the learning and
piety of the celebrated Deynoch, their abbot, " who answered Au
gustine with several arguments, that they owed no subjection to
him, since they had their ovm archbishop ; neither would they
preach to their enemies (the Saxons), because the Saxon nation
persisted in depriving them of their country. For this rea
son they esteemed them their mortal enemies ; reckoned their
faith and religion as nothing, and would no more communicate with
the Angles than vfith dogs." In the next chapter,J Geoffrey gives
an account of the battle in which the priests of Bangor were
slaughtered. He says that " Ethelbert, king of Kent (the earliest
patron of Augustine, whose wife wrote to Pope Gregory to send
Catholic missionaries into England), when he saw that tlie Britons
disdained subjection to Augustine, and despised his preaching, was
» Vol. i. p. 85. t Geoffrey's British Hist., book xi. chap. 12.
{Id., book xi. chap. 13.

20 THE ANCIENT BRITISH CHURCH.
highly provoked, and stirred up Ethelfrid and the other pettj
kings of the Saxons to raise a great army, and march to the city
of Bangor, and destroy the Abbot Deynoch, and tJie rest of the
elergy who held them in contempt." Geoffrey agrees with Bede and
Paris in everything about the battle, except in the number of eccle
siastics slain. He places it at two hundred.
William of Malmesbury * is less minute, but he is careful to state
that Ethelfrid vented his fury upon the priests first, and that their
number must have been incredible for those times. He states that
the ruins remaining were vast, such as were to be seen nowhere
else ; that their monastery was mighty even in its desolations.
Bangor was the university for the education of the British
clergy, as lona was for the Scotch ; it was the divinity school ; it
was the headquarters of ancient British missions ; it was the seat
of Deynoch, the master-mind of the British Church. And as that
Church had never recognized the headship of any pope, and had
recently and decidedly declined to receive the pope's authority in
changing their customs, or in imposing an archbishop upon them,
Bangor must be blotted out. The British Church must be extin
guished, if it will not be enslaved. After this butchery, the suc
cess of Augustine and his friends among the Saxons becomes
unexampled ; all the race in Britain submits to the missionaries
of Gregory the Great, and the ancient British Christians pass into
obscurity ; but their principles live in Scotland, and spread over
the whole Saxon settlements in the North of England. There is
discord in families, and anger in sacerdotal hearts, and unhappi-
ness in the Eternal City itself, because Scotch priests in England
will not wear a circular tonsure, nor keep Easter on the Roman
day, nor obey the popes. A council is called at
Streaneshaloh — Whitby.
It met in 664. Whitby Abbey at this time contained a large
number of men and women. It was a seat of learning for the en
tire region around ; it was a school of divinity, out of which in a
little time five bishops were graduated, men of distinguishe<l abil
ity and piety : Bo8a,t Hedda, Oftfor, John, and Wilfrid. Hilda
« Book i. chap. 3. t Bede's Eccl. Hist., book iv. chap. 23.

THE ANCIENT BRITISH CHURCH. 2J
taught the inmates of her monastery justice, piety, chastity, and
other virtues, and particulai'ly peace and charity. Her wisdom
and zeal extended her reputation to distant localities ; and not only
the obscure, but princes and kings asked her advice. She com
pelled the inmates of her house to study the Holy Scriptures, and
become thoroughly acquainted with the will of God. She was,
undoubtedly, a woman of distinguished piety, and of a vigorous
intellect, and eminently fitted to direct the studies and toils of
the great male and female community over which she presided.
To her house the advocates of papal supremacy and of the non-
Roman Church of North Britain came. Among the distinguished
persons present were King Oswy,* Bishop Coleman, with his
Scottish clerks. Bishop Agilbert, with the priests Agatho and
Wilfrid, James and Romanus. The Abbess Hilda, with her
troops of followers, the venerable Bishop Cedd, ordained many
years before among the Scots, were on the anti-papal side. King
Oswy seems to preside in the council. The discussion is chiefly
in the hands of Coleman and Wilfrid. Coleman, on behalf of the
Free Church, defended his observance of Easter by the facts that,
" he received the time of keeping Easter from his forefathers, men
beloved of God, from the custom of John the Evangelist, the dis
ciple beloved of our Lord, and of all the churches over which he
presided." Wilfrid maintained the popish time of keeping Easter,
because all Rome, where mighty Peter and Paul taught, must be
right ; because the same time was observed in Italy, France, Af
rica, Asia, Greece, Egypt, and all the world, " except f only these and
their accomplices in obstinacy (' I mean the Picts [Scots) and the
Britons '), who foolishly, in those two remote Islands of the world,
and only in part even of them, oppose all the rest of the universe."
As the discussion progressed with much Christian courtesy and
gentleness by Coleman, with decided ability and insolent de
rision by Wilfrid, he quoted Christ's words to Peter : " Thou art
Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates
of hell shall not prevail against it ; and to thee I will give the
keys of the kingdom of heaven ;" and then he inquired if any of
* Bede's Eccl. Hist., book iii. chap. 25.
t Id. book iii. chap. 25. Matt. Paris, at a. d. 663.

22 THE ANCIENT BRITISH CHURCH,
the fathers who had taught Coleman his customs could be com
pared to that first bishop of Rome ? The king demanded from
Coleman, if it was true, that our Lord had spoken these words to
Peter ? Coleman admitted the fact. The king then asked if he
could show such power given to the great Scottish father, St. Co
lumba ? Coleman replied, " No." Then said the king : " He is
the doorkeeper, whom I will not contradict; but I will, as far as I
know and am able, in all things obey his decrees, lest when I come
to the gates of the kingdom of heaven, there should be none to
open them, he being my adversary who is proved to have the
Iceys." Oswy's decision was difficult to dispute ; he had a sharp
sword, a strong arm and a violent temper : and as he imagined
that everything pledged to Peter was promised to all Roman
bishops, from that moment he became the most obsequious servant
of the pontiffe, and under his influence the Council of Whitby en
throned Romanism in the North of England. Coleman very
wisely went into Scotland among his own brethren. The other
advocates of his opinions were silenced. But these opinions, em
bracing an anti-popish Easter and tonsure, had their principal
strength from opposition to papal supremacy over the government
of the Church ; and this idea could not be easily destroyed. It
worked in men's minds, and another council was convoked at
Hertford.*
Archbishop Theodore convened the synod A. d. 673. It was
composed of bishops and other teachers of the Church, who loved
and were acquainted with the canonical statutes of the fathers. It
adopted ten chapters, and signed them. And then it was voted
that every offender should be excluded from sacerdotal functions,
and from " our society." The very first of these " chapters "
reads : " That we all in common keep the holy day of Easter on
the Suuday after the fourteenth moon of the first month," f This
anti-papal leaven was still disturbing the Roman bishops. Theo
dore, who called this synod, was a Greek by birth, a mere depen
dent of the Bishop of Rome, who had sent him into England ic fill
its highest ecclesiastical office, and to do the bidding of the suc-

" Rpdp's Eccl. Hist., book iv. chap. 5. •[ Matt. Paris, at .\. d. 674.

THE ANCIENT IRISH CHURCH. 23
cessor of Peter. Doubtless, at Hertford he was carrying out his
orders. Theodore * was the first Roman prelate who could carry out his
primacy over all England. He banished the usages of the Scotch
Free Church out of the Anglo-Saxon nations. The Council at
Hertford was a potent agent in accomplishing this task. The
ancient Britons retained their church independence for a longer
period, and it is not definitely known when it became ex
tinct, t
Here, then, is a lofty monument, rearing its head for at least
seven centuries into the heavens, upon which is written in great
letters, "THE EARLY CHRISTIANS KNEW NOTHING
OF THE POPE'S SUPREMACY OVER THE
CHURCHES." THE POPES HAVE NO POWER IN THE IRISH CHURCH FOR MANY
CENTURIES AFTER CHRIST,
The people of Ireland, for ages, were called Scots. Bede tells
us that Laurentius, the successor of Augustine, wrote an epistle,
in which he exhorted the "Scots % who inhabit the island of Ireland,"
as well as the ancient Britons, to maintain conformity with the
Church of Christ spread over the world. This was the common
designation of the inhabitants of Ireland for ages. It is not cer
tain at what time the first light of the gospel reached the natives
of Ireland ; but it is well known that there were Christians in
that country before the time of St, Patrick. He, however,
properly merits the title of
The Apostle of Ireland.
There are conflicting accounts of his birth, nationality and acts,
some insisting that there were three Patricks, whose deeds are
commonly credited to one. The most probable history of the
great Patrick is, that he was a native of Scotland ; that his name
was Succathus ; and that he had a godly father, who gave him re
ligious instruction in early life. At the age of sixteen, he was
? Neander, vol. iii. 85. f Bingham's Antiquities, book ix. chap. 1, sec. 11.
I Ec^l Hist., book ii. chap. 4.

24 THE ANCIENT IRISH CHURCH,
captured by pirates, and sold as a slave to the Scots in what is
now called Ulster in Ireland. His daily toil in the neighborhood
of Slemish, a beautiful mountain, from whose top the prospect is
sublime, and his helpless and hopeless wrongs, led him to think
of that Saviour of whom he had heard so much on the banks of
his native Clyde. He touchingly describes his exercises at this time
in his confessions : * "I was sixteen years old, and knew not the
true God , but, in a strange land, the Lord brought me to a sense
of my unbelief, so that, although late, I minded me of my sins,
and tamed with my whole heart to the Lord ray God, who looked
down on my lowliness, had pity on my youth and ignorance, who
preserved me ere I knew him, and who protected and comforted
me as a father does his son, ere I knew how to distinguish between
good and evil." He found Jesus, and afterwards escaped from
bondage and reached his friends. After passing through various
changes, some of them of a very unhappy character, he felt he
must go and preach to the pagans of Ireland the salvation of Jesus.
He had calls in visions of the night, and deep impressions through
out the day, that he must be a missionary in Ireland ; and, in op
position to remonstrances from friends, and misgivings in his own
mind, after some preparation, he started for the scene of his future
labors and successes. It is probable that he was ordained a
bishop in Britain in his 45th year, notwithstanding all the tales
of monks about Pope Celestine sending Patrick to convert the
Scots to the faith of the Holy Trinity.
Nennius f says that he preached in Britain some time before he
went to Ireland. The Irish, he says, beheld in Patrick the most
astonishing powers, natural and supernatural. He gave sight to
the blind, cleansing to the lepers, hearing to the deaf; he cast out
devils, raised nine persons from the dead, and redeemed many cap
tives of both sexes. He wrote three hundred and sixty-five
canonical and other books; he founded as many churches, and or
dained as many bishops, and three thousand presbyters. He con
verted and baptized twelve thousand persons in Connaught. He
baptized seven kings in one day, the sons of Amalgaid, king of
Connaught. He fasted forty days and nights on the summit of

Neander, vol. ii. 123. f Nennius, at a. d. 453.

THE ANCIENT IRISH CHURCH. 25
Croagh Patrick, and made three requests to God for the people of
Ireland. First: That God would receive every repenting sinner,
even at the last moment ; second, that the Irish might never be
exterminated by barbarians ; and, third, as Ireland will be over
flowed with water seveu years before the judgment, that the
crimes of the people might be washed away through his interces
sion. Matthew Paris says tliat in preparing for his ministry " he read *
through the Holy Scriptures, and made himself master of their divine
raysteries." He preached in Ireland eighty years, and reached the
age of 122. He repeats everything mentioned by Nennius in such
a way that it is evident either one is a copy of the other, or that
both are transcripts of some old document.
Patrick invented the Irish alphabet, and infused a love for
learning and for the sacred Scriptures among his converts, which
rendered the monastic schools of Ireland the wonder and admira
tion of Europe for several ages.
Patrick was a man of extraordinary ability ; he gathered the
people by beat of drum, and listening thousands caught the words
of life as they fell from his lips. In his day chieftains wielded im
mense power over their dependents, and the Irish apostle laid siege
to their hearts first, and he quickly enlisted them and their clans.
Their bards were men of commanding influence, and Patrick se
cured many of the most illustrious of them, and induced them to
compose eloquent songs in honor of the man of Nazareth. Ireland
under this remarkable preacher was completely renovated, and
piety of a high order reigned all over the Greeu Isle. St. Pat
rick's religion was Bible Christianity.
This truth is strikingly exhibited in the history of the Church
which he planted. The monkish historians of the middle ages
have many allusions to this fact in the character of the Irish
Christians. Bede, speaking about Coinwalch, says : " There came
into his kingdom out of Ireland a certain bishop called Agilbert,
by nation a Frenchman, but who had then been in Ireland a long
•Matt. Paris, at a. d. 491.

26 THE ANCIENT IRISH CHURCH.
time, ' for the purpose of reading the Scriptures.' "* Bede speaks
of the most reverend father Egbert, who long led a monastic life
with St. Chad in Ireland, praying, observing continency, and
" meditating on the Holy Scriptures."^ Columbanus, a celebrated
Irish monk, a missionary on the continent, was accustomed to re
tire from his convent into the dense forest, bearing on his shoulder
" a copy of the Holy Scriptures, J which he wanted to study in the
solitude." Bishop Clement, an Irishman who had some trouble
with the renowned Boniface, apostle of Germany, is said to have
denied " to the writings § of the older fathers, and to the canons of
councils, authority binding on faith," from which Neander justly
infers " that he conceded such authority to the Holy Scriptures
alone, acknowledging them as the only fountain and directory of
Christian faith." And speaking of the pious Irish generally, Ne
ander says : " Ireland || became the seat of famous monasteries, in
which the Scriptures were diligently read, ancient books eagerly
collected and studied. They became missionary schools." Like
the revered Patrick, they became masters of the mysteries of the
divine Word by careful reading. For a couple of centuries, Ire
land was the Bible school of western Europe, whither the student
and man of devout meditations came to read the Scriptures. The
Church of St. Patrick was distinguished by
Generosity.
In A. D. 664, a pestilence swept over the south and north of
England, destroying a great multitude of people, and creating uni
versal dismay. The same plague raged with equal fury and
fatality in Ireland. Many of the English nobility, and persons of
inferior rank from England, were at the time in Ireland, either
" for the sake of divine studies, or of a more continent life. The
Scots t (Irish) willingly received them all, and took care to supply
them with food, and also to furnish them with booljs to read, and
their teaching gratis." Such is the testimony of the English Bede
about men who rejected the pope whom he revered, and who be-
" Bede's Eccl. Hist., book iii. chap. 7. f Id. book iv. chap. 3.
t Neander, vol. iii. 31. § Id. vol. iii. 61. | Id. vol. iii. 10.
t Bede's Eccl. Hi»t., book iii. chap. 37.

THE ANCIENT IRISH CHURCH. 27
longed to a foreign nation. The Irish Church, for centuries after
St. Patrii'k, was Independent of the Pope.
Easter in the West showed whether a Christian was a papist or
a Free churchman. The Irish followed no Romish custom, and
they were specially vigorous in declining the papal time for ob
serving Easter. Laurentius deplores their obstinacy in a letter
addressed to them and the ancient Britons, in 605, soon after he
succeeded Augustine as Archbishop of Canterbury. Himself
wearing the livery of the bishop of Rome, he wanted the indepen
dent churches of Britain and Ireland to assume it too. And in
this letter he tells the Scots that he once had a very exalted
opinion of them ; but Bishop Dagan (an Irish bishop) " coming
into this aforesaid island, and the Abbot Columbanus in France
informed us that the Scots (Irish) in no way differ from the
Britons in their behaviour; for Bishop Dagan * coming to us, not
only refused to eat with us, but even to take his repast in the house
where we were entertained." It is evident that the Irish had no re
spect for the Roman bishop at this time, when such an insult,
solely on religious grounds, was leveled at one of his exalted pre-

Pope Honorius wrote to the Irish about Easter, and gave them
to understand how presumptuous it was for a handful of people,
living on the outskirts of the earth, to think themselves wiser than
" all the ancient f and modem churches of Christ throughout the
world, and to celebrate a different Easter." John, his successor,
when pope elect, wrote to the Irish, admonishing them about
Easter, telling them that " some among f them, contrary to the or
thodox feith, do through ignorance reject our Easter, when Christ
was sacrificed." But neither popes nor archbishops could turn the
hearts of these old heroes from the Bible and the usages of mighty
Patrick. The Irish missionaries in France and Germany established
churches and monasteries everywhere, taught the purest piety, and
exemplified it in their own lives ; and if they did not convert ua-
* B«mI«'s Eccl. Hist., book ii. chap. 4. \ Id., book ii. chap. 19.

28 THE ANCIENT IRISH CHURCH.
tions, they led hundreds of thousands to the true Saviour, who
read the Scriptures, trusted Jesus, and walked with God. These
men were a great source of trouble for a long period to the nomi
nal Christians around them, who belonged to the old Frankish
Church, and in later times to the Romish Church set up in Ger
many by Boniface. They were hated as Christ's disciples were
detested by the Pharisees ; and their worst enemies were not the
numerous Pagans, but the Christian priests of Gaul and Germany.
And we are not surprised at this treatment ; for these missiona
ries loved God, and were not much afraid of men. They had an
offensive way of telling popes, when they were wrong, that they
disliked heresy or iniquity in any one; and of practising their
Church rites in the heart of Germany or France before the eyes
of Romish priests or bishops, entirely indifferent to their expostu
lations and prohibitions. Columbanus* wrote Gregory the Great
that he ought not to be governed by a false humility in refusing
to correct what was erroneous, even though it bore the authority
of Pope Leo the Great ; " for," said he, " a living dog may be
better thau a dead lion." He adjured Boniface IV., by the unity
of the Christian fold, to give him and his people permission, as
strangers in France, to observe their own ancient customs ; for they
were just the same, dwelling in the wilderness, as if they were in
their own country. And when Boniface, the Englishman, gath
ered such hosts in Germany from idols to the gospel of Augustine
of Canterbury, and of the Pope of Rome, the pontiff, expecting
some trouble from a man coming from the country of the ancient
Britons, and Scotch heretics, and Irish independents, prescribed a
solemn oath for Boniface, which he took at the tomb of St. Peter
in Rome, which, in substance, was as follows : f " I promise thee
the first of the apostles, and thy representative. Pope Gregory,
and his successors, that, with God's help, I will abide in the unity
of the Catholic faith ; that I will in no manner agree with any
thing contrary to the unity of the Catholic Church ; but will in
every way maintain my faith pure, and my cooperation con
stantly for thee, and for the benefit of thy Church, on which was
bestowed by God the power to bind and loose, and for thy repre-

Neander, vol. iii. 33. f Id. vol. iii. 18, 49.

THE ANCIENT IRISH CHURCH. 29
seutative aforesaid and his successors. And whenever I find that
the conduct of the presiding officers of churches contradicts t'le an
cient decrees and ordinances of tlie fathers, I will have no fellowsJiip
or connection with them ; but, on the contrary, if I can hinder them,
I will hinder them ; and, if not, report them faithfully to the pope."
This entire oath supposes that in Germany, the See of Boniface,
there were bishops and churches who broke the unity of the pope's
faith by not receiving him as their master, which he was deter
mined to crush. And Neander is not mistaken in asserting that
the oath of Boniface was expressly * intended to suppress the Irish
and British churches in Germany. The author of a learned work
recently published, f states the exact truth when he says : " In the
West, the ancient Irish and the ancient British Church remained
for centuries autonomous, and under no sort of influence of Rome.'
The English gave Ireland to the Pope.
In A. D. 1155, Ireland was not in the papal ranks. And
Henry II. of England, sent a solemn embassy to Adrian, to
Rome, to solicit his permission to " subdue J Ireland, and bring
into the way of truth its bestial inhabitants, by extirpating tha
seeds of vice among them." Adrian readily consented, and issued
a bull, declaring, among other things, " that to extend the frontiem
of the Church, to teach % a rude people the doctrines of the Christian
faith, to extirpate the seeds of vice out of the Lord's field, to secure
to St. Peter the annual sum of one penny for every house, and to
extend the Christian religion, he might seize Ireland." § It is very
evident that the Irish of A. D. 1165, were, like Bishop Dagan and
Columbanus, that they had nothing to do with Rome; and
while in the twelfth century they had lost the piety and learning
of the sixth, seventh and eighth, they were still free from the Ro
man yoke. And these ages of freedom from Romish interference
and ecclesiastical supremacy are the most glorious centuries in the
history of the Irish people.
* Neander, vol. iii. 48, 49. f " The Pope and the Council," p. 69.
X Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1155.
§ The entire Bull is given in an article on Civil Supremacy of Popes, poit
pp IDS, 103

30 THE ANCIENT SCOrnSH CHURCH.

THE POPES HAD NO POWER FOR MORE THAN SEVEN HUNDRED
YEARS IN THE ANCIENT CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.
The country known, in comparatively modern times, as Scot
land was blessed with gospel light at a later day than England or
Ireland. It is reported that Ninias, a native of North Wales, in
A. D. 400, preached the gospel to the Picts or ancient Scotch,* and
that his labors were attended with some success in the southern
portions of their coimtry. But the conversion of the entire people
was reserved for other men, and for a later period than the time
of Ninias. Columba was the Apostle of Scotland.
Columba was brought up in the evangelical faith of St. Patrick,
in Ireland. He was of an ardent spirit, a man of great enterprise,
and he was governed by supreme love to Jesus, and burning zeal for
the salvation of perishing men. To him nothing possible, however
difficult, was a permanent obstacle. He would readily make the
greatest sacrifices, and begin the grandest and most laborious under
taking. Previous to his departure from his native land, he buih
a noble monastery in Ireland, at Dearm Ach, f — The Field of
Oaks, now called Derry, which became the parent of many similar
houses in Ireland.
His heart bled over the idolatry and perdition of the neigh-
boriag Picts ; and, about a. d. 565, he entered Scotland. Bridius,
a powerful monarch, was king of the Pictish nation, whose favor
the missionary soon obtained. And, as he and his twelve com
panions sought the blessing of Heaven upon their labors, and
toiled with apostolical zeal and purity of life, they quickly gathered
as a harvest the nation of the Picts.J
The king gave him the island of Hii, or lona, as a mission sta-
tion. The island is about three miles long, and a mile in breadth.
Here Columba erected a monastery and churches ; and soon the
whole island was covered with cloisters and temples. And a mul
titude of monks, students, and devout visitors, seekmg holy light
• Bede, bff'k iii. chap. 4. \ Id., book iii. ch. 4. % Id., book iii. ch. 4.

THE ANCIENT SCOTTISH CHURCH. 3i
crowded the sea-girt aud heaven-favored island. There* Iho
clergy, nobles, and sovereigns of Scotland were educated. There
missions were planned for tlie north of England and the continent
of Europe. There the brightest epochs of gospel zeal and success
were equalled. And to that birth-place of Christian light all Scot
land looked with devout gratitude and holy enthusiasm. For
generations, the Scottish kings were buried in consecrated lona ;
and its abbot ruled the whole churches of the land.f
Columba died a, d, 597, A copy of the gospels, % said to be in
his handwriting, and known as The Book of Durrow, is still
in existence in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. There are
also another copy of the gospels, called the Book of Kells, and a
copy of the Psalms, supposed to have been written by him, which
are held as sacred treasures by the learned.
The Evangelical Character of the early Clergy of Scotland.
It is not to be understood that everything taught or practised
by those good men was Scriptural or wise ; but sprung, as they were,
from a people emerging out of barbarism, and not long since
out of heathenism, there is ground for astonishment at theii
measurable purity of doctrine, and at their remarkable charity and
holiness of life. The faithful historian of the early Anglo-Saxon
Church, though himself an ardent Roman Catholic, and though
earnestly condemning the Scotch clergy for their opposition to
papal customs and claims, declares that these men were renowned
for their continency, their love of God, and theu- observance of
monastic rules, " By reason of their being so far away from the
rest of the world," he says, " they only practised su,ch works of
piety and chastity as they could learn from the prophetical, evan
gelical, and apostolical writings." Well would it have been for
Christians of all ages if they had learned their faith and practice
from the same ftill and blessed fountains.
Of Bishop Aidan, one of their chief prelates, the most flattering
record \g made. He was a man of singular meekness and piety,
and very zealous in the cause of God ; he lived according to the
* Bede, book iii. chap. 4. f Neander, iii. 10.
X Mosh^im, p. 314, note. Lend. Ed., 1848.

32 THE ANCIENT SCOTTISH CHURCH.
tenor of his own teachings ; he neither sought nor loved worldly
possessions of any description ; he delighted in givmg to the poor
the gifts he received from princes and kings ; he travelled on foot,
not on horseback, and when he met an unbeliever, he tried to lead
him to trust in Jesus ; and if he fell in with a Christian, he en
deavored to encourage him by words and actions to alms and good
works. All his companions, whether monks or laymen, were em
ployed in "Reading the Scriptun-es, or in learning tlie Psalms.
This was the daily occupation of himself, and all that were with him,
wheresoever they went." * What was true of Aidan was nearly as just
about Coleman and many of his brethren who labored in Scotland
and the north of England in the end of the sixth, and in the
seventh centuries. These Bishops and Monks were not Romanists.
In that age, when the Bishop of Rome was recognized as a supe
rior prelate, the allegiance demanded was very slight. He had
nothing to do with the consecration of bishops ; the metropolitan
attended to that business. Except in England, and a little after
wards in Germany, his chief connection with the appointment of
archbishops was to send them the pall. Loyalty to Rome was
shown by keeping Easter at the Romish time, by wearing a cir
cular tonsure instead of one shaped like a crescent. And as the
sturdy Irishmen who led the Picts to Christ had learned no regard
from the successors of St. Patrick for the authority of the pope,
they taught the Pictish nation to receive nothing at his dictation.
And as stoutly as the immortal Covenanters resisted Popery in its
full strength, or in its diluted forms, did these old Christians resist
every papal encroachment upon their usages and rights.
These Scotch priests ministered in A. d. 664 to Oswy, kino> of
the Northumbrians, who kept Easter at their time; his wife,
Eanfleda, a Kentish princess, observed Easter after the Roman
time. And it happened that when the king, having ended his
fasting, was celebratmg Easter, the queen and her followers were
still fasting and keeping Palm Sunday ; and as the Scotch would
not yield a jot, there was conftision in many families, and not a

• Bede, book iii. chap. 6.

THE ANCIENT SCOTTISH CHURCH. 33
little pious indignation in the breasts of papal priests and
bishops. Adamnan, abbot of lona, came to Alfrid, king of Northurabria,
on an embassy from his nation, and was assailed while in Alfrid's
court with all kinds of arguments to submit to the Roman usages,
and to lead his countrymen along with him. Adamnan fell ; but
though, as Abbot of lona, he was the first ecclesiastic in Scotland,
and though he endeavored to " Bring his own people that were
in lona, or that were subject to that monastery, into the way of
truth, yet in this he could not prevail." *
After the celebrated council held in Whitby, in England, in the
time of Oswy and Hilda, when the Scotch were condemned by the
king. Bishop Coleman resolved never to bow the knee to Rome,
and collecting f all his missionary monks at the famous monastery
of Lindisfame, and about thirty English brethren whom they had
instructed, and who, like themselves, preached Jesus unfettered by
papal chains, he returned to lona, where they could worship God
without the presence of a priest, monk, or bishop, who paid reve
rence or recommended respect to the See of Rome.
For the first seven hundred years of the Christian era, the ser
vants of Christ in Scotland were as bitterly opposed to the preten
sions, and to many of the ways of the bishops of Rome, as the im
mortal John Knox. Never till, through the superstition and
tjTunny of Naitan, king of the Scotch, A. D. 71 6, J was the Church
of Columba placed under the feet of the Roman bishops. By such
an act of wicked despotism as marked the revocation of the Edict
of Nantes, the early Church of Scotland was robbed of her inde
pendence, and finally of her Bible and her purity ; and fitted to
produce Cardinal Beaton, and the other licentious and cruel men,
who, at the Reformation, were a stain upon Christianity, and a
reproach upon the land rendered illustrious by the hallowed memo
ries of Columba and lona.
The ancient Churches of Ireland, England, and Scotland, loving
an open Bible, and cultivating purity and love, by the testimony of
friends and foes, paid no deference to papal authority ; knew
nothing of the prince of the apostles or his successors, and were as

• Bede, book V. chap. 15. f Id., book i v. chap. 4. J Id., book v. chap. 31
3

34 COUNCILS OP THE FIRST SEVEN CENTURIES.
independent of the See of Rome as any Protestant Church of the
nineteenth century.
THE POPES HAD NO SUPREMACY OF JURISDICTION IN THE GREAT
COUNCILS OP THE FIRST SEVEN CENTURIES.
For fifteen hundred years a general council has been the chief
centre of authority, the chief source of hope to the Church of
Rome. It is supposed that a universal synod is governed by the
Holy Spirit, and reaches infallible conclusions; and, therefore,
ordains laws that must work for the best interests of the Christian
world. In modern times, the pope calls a council, and presides over it
by deputies ; no question can be discussed in it without the per
mission of his representatives ; its decisions are worthless till he
confirms them ; from beginning to end, it is his abject slave. And
he claims the widest range of authority over these judicatories.
Leo X., in 1512, with the approbation of his Lateran Synod,
says : * " That the Roman Pontiff, for the time being, as one who
has authority over all councils, hath alone the full right and
power of convening, transferring, and dissolving councils ; and
this not only from the testimony of Holy Scripture, the sayings of
the holy fathers, and the decrees of our predecessors, and of the
sacred canons, but also by the proper confession of councils them
selves, is manifest." Pius II., elevated to the popedom in 1458,
says :t " Among general councils we find nothing ratified without
the authority of the pope, when one was reigning, because the
Church is not a body without a head, from which all power flows
to the members." For centuries, the doctrine has been firmly held,
* "Solum Komanum Pontiflcempro tempore existentem, tanquam auctori-
tatem super omnia concilia habentem, tam conciliorum indicendorum, el
transferendorum, ac dissolvendorum plenum jus et potestatem habere ;
nedum ex Sacrse Scripturae testimonio, dictis SS. Patrum ac aliorum Roman-
orum Pontiflcum etiam praedecessorum nostrorum, sacrorumque canonum
decretis, sed propria etiam eorundem conciliorum confessione manifeste con-
dtet."— Cone. Labi. Oon. Lat. V. Oona'. Leo X., coll. 967. D. Venet. 1728.
f "Inter concilia nullum invenimus unquam fuisse ratum, quod stante in-
dubitato prsesule absque ipsius auctoritate convenerit ; quia non est corpus
ecclesia sine capite ; et omnia ex capiie defluit in membra potestas."  Oonc.
Zabb. tom. xix., Pii Papae IL, Bulla Retract., coll. 204. E. Venet. 1738.

COUNCIL OF NICE. 36
and sometimes haughtily expressed, that the birth, life, death, and
toils of a coimcil, by the decree of Jehovah himself, depended on
the Roman Pontiff. For seven centuries of the Christian era
THE BISHOP OF ROME HAD NO MORE POWER IN A GENERAL
COUNCIL THAN OTHER BISHOPS.
This declai-ation is capable of being sustained by any amount of
evidence. From a very early day the bishop of the chief city of
the world-embracing empire of Rome, in virtue of his place of
residence, was held in high esteem, his name was placed first in a
list of bishops, and his opinion was naturally enough received
with great attention. But when you examine his power as he sits
in person, or by delegates beside his brethren in councils, he is
weak as other men in the episcopal office.
The first great synod which ever sat was a convention of the
highest importance. It met to compose the bitter differences
excited by the Arian controversy. It convened to show in its
composition, workings, and claims what all coming oecumenical
councils should be ; it assembled at
Nice, A. D. 325.
The number of bishops attending it is variously represented
from 250 to 318. The place in which its sessions were held was
a room in the imperial palace. Many bishops were there who
still enjoyed the power of working miracles — one of them had
raised the dead. The bitter persecution of Licinius had maimed
or scarred many of them : * some had their right eyes iorn out,
some their right hands cut off; and some by holding hot iron
had lost the use of both hands. The Council of Nice had
largely the appearance of an assembly of martyrs. When they"
met in their chamber, a low chair of gold was placed in the centre
of the hall, and the Emperor, the first Christian sovereign in the
world, of unusual height, of majestic aspect, attired in the
gorgeous robes of Roman royalty, entered the meeting and sat
upon the seat of gold. It was a scene never to be forgotten by
these victims of heathen cruelty, who had witnessed the butchery

» Eccl. Hist., Theodoret, book i. chap. 7.

36 COUNCIL OF NICE.
of SO many of the saints of God. The human master of the
nations, with a sword of victory, was now the leader and protector
of the Christian Church! The council made the celebrated
Nicene Creed, condemned Arianism, and issued twenty canons.
After their toils they returned to their homes laden with imperial
gifls, and cheered with bright hopes.
The Roman pontiff was not present in the council at any of its
laeetings. He was represented by two presbyters, named Vito*
and Vicentius, who took no remarkable part in its proceedings.
There were a score of bishops there whose influence was greater
than that of the aged bishop of the Eternal City.
Constantine himself managed the council. There is ground for
doubting whether it had any other president during most of its
discussions ; though several persons are said to have occupied this
position. He delivered exhortations to the council. He heard
the propositions t of ail with patience and attention; reasoned
with them, appealed to them, encouraged them, and exercised
such a marvellous influence over them that he led the whole
assembly to one mind respecting disputed questions. And for the
time he became the ruler of the council, and the common father of
Christendom. Accusations J were made in writing, against a number of bish
ops, to be presented to the council through Constantine. He placed
them all in a package and sealed them up without looking at
them; and when the factions were reconciled he brought out
these documents and burned them before the parties concerned,
declaring upon oath that he had not read them; by which he
showed plainly that he was master of the council, and regulated
the questions which it should debate.
Constantine § summoned its members together ; and they came
at the voice of no ecclesiastic in the east or the west. Commanded
by their Emperor they came to the city called Victory, and held
the first general council under the auspices of a secular prince.
Nor had the Roman pontiff anything to do with the presidency of
• Sozomen, book i. chap 17.
t Eusebius' Life of Constantine, book iii. chap. 18.
X Eccl. Hist., Theodoret, book i. chap. 11.
§ Sozomen's Eccl. Hist., book i. chap. 17.

COUNCIL OF NICE. 37
the coimcil. Wlien Constantine entered the apartment used by
the bishops, and occupied his golden chair, "the * great Eustathius,
bishop of Antioch," first spoke, and took occasion to compliment
the Emperor in the most flattering terms. Evidently according to
Theodoret, who records the speech of the Bishop of Antioch, he
was the leader of the council. Du Pin says : f "It is very proba
ble that it was Hosius who held the chief place in the Council of
Nice in his owm name, because he had already taken cognizanc<
of this affair, and was much esteemed by the Emperor." Du Pin'
learning is universally recognized; and when it is remembered
that he was a Catholic, and that he gives it as his conviction that
a Spanish bishop, in his ovm name, was probably the first officer
of the first general council, it must appear very evident that the
pope had nothing to do with managing the bishops at Nice.
The sixth canon of the Council of Nice has given for centuries
the greatest trouble to the advocates of papal jurisdiction over the
churches of the world, and no effort has been spared to destroy its
force. This celebrated article gives the same authority over his
province which the bishop of Rome enjoyed in his see to the
bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, and by its terms it shows
clearly that the Roman pontiff was simply on a level with his
brother bishops in the East. The canon is : J " Let the ancient cus
toms prevail which are in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis ; that the
Bishop of Alexandria have authority over all, since this is cus
tomary also to the Bishop of Rome. In like manner also as re
gards Ajitioch, and in all other provinces, let the churches preserve
their dignity. This is altogether certain, that if any one become
a bishop without the consent of the Metropolitan, the great synod
has determined that he ought not to be a bishop." From this
• Eccl. Hist., Theodoret, book i. chap. 7.
t Du Pin, i. 599 ; Dublin ed., 1733.
t To. apx^'Ca tdyj xpa-r'ftT'to, ra bv Aty-urtT'^ xal fiijiv'vj xat nevfaTioXn,
utfjt£ -tov AXf|av6p£(.'a5 iTiiaxoTiov Ttdvfi^v tx^iv tT^v i^ovrsi^av, irtEi^'Tj xal t<^
iv Pu/tj; lrti-axoTt<ji -ftnifo avvrjSif iat^v. 'O^otu; Si xai xata tijv 'Amdjjttar,
xrU iv ioX^ oXKfxi^ £rtttp;ttatf -fa Ttptaf^Bta tJwufttjSat 'tali ixx^rjacac^. ICa^o^ou
ii rtpoSyj^ov ixtlvo, oVt ft I'tj j^wptj yvuifiTji "tov /AT^i'portoT.tf ov yivoiio irtitJxoTtoi,
tov toiovtov vj avvoSoi VI jUfya^j; wpttjf fiTi ttlv flvat i^inxoTiov, x. t. X. —
Cone, ii. 82. Labbe and Cossart ; Paris ed., 1671-3.

38 COUNCIL OP NICE.
decision of the first and purest synod that ever was held, the patri
archs of eastern provinces are authorized to perpetuate in their
respective dioceses the authority conferred by ancient customs;
and this authority is declared to be according to the usage of the
Bishop of Rome. Du Pin says :* The most natural sense that
can be given to it is this : " We ordain that the ancient custom
shall be observed which gives power to the Bishop of Alexandria
over all the provinces of Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis, because
the Bishop of Rome has the like jurisdiction over all the suburbi-
cary regions. We would likewise have the rights and privileges of
the church of Antioch, and the other churches preserved ; but
these rights ought not to prejudice those of the Metropolitans."
It is not a cause for astonishment that the popes should hate a
canon which placed them on the same platform with prominent
prelates of the East ; and which, if carried out everywhere, would
strip them of their entire sovereignty over the Church.
Constantine f confirmed the decrees of the Council of Nice, and
immediately they became binding throughout the whole Christian
world; and he recommended universal obedience to decrees in
themselves so important and reached in so much unity.
No one in those days imagined that the confirmation of the
canons of Nice by the Roman Bishop was essential to their vali
dity. It was, however, a common practice to solicit the ratifica
tion of the decrees of a council by all absent bishops ; not with
a view to give them legal authority, but for the purpose of in
creasing the respect in which they might be held. As among
ourselves, when a petition is adopted and unanimously signed at a
public meeting, but still other names are wanted, and absent par
ties are invited to append their signatures, so after a general
synod adjourned it was common to invite all bishops who were
not present to endorse its decrees. And through this practice the
number of bishops at councils has frequently been greatly magni
fied; the calculation being based upon the names appended to
its canons. In this way the Council of Sardica is occasionally
represented as having three hundred bishops at its meetings, -when

» Du Pin, i. 600 ; Dublin ed., 1723.
t Eusebius' Life of Constantine, book iii. chap. 23.

COUNCIL OF NICE. ,39
it had about half that number ; the balance came from the absent
who subscribed its documents. Constantine himself* recom
mended the Nicene decrees to all bishops, and he undertakes to
secure their assent to them. Pope Liberius f recommended to
Constantius: "That the faith delivered at Nice might be con
firmed by the s-ubscription of all bishops." The Council of Sar
dica, after the completion of thefr work, wrote to the " bishops J of
every nation commanding them to confirm these decrees." When
we look at the party calling the Synod of Nice, at its probable
presiding officer, at the character of its sixth canon, at the confir
mation of its decrees by Constantine, at the entire absence of
allusions in any form to papal jurisdiction over the Chui-ches, we
cannot be mistaken in the assertion that the pope had no supre
macy in authority in the days of the first Christian Emperor.
If in the time of the Council of Nice, or if during the first
few years after its dissolution, there was any man in the Christian
world who seemed to be the "Head " of the Church rather than
another, Hosius, Bishop of Cordova in Spain, has the strongest
claim to that position. At the outbreak of the Arian controversy,
when Constantine became anxious about its angry results, he de
termined to send a man of commanding influence into Egypt,
whose mission might quiet the animosities of Alexander and
Arius, and out of all Christendom he selected Hosius to transact,
as he regarded it, the most important business claiming his atten
tion in any part of his dominions. Speaking of the mission to
Alexander and Arius, Sozomen says : § " The emperor deputed
one who was honored for his faith, his vfrtuous life, and his stead-
fest confession of truth, to put an end to the strife which existed
in Egypt. This man was Hosius, Bishop of Cordova." Euse
bius, describing the same circumstance, says : || " He selected from
the Christians in his train one whom he well knew to be approved
for the sobriety and genuineness of his feith ; and who had before
this time distinguished himself by the boldness of his religious
profession, and sent him to act as mediator between the dissentient
* Eusebius' Life ol Constantine, book iii. chap. 19, 20.
t Sozomen, book iv. chap. 11. X W > book ih. chap. 12.
§ Id., booki. chap. 16.
I Lif« of Constantine, book ii chap. 63.

40 COUNCIL OP SARDICA.
parties at Alexandria." In describing the distinguished bishops
at the Council of Nice, Eusebius classes Hosius among the most
illustrious. " Even from Spain itself," says he, * " one whose fame
was widely spread took his seat as an individual in the great as
sembly." The Council of Sardica, in their synodical letter, speak
of the bishops forming that body " As worthy of honor and res
pect, particularly the venerable Hosius,^ on account of his advan
ced age, his adherence to the faith, and his labors in the church."
Hosias, beyond a doubt, was for some years the leading bishop in
the Christian world, with the sovereign and the people. The ce
lebrated Athanasius, as quoted by Theodoret, says : " It is un
necessary that I should speak of the great Hosius, f that aged and
faithful confessor of the faith ; of all the bishops he is the most
illustrious. What council can be mentioned in which he did not
preside, and convince all present by the power of his reasoning ?
What church does not still enjoy the glorious effects of his minis
tration?" This great man who, according to Du Pin,§ presided at
the first Council of all the Churches held at Nice, and at the
Council of Sardica, though the pope had delegates there to repre
sent him, and who, according to Athanasius, was the chief officer
of all the councils, has evidence to prove that he was the Head of
the Church, far exceeding anything accorded to the Roman bishops
in the first seven centuries. Sardica.
This council met A. D. 345, or as others say A. D. 347. It was
convoked by the emperors Constans and Constantius, as its own
episcopal || members declare. Theodoret tells us that it had 250 1
bishops when it convened. The object of the council was to
compose difficulties agitating the Church in connection with Atha
nasius, Marcellus, and the Arian controversy. The eastern bi
shops, taking umbrage at the composition of the council, withdrew
in a body. The western bishops, with Hosius as their president,
proceeded to legislate as a General Synod. The most important
business transacted by this council was the enactment of three
• Life of Constantine, book iii. chap. 7. f Theodoret, book ii. chap. 8
X Id., book ii. chap. 15. § Vol. i. 183 ; Dublin ed., 1723.
I Theod<-et, ^ook ii. chap. 8. T Id., book ii. chap. 7.

COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 41
canons, the spirit of which is admirably presented by Du Pin : *
" They do not," says he, "give the Bishop of Rome power to judge
the cause of a bishop in his own tribunal at Rome; they only give
him authority to inquire whether it were well or ill determined,
and in case he find that it was determined wrong, to order a new
decision of it in the counti-y, and by the neighboring bishops of the
province wliere it was determined, whither he might send legates
in his own name to be present, if he thought it convenient." Du
Pin frankly declares that, "The discipline which these fathers
establish is new." * It was never heard of in the Christian Church
till the Convention at Sardica. And though the jurisdiction con
ferred on the Roman Bishop was very slender, not authorizing
him to judge any ecclesiastic outside the diocese of Rome, but
simply giving him power to order a new trial by bishops adjoin
ing the offender in cases in which he believed that an unjust sen
tence had been imposed, yet it excited the bitterest opposition. In
fact, the recognition of such an authority in the pope was one of
the chief causes of that separation which finally divided the
churches of the East and West.
The Council of Sardica, on account of the retirement of the
eastern bishops, was never recognized in that section of the world.
And as Du Pin says of its decrees : f " They were never put in
the code of the canons of the universal Church, approved by the
Coimcil of Chalcedon. The East never received them, neither
would the bishops of Africa own them. The popes only used
them, and cited them under the name of the Council of Nice, to
give them the greater weight and authority." The popes for cen
turies practised this detestable deception, and not only quoted them
as canons of Nice, but gave them a latitude of application, equally
astonishing and iniquitous. Only the bishops of the West united
in the effort to honor a brother prelate ; and of course the sole
reason why Rome was preferred to Cordova was that the City of
the Seven Hills was the old capital of the empire of the Csesars.
Constantinople.
The second council received as general met at Constantinople
A. D. 381. It was summoned by the Emperor Theodosius to calm
* Du Pin, i. 606 ; Dublin ed., 1733. t Vol. i. 607 ; Dublin ed., 1723.

42 COUNCIL OP CONSTANTINOPLE.
the troubles excited by the heresy of Macedonius. This man
taught that the Son of God is not of the same substance as the
Father, but that he resembles him in every particular. He also
affirmed that the Holy Spirit is a creature. His followers were
numerous and influential. The council condemned the Macedo
nian and some other heresies, and made some changes in the Ni
cene creed. One of their principal acts was to place the See of
Constantinople next in point of dignity with the bishopric of
Rome. Their canon was : " Let the Bishop of Constantinople
have rank next after the Bishop of Rome, for Constantinople is
new Rome." *
Now in this canon the reason for the elevation of Constanti
nople is given : it is because it is new Rome. What is the mean
ing of this designation ? It certainly does not imply that Peter
had founded the Church of new Rome, and afiter having labored
on the banks of the Tiber, had conferred equal honor on the city
of Constantine. But it does mean that as the Roman Bishop had
the highest rank among prelates, because his residence was the ca
pital of the empire, so Constantinople, being now the seat of the
Emperor's government, the consideration which gave old Rome its
ecclesiastical rank, must stand in church honors next to the city
of Romulus. This is the view of the historian Sozomen, who,
commenting A. D. 450 on this canon, says : f " Constantinople
was not only favored with this appellation (new Rome), but was
also in the enjoyment of many privileges, such as a senate of its
own (like old Rome), and the division of the citizens into ranks
and orders ; it was also governed by its own magistrates, and pos
sessed contracts, laws, and immunities similar to those of Rome
in Italy." Evidently the point of comparison between the two
cities was that each had been the seat of government. The canon
implies that this circumstance had given the pope his sacerdotal
standing, and on this account the Bishop of new Rome must ap
pear next him in church dignity. The Roman pontiff had noth-
* Kwvov y.
ToK p.ivtoi T^av(fta.vtwov7t6%BOi irnaxoitov c^jtr to, rtpfg/Sffa r-^; I'luijs fitta
¦tov t'^i 'Pio/iMjj iTiiaxonov, fiio T'o Ivai a/ityjv viav 'P<ijii»;«<.— Labbe and Cos
sart. Cone. ii. 947. Paris ed. 1671-3.
i Book vii. chap. 9.

COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 43
mg to do with calling this council, presiding over it, or inspiring
its canons. Nor did his see reap any honor from its decrees —
especially from the one which we have gi%'x)ii.
Ephesus.
The Council of Ephesus met A. d. 431. It was summoned by
the Emperor Theodosius * to condemn the so-called heresy of Nes-
lorius. He had taught that Maiy was not the "Mother of God"-\-
but the mother of Christ, that " That could not be called God
which admitted of being two months old or three months old." f
His idea was that the Godhead of the Son dwelt merely in the
body of Christ, so that he was composed of two persons. These
opinions excited general horror. Two hundred bishopw gathered
at Ephesus to try Nestorius, and in due time they condemned him.
CyrU was President of the Council. J The imperial letter con
voking the council was addressed to " Cyril and the presidents of
the holy churches in every quarter." In this council, for the
first time, a practice was introduced by the pope which very cun
ningly increased his power, and at the same time flattered his
friend. As one man in some financial corporations can cast the
vote of another who is absent, so Celestine, Bishop of Rome,
authorized Cyril to represent him as well as himself in the Synod
of Ephesus, and Cyril, to increase his own importance, seems to
have yielded to the temptation. But Cyril was master of the
council without the aid of Celestine ; the Emperor's summons ad
dressed to " Cyril and the presidents of the holy churches in every
quarter " proclaimed to all the favor which Theodosius had for
Cyril ; and his desire that he should be first bishop in the
approaching Synod. Chalcedon.
The next General Council was summoned by the Emperor
Marcian in A. D. 451. § It met first at Nice, and was transferred
to Chalcedon. It was composed of 630 bishops. It was called
to dispose of the heresy of the monk Eutyches. He denied that
•Evagrius' Eccl. Hist., booki. 8. f Id., book i. 2. t M., book i. 4
§ Id. *-nok ii. chap. 3.

44 COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON.
the Saviour had two natures; he insisted that the body born of the
virgin was not real flesh and blood, but merely the appearance of
it, so that he had no suffering. The council met in the church
of St. Enphemia, directly opposite Constantinople. This * holy
place consists of three immense buildings. One is open to the
sky, including a court of great extent, and adorned on all sides
with columns ; and next to it there is another structure resembling
it in length, breadth, and columns, but with a protecting roof.
On the north of this, and facing the east, stood a circular building,
skilfully terminating in a dome, and surrounded in the interior
with beautiful columns which support a gallery. Under the
dome, at the eastern side, is a splendid enclosure, within which are
guarded the sacred remains of Enphemia, the saint and martyr.
They are preserved in a long coffin of silver, ingeniously made.
The mightiest prodigies are said to have been wrought by these
relics. Here the emperor, ecclesiastics, and multitudes from New Rome
are accustomed to gather at stated times ; and, through a little door
which can be opened, the priests introduce an iron rod with a
sponge on the end, which they turn around several times, and
withdraw covered with stains and clots of blood. The clots are
permanent ; the blood retains its color, and the greatest blessings
rest on those who possess the gory sponge. And the quantity
obtained is so great that a liberal distribution is made to the
sovereign, priests, people, and distant friends. But the most
curious part of the story is that St, Enphemia frequently appears
in a dream to the bishops and others, inviting them to come and
" gather a vintage " among her bones. Leo, f the Bishop of old
Rome, urges Marcian to call this council, showing that he had no
authority to issue such a summons. And Leo the Great, Bishop
of Rome, was lacking neither in ability nor in audacity in exacting
what was due his see, and something more when circumstances
favored him.
Pope Leo had three representatives in the council, Paschasinus
and Lucentius, bishops, and the presbyter Boniface. Marcian was
the master-spirit of the assembly. Eusebius, for himself and
• Evagrius, book ii. chap. n. f Id., book ii. chap. 3.

COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON, 45
Others, demanded that a petition should be read in the council,
addressed to the emperors, and he ended with this appeal : * "And
this we will do on the issuing of your divine and revered man
dates to the holy and universal synod of the bishops, highly beloved
of God, to the effect that they should give a formal hearing to the
matters which concern both us and the before-mentioned Dioscorus,
and refer all tlie transactions to the decision of your piety, as shall
seem fit to your immortal supremacy. If we obtain this, our
request, we shall ever pray for your everlasting rule, most divine
sovereigns." And the imperial commissioners who had charge of
the council granted the request. In fact, there was nothing done
in the council without them or their master Marcian. The form
of one decision of the senators of the council is : f "It seems to us,
according to God's good pleasure, to be a just proceeding,
if approved by our most divine and pious sovereign, that Dios
corus, the most reverent Bishop of Alexandria ; Juvenalis, the most
reverent Bishop of Jerusalem ; Thalassius, the most reverent Bishop
of Csesarea, in Cappadocia ; Eusebius, the most reverent Bishop of
Ancyra ; Eustathius, the most reverent Bishop of Berytus ; and
BasUius, the most reverent Bishop of Seleucia, in Isauria, who ex
ercised sway and precedency in that synod (a synod of Ephesus),
should be subjected to the self-same penalty, by suffering at the
hands of the holy synod deprivation of their episcopal dignity,
according to the canons ; whatever is consequent hereupon, being
submitted to the cognizance of the emperor's sacred supremacy."
Du Pin states the situation exactly : J " This council was held in
the great church of St. Euphemia, the emperor's commissioned
officers and the counsellors of state being present, who were to
direct all their motions. On their right, the Bishop of Alexandria
and others ; and on their left the pope's delegates." To them the
speakers addressed themselves, and by them all questions were
decided except a few more serious cases, which they submitted to
the Emperor himself. The Council of Chalcedon was more an
advisory convention, called by their sovereign, to give him their
opinions, which he might accept or decline, than an independent
deliberative assembly. No body could strike heavier blows at the
* Evagrius, >nok ii. chap. 4. f Id) ibid. X Vol- J- 869.

46 COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON.
divine supremacy of the Roman See than the renowned Synod of
St. Euphemia. The 9th canon says : " If one clergyman have a
matter against another, let him not leave his own bishop and go to
the secular courts ; but first let him lay open the cause before his
own bishop ; or else, with the consent of the same bishop, before
tliose who shall be chosen by both parties. But if any one shall
do contrary to this, let him be subjected to canonical censure. If
any clergyman have a matter against his own bishop, or against
another, let it be judged by the synod of the province. But if a
bishop or clergyman have a dispute with the metropolitan of the
province, let him have access either to the exarch of the diocese,
or to the throne of the imperial Constantinople, and let it be there
judged." * Here there is no appeal to Rome. In the courts to
which an injured ecclesiastic may carry his case, Rome has no place
whatever. The throne of imperial Constantinople is either the
throne of the Emperor or the throne of the Patriarch of new
Rome, and, in either case, there is an utter prohibition of appeals
by ecclesiastics beyond the city of Constantinople ; and that, too,
by the largest and most respectable council of all antiquity. It is
commonly supposed that the throne of the Bishop of Constantinople
is referred to, and that it makes him the final judge of all disputes
among clergymen.
The 28th canon of Chalcedon occupies the most important place
in its entire transactions. By it the honor paid the Bishop of
Rome in ecclesiastical matters is expressly declared to be given,
not because Peter was first Bishop of Rome, or the pontiff the
* Kcwwv 9 .
Ei' ti( xXtjpcxo; Jtpoj xiutipixov rtpayfia ex'"'i W xataXifirtavitu 'tov otxcioy
Irtiaxo^ov, xat irtt xo9;u(xa Sixadfijpia xa'ta'tfcx^'ti^' d>.^a rtportpoi/ fijv vTtoSiBiv
yvfiva^i'ta jtapa 'tif iSi<ji irttffxortij), ij yovv yviafi'tj (w'toii ¦toy iTtiaxo/tav, 7ta.fi' olj
av ti. diU^orfpa fiiffi poijKEfai, 'to, ¦tijs SCxrjs avyxfiO't$ia9a. Et Si 'tis jfapa
'taivTa rtoMjtfft, xavovixoif VTtoxeiada IrtiT't/it'oij. Et 5t xat x!tijptx6$ £x°<' rtpay/ia
rtpof ¦tov tStov irtia»a7(oii, rj rtpoj tV tpov, rtapa * jy dwdScji trj; iTtapx^s Sixa^iaOu.
Et Ss rtpoj 'tov fijs wi'tiji itfapx^as firitpottoXittiv Ijtiaxartos ^ x^ptxoj d/t$KJ-
Sjlfotj;, xara^.a/t/Sowt'i'w ^ ¦tov eiapxov f^f Stotxijoftof, ^ roi' fyjf jiaaAtvovmis
K.iovgta*tivott6\ioi $pot<oi<, xat irt ovi'tGi fitxa^EuSu.— Labbe and Cossart.
Cone. iv. 759. Paris ed., 1671-2.

COUNCIL OP CHALCEDON. 47
vicar of Christ, or Peter the rooic on which the Church was built;
Christians had not yet liillen into tliat sleep in which they had
these dreams; but because ROIME WAS THE IMPERIAL
CITY. The canon roads : *
" We, everywhere following the decrees of the holy fathers, and
acki.owledging the Citnon which has been just read of the 150
bishops, most dear to God, do also ourselves decree and vote the
same things concerning the precedency of the most holy Church of
Constantinople, — New Rome ; for the fathers, with reason, gave
precedency to the throne of old Rome, because it was the imperial
city; and the 150 bishops beloved of God, moved by the same con-
sido'otion, smarded EQUAL PRECEDENCY TO THE MOST
HOLY THRONE OF NEW ROME, reasonably judging that
a city which is honored vnth the government and senate should enjoy
equal rank with the ancient queen Rome j and, like her, be magnified
in ecclesiastical matters, having the second place after her ; but so
that the metropolitans alone of the Pontic, Asiatic and Thracian
dioceses, and also the bishops among the barbarians in the said
dioceses, should be ordained by the aforesaid most holy throne of
* ilavtaxov tol^ •fw)* dyt'toK rta^tifnov opotj frto/Asvot, xal tov aptcuii arayvcjo-
Bivta xavova tZiv pv . Sio^i/Keatdtuiv iTti^xortav yvupl^ovtis, ta a/itd xai rj^Hi
opl^o^tv xat '^^i^OfisOa rtf pt ti^v rtpf ff/3ttuv trji aytoitdt'^i ixxX^aia^ Ktovffi'at'-
tivov7t6\iuS, '"'iJ 'Pu/itji' xai yap tcj> Op6v<j> trji Ttpsejlvtepas 'Pii/«;s Sia to
fiaaiXsvEtv triv 7i67.1v ixiivriv, ol riatipi^ ftxoT'wj drtoSfS^xafft ta rtpsdjSsia. xai
t<j> aitcf axortcf xivoijicvoi ot pv . Bio^iXtctatoi, ifiiaxoTioi, ta ttra rtpeo)3fta
artivei/iav tcj> tiji viai 'Pto/«;j aycata'fcj) 6p6va>, cvXoyui xplvavti;, t^v jSastTicta
xat ffvyx^t^ tifjir^9£t.(jav TtoXtv xai tCiv iscov artoXo/vovf^av TtpffljSfttov ¦f'j^ rtpfff-
pvtipa PaaAiSi 'Pti/xi;, xot iv tolf ixx\t]at.agfcxoli, ij ixnvtjv, jUfyaAaivEffffot
Ttpdyfiaffi, Ssvtipav fift ixtivi^v ¦vrtdpxovGov. xai u>otE tovi t^i Tlovtixyji, xai
tyji Aaiwvjjs, xai tyji ©paxtxijj SioixTigsai fi7jtpojto%Ltai /tovovj, ttc Si xai tovf
iv I'otj jSap^aptxot; Irttffxortovj tutv rtposcptjfiivi^^v StoixTjascov ^ftpof ovftff^at arte
tov rtp0£ip7jftiv9V ayiiotdtov 9p6vov tv^i xata KuvatavtivovTioXiv ayiutdtr^i
ixxXrjalai. S7jXaS-/i ixdtjtov fiTjtpOTioXitov T'toy rtposiptjfjiivoiv Stotx^Oftov, jitfrd
tiov tyji irtapx^a^ iHiaxoTtt^v, ^^ftpoi'oi'OTJi'T'o^ tovi tyji ijtapx'.ai frttffxortouj xaSwf
fotj 9iloii xavoni Siriyipivtai.' ;t"P<''''<"'f'<'^''' ^£, xafluj Etpj^fat foi; ^rjtporto-
xltai tuiv rtpoe i.prjfi£v(^iv Stotxj^dfwv rtapd tov KuvatavtivoTtoXeu^ apxt-Ertt,<sxoit(A},
\7l^iafjtdti^v dvfi^i^viav, xata to tSo^, yevofiivuv, xai in a/ittov ava^Epoftivi^,——
Labbe and Cossart. Cone. iv. 770. Paris ed., 1671-3.

48 COUNCILS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
the Holy Church of Constantinople, to wit : that each metropolitan
of the said dioceses, with the bishops of the province, should ordain
the bishops of the province, as it is stated in the divine canons ;
but that the metropolitans of the said dioceses, as has been said, be
ordained by the Archbishop of Constantinople, where there has
been an agreement in the election, according to custom, and a
report been made to him."
The grand foundation of the spiritual supremacy of the pontiffs
for many centuries has been its supposed divine origin. Such a
doctrine was entirely unknown in the councils of the first seven
centuries, when the Church was measurably pure. A certain
amount of rank was given to the Bishop of Rome, but wholly on
the ground that his city was THE IMPERIAL CITY. And
by the decree just quoted, Constantinople is raised to equal
authority with the ancient queen Rome in ecclesiastical matters.
Rome, at the Council of Chalcedon, made strenuous efforts to
acquire power over the churches ; through the far-seeing Leo, she
had letters written to move the council in her favor. A portion
from one of these, written by Placidia, the mother of Theodosius,
says :* " Seeing it becometh us in all things to preserve the dignity
of this chief dty, which is the mistress of all others."
For this reason, Placidia and Eudoxia, the empresses, endeavored
to maintain the dignity of the Roman See. This is the starting
point of all the power Rome ever acquired over the nations. The
Synod of Chalcedon, " the greatest f of all ancient synods," gave
no other, knew none besides. Du Pin says : J " The 28th canon
grants to the Church of Constantinople, which is called New
Rome, the same privileges with old Rome, because this city is the
second dty in the world."
The Fifth General Council was held at Constantinople.
It met A. D. 553. It was called by Justinian the younger, and
it was composed of 165 bishops. "It condemned § and anathe-
* Oftott rtpt'rtft fjiiaj toAitv) tyj jittyt'sfi; rto^ft, ^ti; Siajtotva TiaaHiv ¦vitdpxit
tuv ytCiv, iv Ttddi to (js/3dj rtapa4>vXa|at. — Syn. Chal. (p. 27).
t " Popes' Supremacy," by Dr. Barrow, p. 132. New York ed., 1845.
X Vol. i. 678. Dublin ed., 1738. § Evagrius, book iv. chap. 38.

COUNCILS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 49
matized Theodore of Mopsuestia, and liis impious writiiign, also
whatever Theodoret had impiously written against the right faith,
against the twelve chapters of the sainted Cyril, against the first
holy synod at Ephesus, and all that he has written in defence of
Theodore and Nestorius ; it also anathematized the epistle said to
have been wi-itten by Ibas to Maris, the Persian." Vigilius,*
Bishop of Rome, was in Constantinople during tho sessions of the
council, but refused to attend its meetings, or to subscribe to its
decrees, for which he was sent into exile, until finally, as an illus
tration of papal infallibility, he changed his mind and gave his
ipprobation to the measures of the synod. Through bribing the
celebrated general Belisarius, Vigilius secured his own election to
the papal throne, and the deposition of Silverius, and he rendered
his title unquestionable by putting Silverius, his predecessor, to
death. Of this council Du Pin says : f " Eutychius, patriarch of
Constantinople, held the first place in it." Nothing flattering to
papal supremacy occurred in the Fifth General Council.
The Sixth General Coundl was held at Constantinople.
It met A. D. 680. It was called by the Emperor Constantine
Pogonatus. It had 160 bishops in attendance during its later
meetings. It held eighteen sessions. % " The Emperors occupied
the first place in its gatherings." The great patriarchs were either
present or represented by delegates. The council was specially
convened to condemn a new heresy, a species of the Eutychian, by
which it was taught that : In the union of the two natures of
Christ, there was but one mil, from which circumstance the advo
cates of this theory were called Monothelites. This general council
condemned Honorius, Pope of Rome, and anathematized him as a
heretic. The words of the council are : § "In addition to these, we
' • Perceval, " On the Roman Schism," p. 15. London ed., 1836.
t Vol. i. p. 705. Dublin, 1733. X U., ii. 10-14.
§ . . . Hpoff tovtoii Si avvex^Xf^O'/jvai ix trji a-^taj tov @sov ixx7.7jgt.ai xai
avvava9£iiatia9iivai, avidSo/iev xai Oxiiptoj' tov yivofisvov rtdjta/v trjs rtpia^-
tipai *PtdjU-}7ff, 5ttt to S'vpiixivai. ^/*aj 6td twv yevo^ivuv rtap OAJtov ypafifidtuv
rtpo; Sspyiov xata jtdvta frf ixuvov yvutfvri i^axo7.ov9t}aa/vta, xai ta witoi
aae^TJ xvpuaaaita Soyuata. — Labbe and Cossart. Cone. vi. 943. Paris ed.,
1671-2. 4

50 COUNCILS OP CONSTANTINOPLE,
acknowledge also Honorius, who was formerly pope of old Rome,
to be amongst those cast out of the holy Church of God and
anathematized, because we find from his letter to Sergius that he
altogether followed his opinions, and confirmed his impious
dogmas." Strong language for an infallible council to use about a
pope of Rome. And in the 17th action of the council, "they all
exclaimed,* "Anathema to the heretic Honorius ! "
The popes of Rome themselves have denounced this unhappy
successor of Peter. Leo II. says : f " He did not only favor
the new heresy by his silence and negligence, but did suffer the
apostolic traditions to be sullied and defiled by a contrary doctrine,"
for which conduct Leo condemned him. In the Liber Diurnus,J
we find that the successors of Honorius were regularly in the
habit of cursing him. So that, though incapable of error in
matters of faith, he was anathematized by the popes following him
as an unmitigated heretic. Surely this council showered few
distinctions on Rome.
A very important Coimcil was held in Constantinople in A, D. 692.
This convention ought to be the Seventh General Council, it had
more claim to the character of a general synod than several to
which this title and character have been given. It was called by
Justinian II., and was attended by about 200 bishops ; among its
members were representatives of the Bishop of Rome; and the
other great patriarchs were present in person. This council met
in a tower of the Emperor's palace called TruUo, from which it
sometimes takes its name. It was called Quini-Sextum, because
^ . . . ilifioiriaav Ttdvtss  'Ovtopt'^j atptftxij) avdBt/ia, x. t, \. —
Labbe and Cossart. Cone. vi. 1010. Paris ed., 1671-2.
t Du Pin, ii. 16.
X Auctores vero novi haeretici dogmatis Sergium, Pyrrhum, Paulum e
Petrum, Constantinopolitanos, ¦una cum Honorio, qui pravis eorum asser
tionibus fomentum impendit ; pariterque et Theodorum, .... cum omnibup
hsereticis scriptis atque sequaoibus nexu perpetua anathematis devinxeruni.
Propterea quosquos vel qusequae sancta sex universalia Concilia abjecerunt,
simili etiam nos condemnatione percellimus anathematis. — Liber Diurnvs.
Reprinted from Garner's edition, Paris, 1680, by Routh, Script. Eccl. Opusc
il. 511-509.

CHRISTENDOM AT BEGINNING OP SEVENTH CENTURY. 51
it was regarded as a supplement to the fifth and sixth councils.
It made 102 canons. The 36th renews the canons of Constanti
nople and Chalcedon, granting the church of Constantinople the
same * privileges as the church of old Rome, the same authority in
ecclesiastical affairs, and the second plaoe in honor. The third, it
gave to Alexandria, the fourth to Antioch, the fifth to Jerusalem.
The Greek Church recognized this body as a general council, but
because it interfered with some of their customs and claims, the
Latins rejected its authority. Its decrees f were signed by all
present, including the Emperor, whose name appears first.
We think any candid mind will conclude that the great coun
cils of the first seven centuries, including the synod of Sardica,
which, though not a general synod, was a highly important body,
give no claim whatever to the Bishops of Rome to supremacy over
the churches of Christendom. A place of honor was readily
conceded to the popes as the prelates of the imperial city, but
a position of power, of jurisdiction was sternly denied them.
Neither friend nor foe on earth can lay his finger on a genuine
canon, decree, or resolution of any general council during the first
seven hundred years after the Saviour's death, giving any pre
eminence in legislative, judicial, or other departments in lohich
power is accustomed to be exercised over Christendom to the Pope of
Rome. There is not a scholar in the Christian world to-day who pre
tends to show such a decree, canon, or resolution. These great
councils then, that are led by the Holy Spirit, for SEVEN HUN
DRED YEARS KNEW NOTHING OF THE SPIRITUAL
SUPREMACY OF THE BISHOPS OF ROME. And as the
chain of spiritual sovereignty wants the seven hundred links
next to Christ, the great mooring pillar, it will not be able to pro
tect and hold the papal ark, which trusts it when the wind is
angry, and the sea rages.
CHRISTENDOM AT THE BEGINNING OP THE SEVENTH CENTURY.
The entire east, with all its great patriarchs, bishops and
churches, with all its teeming population of Christians, orthodox
and heterodox, was separate from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of
» Du Pin, ii. 24.
t Perc«val, "On the Roman Schism," p. 17. London ed., 1836.

52 CHRISTENDOM AT BEGINNING OF SEVENTH CENTURY.
Rome. The pope never had any authority over a single one of
these churches up till the commencement of the seventh century.
And neoer after that time, unless in our days, when he has
acquired limited control over an insignificant list of schismatics
that would not number one per cent, of the pope-rejecting Chris
tians of the east.
The Christians in France regarded him as the first bishop of
the Church, because the prelate of the most renowned city of the
world, but as rightly possessing no power over them. The Chris
tians of Germany, following the Irish and British missionaries who
brought them salvation, rejected the supremacy of the pontiff root
and branch, and observed neither Romish customs, nor papal
edicts. This was substantially the position of the Spanish church.
The churches of Ireland, of the ancient Britons, and of Scotland,
manfully refused every claim of the pope, and regarded his mis
sionaries and his religion as tainted with heresy.
Nine-tenths of the Germans were pagans ; all the Anglo-Saxons,
except the few thousands Augustine had converted ; all the Poles
and Scandinavians — in short, the ancestors of most of the great
nations of to-day, were steeped in heathenism, and the supremacy
ofthe pope was confined to his own old patriarchate in Italy, and
the small but hopeful mission of Augustine located in Ethelbert's
kingdom of Kent.
Eminent witnesses give indisputable evidence that for ages the
Church had no crowned bishop whose spiritual sceptre ruled all
ecclesiastics and Christians.
The inspired records unmistakably declare the absolute equahty
of bishops and presbyters. The leading Christians of the primi
tive Church taught the same doctrine ; — a view of these officers
which forbids the existence of any royal bishop exercising domin
ion over the faith and practice of the whole Church.
And when, in times a little later, bishops became the official
superiors of presbyters, the equality of all bishops was held and
defended by the great thinkers of the Christian fold whom all
subsequent ages have revered. Showing a decided conviction
that a kingly bishop, with royal attributes over Zion, had no place
in the calculations of the mighty men who stood in the front
rank of Christ's army during the first seven centuries after his
a.<3i'ension.

EQUALITY OF BISHOPS AND PRESBYTERS. 53
Let us examine the facts :
BISHOPS AND PRESBYTERS THE SAME OFFICERS IN THE
EARLY CHURCHES.
The New Testament speaks with the greatest clearness on this
question. In the Acts of the Apostles xx. 17, Paul is said to
have called the elders of the church at Ephesus, that is, the pres
byters ; and in liis address to them, in the 28th verse, he says : " Take
heed therefore- unto youi-selves, and to all the flock over the which
the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers." The word " overseers " is
in the original bishops (iitiaxortovs), so that, according to the spirit
of inspiration, presbyters and bishops are the same officers. And
the idea, that in Paul's time, in the city of Ephesus, there could
be two or more bishops after the power and privileges of modern
episcopacy, is one of those preposterous delusions which the intel
ligent could not readily receive. At Ephesus the bishops were
simply ordinary pastors of the church. In the Epistle to Titus,
i. 5, Paul tells Titus that he had left him in Crete to ordain elders
in every city (jtpia^vtipovs) ; and speaking of these functionaries
in the 7th verse, he says : "For a bishop must be blameless, as the
steward of God " (iniaxottov'j, showing tliat in Paul's opinion the
terms bishop and elder or presbyter described the same officers.
Peter, in his 1st Epistle, v. 1, 2, addresses the presbj^rs, saying :
" The elders who are among you I exhort, who am also a co-pres
byter, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ ; feed the flock of
God which is among you, taking the oversight, not by constraint
but willingly." Now the words "taking the oversight" are
literally episcopising [ittiaxonovvtes], acting as bishops^ so that, in
the judgment of Peter, elders are bishops. There is no pretext
in the divine Word for another conclusion.
Tertullian.
Tertullian whose authority will ever have great weight, writing
about the end of the second century, says : * " The highest priest,
* Dandi Cbaptismum) habet jus summus sacerdos, qui est episcopus ; de-
liinc presbyteri, et diaconi ; non tamen sine episcopi auctoritate, propter ec-
clesise honorem ; quo salvo, pax salva est. Alioquin etiam laicis jus est. — De
Bajrtismo, c. 17.

54 EQUALITY OF BISHOPS AND PRESBYTERS.
who is the bishop, has the right of administering baptism. Then
the presbyters and deacons, yet not without the authority of the
bishop, because of the honor of the church, which being preserved,
peace is preserved. Otherwise, the right even belongs to laymen."
Now, according to this witness, the bishop is only the highest priest.
The honor of the church is the only reason why he is invested
with the authority of baptizing. And the honor of the chm'ch is
ecured in this arrangement by preserving its peace. The dignity
of a bishop in TertuUian's day was conferred, not by Christ, but by
he Church, to preserve its harmony ; and he is only the first pres-
lyter, in piety and talents, or in the honor conferred by venerable
years. Irenaus.
Irenseus, a bishop of great worth, who flourished about the same
time as Tertullian, says : * " But when we return again to that
tradition, which is from the apostles, and which is guarded in the
churches through the succession of presbyters, we provoke those
who are opposed to tradition ; they say, that they, existing not
only from the presbyters, but also from the apostles, are more
plenteously endued with wisdom." Here the celebrated Bishop
of Lyons represents a succession of presbyters as guarding the
apostolical doctrine, as the chief human protectors of the revealed
treasures of heaven. And again he says : f " Therefore, it is in
cumbent on those who are in the church to obey the presbyters,
who have their succession from the apostles, as we have shown,
who, together with the succession of the episcopacy, have received
the unerring gift of truth, according to the will of the Father."
Here the presbyters have thdr succession from the apostles, and
these same presbyters, like those of Ephesus, have the succession of
the episcopacy; in the time of Irenseus the terms bishop and pres-
* Cum autem ad cam iterum traditionem, quse est ab apostolis, quae per
successiones presbyterorum in ecclesiis custoditur, provocamus eos qui adver-
santur traditioni ; dicent, se non solum presbyteris sed etiam apostolis exis-
tentes sapientiores, etc. — Adver. Hares, i. B, c. 3.
•|- Quapropter lis qui in ecclesia sunt presbyteris obaudiro oportet ; his qui
successionem habent ab apostohs, sicut ostendimus, qui cum episcopatus sue-
cessione, charisma veritatis certum secundum placetum patris acoeperunt
—Lib. 'V. cap. 43.

EQUALITY OF BISHOPS AND PRESBYTERS. 55
byter were given interchangeably to the same clergyman. Irenoeus,
with force and Christian kindness, entreats Victor, Bishop of
Rome, as Eusebius * records, not to excommunicate whole
churches for a difference of' opinion about the observance of
Easter ; in this address he says : "And those presbyters who gov
erned the church before Soter, and over which you now preside, I
mean Anicetus and Pius, Hyginus with Telesphorus and Xystus."
These persons, whom he calls presbyters, are popes, the predeces
sors of Victor in the See of Rome.

Jo'

•ome.

Jerome, the scholarly and popular saint and monk of the fourth
century, says : t "Therefore as presbyters know that they,/ro»n
the custom of the church, are subject to him who has been placed
over them, so bishops know that they, more from that usage, than
from the fact of the Lord's setting it in order, are superior to pres
byters, and ought to govern the church for the common welfare."
Here the learned maker of the Vulgate declares against any divine
distinction between bishops and presbyters. The custom of the
Church is the sole authority for the superiority of bishops over
presbyters. Jerome in another place says : J "I hear say there is one become
so peevish that he setteth deacons before priests, that is to say, be
fore bishops ; whereas the apostle plainly teaches that priests and
bishops are all one." Certainly this statement speaks with deci
sion. And Jerome repeats it in other forms with equal clearness.
He says : § " For at Alexandria, from Mark, the evangelist, to
* Eccl. Hist., book v. chap. 24.
t Sicut ergo presbyteri sciunt se ex ecclesiae consuetudine, ei qui sibi prs&.
positus fuerit, esse subjectos ; ita episcopoi noverint se magis consuetudine,
quam dispositionis dominica veritate presbyteris esse majores, et in commune
debere ecolesiam regere. — Comment, in Tit., tom. vi. p. 199. Colonise, 1616.
X Audio quendam in tantam erupisse vecordiam, ut diaconos presbyteris,
id est episcopis, anteferret ; cum apostolus perspicue doceat, eosdem esse
presbyteros quos episcopos. — Blp. ad E'oag. 85, vol. i. 359. Colonise, 1616.
I Nam Alexandria a Marco evangelista usque ad Heraclam et Dionysium
episcopos, presbyteri semper unum ex se electum, in excelsiori gradu collo-
catum, episcopum nominabant ; quomodo si exercitus imperatorem faciat,
iut diaconi eligant de se quem industrium noverint, et archidiaconum vo-
tent.— J5p. ad Evag. 85, vol. i. 259. Colonise, 1616.

56 EQUALITY OF BISHOPS AND PRESBYTERS,
Heracles and Dionysius, bishops, the presbyters always elected one
from among themselves, and having placed him in a higher rank,
named him bishop, after the manner that an army chooses its gen
eral ; the deacons select one from among themselves whom they
know to be industrious, and him they call archdeacon." Accord
ing to this statement a bishop at Alexandria at this period be
longed to no order distinct from the presbyters, he was simply a
presbyter elected to the presidency of the board of presbyters.
Again Jerome says:* "Presbyter and bishop are the same; the
one name describes the age of the man, the other his dignity.
Hence instruction is given to Titus and Timothy about the
ordination of a bishop and of a deacon ; but there is absolute
silence about presbyters, because the presbyter is contained in the
bishop." And again Jerome says : f " Hearken to another testimony in
which it is very clearly established that a bishop is the same as c
presbyter — (Paul says to Titus) — I have left thee in Crete that
you may correct the things that are deficient, appointing presbyters
through the cities, as I commanded you. If there is any one
without crime, the husband of one wife, having faithful children,
free from the charge of luxury, or not hypocrites ; for a bishop
ought to be without crime, as a steward of God." Jerome's own

* Presbyter et episcopus aliud setatis, aliud dignitatis est, nomen. TJnde
et ad Titum et ad Timotheum de ordinatione episcopi ct diaconi dicitur : de
presbyteris omnino reticetur ; quia in episcopo et presbyter continetur. — Ep.
ad Evag. 85, vol. i. 259. Colonise, 1616.
f Audi et aliud testimonium, in quo manifestissime comprobatur, eundem
esse episcopum atque presbyterum : propter hoc reliqui te Cretse, ut, quse
deerant, corrigeres, constituens presbyteros per civitates, sicut et ego tibi
mandavi. Si sine crimine quis est, unius uxoris vir, Alios habens fideles, non
accusatione luxurise, aut non subditos. Oportet enim episcopum sine cri
mine esse, quasi Dei dispensatorem. Et ad Timotheum. Noli negligere
gratiam, quseinte est, quse tibi data est prophetise per impositionem manuum
presbyterii. Sed et Petrus in prima epistola, presbyteros, inquit, in vobis
precor compresbyter et testis passionum Christi et futures glorise, quse reve-
landa est, particeps, regere gregem Christi et inspicere non ex necessitate,
sed voluntarie juxtaDeum, quod qnidem Groece significantius dicitur i,tlsxo-
TtovvtH, id est superinteiKlentes : undo et nomen episcopi tractum est.—Ep
ad Emg. 85, vol. i. 259. Colonise, 1616.

EQUALITY OF BISHOPS AND PRESBYTERS. 57
opinion, and the apostle's testimony, are decisive evidence of the
oneness of the office of a bishop and presbyter.
Again, says Jerome, Paul commands Timothy : " To be unwil
ling to neglect the grace which is in you, which was given you by
prophecy through the imposition of the hands of the presbytery."
But also Peter, in his first Epistle, says : " Presbyters, I, your
fellow-presbyter, exhort you, and a witness of the sufferings of
Christ, and a sharer in the coming glory which is to be revealed
rule the flock of Christ and oversee it, not by compulsion bu
freely, as being near to God." But, indeed, it is more strikingly
expressed in the original Greek, ijtiaxoTtovvtif, that is, discharging
the duties of bishops; from which word the name bishop is de
rived. And again, commenting on Titus, Jerome says : * " For a
bishop must be without crime, as it were a steward of God ; a
presbyter is the same as a bishop, and until by the instigation of
the devil there arose divisions in religion, and it was said among
the people : I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas,
churches were governed by a common council of the presbyters.
Afterwards truly, every one reckoned those to be his whom
he baptized, not Christ's. Then it was decreed over the world,
that one of the presbyters should be placed over the rest, to whom
the whole care of the Church should belong, and that the seeds of
Bchisms might be taken away." Ambrose.
Speaking of Paul, Ambrose says : f " Moreover, after the
* Oportet enim episcopum sine crimine esse, tanquam Dei dispensatorem.
Idem est ergo presbyter, qui et episcopus et antequam diaboli instinctu,
studia in religione flerent, et diceretur in populis : Ego sum Pauli, ego Apollo ;
ego autem Cephse : communi presbyterorum eoncillo, ecclesise gubernaban-
tur. Postquam vero unusquisque eos, quos baptizaverat, suos putabat esse,
non Christi : in toto orbe decretuni est, ut unus de presbyteris superponere-
tur cseteris ad quem omnis ecclesise cura pertineret, et schismatum semina
tollerentur. — Hieron, tom. vi. 198. Colonise, 1616.
\ Post episcopum tamen diaconi ordinalionem subjicit. Quare f Nisi quia
episcopi et presbyteri una ordinatio est. Utcrque enim sacerdos est ; sed
episcopus primus est, ut omnis episcopus presbyter fit. Non omnis presby
ter episcopus. Hie enim episcopus est qui inter presbyteros primus est. —
Arni-rose in i. Tim. iii., vol. i. p. 273. Colonise. 1616.

58 EQUALITY OP BISHOPS AND PRESBYTERS.
bishop he places the ordination of the deacon. Wherefore ? but
that there is one ordination of the bishop and the presbyter :
for each is a priest, but the bishop is the first ; since every bishop
is a presbyter, though every presbyter is not a bishop. For he is
the bishop who is first among the presbyters."
Augustine.
The celebrated Bishop of Hippo says : * " What is a bishop
but \h& first priest, that is to say, the highest priest ? According to
the terms of honor which now the usage of the Chu/rch of Rome
hath brought about, the episcopacy is superior to the presbytery."
But from this statement the superior position of bishops has no
divine authority, and rests simply on the usage of the Church of
Rome. And in any case, according to Augustine, a bishop is
only a presbyter, though he is the highest.
Chrysostom.
Chrysostom says :f " Between a bishop and a priest there is, in a
manner, no difference." " The presbyters J anciently were called
bishops, and servants of Christ, and the bishops presbyters."
In Scotland for a long period, the bishops of the country were
subject to the Abbot of lona, who received every mark of pious
deference from the heads of the chm'ches planted by the great
Columba. And as this fact rests upon the very best evidence, §
we have another confirmation of the doctrine that, among the early
Christians, there was no difference in the orders of bishops and
priests. " Even bishops || obeyed the abbots of lona, though they
were but simple priests," Isidore.
The celebrated Isidore, Bishop of Seville, presided at the second
•ouncil, held in his episcopal city. A, D, 619, and, among other
* Quid est episcopus, nisi primus presbyter, hoc est, summus sacerdos f —
August, in Qumt. Novi et. Vet. Testamenti, quEest. 101.
f Inter episcopum et presbyterum interest flrme nihil. — Ohrysost. in 1 Tim.
Kom. ii.
J Ot Tipia^vtipof, to TiaXi.ov ixaXovvto frtt'ffxortot xat Sidxavoi tov Xpturoi
leat o» iriiaxoTtoi Ttptafi^itspoi, — Ohrysost. Horn. i. in Phil. i.
§ Bede's Anglo-Saxon Chron., at a. d. 565. || Neander, iii. 10.

EQUALITY OP BISHOPS AND PRESBYTERS. 59
canons, it made the following : * " For although many services of
the ministiy ai-e common to them with the bishops, they are aware
that some ai-e prohibited to them by new ecdedastical rules, as the
consecration of presbyters, deacons, and virgins. These are not
lawful to presb}iers." Du Pin gives a full account of this canon,
but is careful to leave out the words, "by new eccledastioal
rules."f In the researches of modern scholarship, men have forgotten
their sectarian prejudices, and confessed their conviction that
originally the names presbyter and bishop described the same
¦ ecclesiastic. Bishop Stillingfleet says : J "I believe, upon the
strictest inquiry, Medina's judgment will be fomid true, that
Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Sedulius, Primasius, Chrysostom,
Theodoret, Theophylact, were all of Arius' judgment as to the
identify of both name and order of bishops and presbyters in the
p-imitive Church."
Archbishop Cranmer says : § " The bishops and priests were at
one time, and were not two things, but one office in the beginning of
Christs religion."
Archbishop Usher said : || "I have declared my opinion to be,
that episcopus and presbyter differ only in degree, not in order,
and consequently in places where bishops cannot be had, the ordi
nation by presbyters standeth valid,"
Opinions of this character might be multiplied in number,
though in the United Church of England and Ireland, no other
three names could frilly equal those whose views have been quoted.
The leading men of the first four and a half centuries, and some
of the most distinguished episcopalians of the great Reformation,
receive the teachings of inspiration given in Acts xx. 17, 28, and
declare that the terms bishop and presbyter describe the same

• Nam quamvis cum episcopis plurima illis ministeriorum communis sit
dispensatio, quaedam novellis et ecclesiasticis regulis sibi prohibita noverint
.... sicut presbyterorum et diaconorum et virginum consecratio, etc. Hseo
enim omnia illicita presbyteris. — Oonc. Hispal. Secundum, decret. 7. Irenicum,
p. 339. Phila. ed., 1843.
t Eccl. Hist., vol. ii. p. 3. Dublin ed., 1733.
I Irenicum, p. 301. Phila. ed., 1843. § Id., p. 415.
II "Ancient Christianity Exempliiied," by Coleman, p. 158.

60 EQUALITY OF ALL BISHOPS.
order of clergymen. These men had a hierarchy, and this fact
gives peculiar force to their testimony.
It follows that as bishops and presbyters are one, there is no
scriptural ground for several bishops, or for one prelate to claim
lordship over the presbyters, deacons, and churches. There is no
divine location for a pontiff.

THE EQUALITY OF BISHOPS.
The origin of episcopacy, according to Jerome, is to be found ii
the factiousness of church members. "A presbyter," says he, "is
the same as a bishop, and until, by the instigation of the devil,
there arose divisions in religion, and it was said among the people,
' 1 am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I am of Cephas,' churches
were governed by a common council of the presbyters," * For the
sake of securing peace and repressing anarchy in the churches, a
bishop or permanent president of the College of Presbyters was
appointed. As early as the end of the second century, a modified
episcopacy was the common form of the government of the
churches. At first, the presbyters retained many of their old
rights ; and, in some countries, they held most of their original
privileges for a very long period. But the episcopal system very
early became general and popular; just as kingly government in
the state has, from the most ancient times, been the method of
exercising sovereign powers to which most nations have sub
mitted. When episcopal government was first established in the
churches, and for centuries later, the accepted theory about it was :
That all bishops were equal, not in culture, not in the wealth of
their respective sees, not in the honor which might be inseparably
attached to some bishop at the seat of government, or in a large
and opulent city, but in a general council, where the vote of every
bishop had the same influence ; and in the common duties of the
episcopal office. The fiercest struggles were made to maintain
this equality, and its assertion in manly words forms the most
interesting records of the Church's history.
* The original Latin on p. 57.

EQUALITY OP ALL BISHOPS. 6i
Cyprian.
Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, the most eloquent and cultivated
ecclesiastic of the Christian Church from the days of Paul, says : *
" For none of us makes himself a bishop of bishops, or by a tyran
nical terror compels his colleagues to a necesdty of obedience ; since
every bishop, according to the license of his own liberty and
)ower, hath his own freedom, and can no mwe be judged by
mother, than he himself can judge another." Cyprian lived before
he age of general councils, when each bishop under God was
naster of the interests committed to his charge.
Cyprian on another occasion gave Stephen, Bishop of Rome, a
severe rebuke for meddling in the affairs of two Spanish bishops,
Basilides and ]\Iartialis, who had been deposed from their bishoprics
for their crimes. In his 68th letter addressed to the clergy and
people of Spain, he says : f " Basilides going to Rome, imposed
upon our colleague, Stephen, who lived a great way off, and was
ignorant of the truth of the matter ; seeking unjustly to be re
stored to his see, from which he had been justly deposed." Cer
tainly Cyprian has few compliments here for the ignorant pope,
and evidently writes as one who feels himself, and is regarded by
others, as Stephen's equal.
He writes to Antonius on the controversy between Cornelius
and Novatian, and makes this declaration to him : J " The bond
of concord abiding, and the sacrament of the Catholic Church
persisting undivided, every bishop disposes and directs his ovm acts,
having to 7'ender an account of his purpose to the Lord." Cy-
* Neque enim quisquam nostrum episcopum se esse episcoporum consti-
tuit, aut tyrannico terrore ad obsequendi necessitatem coUegas suos adigit ;
q^uando habeat omnis episcopus pro licentia libertatis et protestatis suae
arbitrium proprium ; tamque judicari ab alio non possit, quam nee ipse potest
alterum judicare. — Oypr. in Pref. Oonc. Oarihag.
] Romam pergens Stephanum collegam nostrum longe positum, et gestae
rei ac tacitse veritatis ignarum fefellit, ut exambiret reponi se injuste in epis-
copatum, de quo fuerat juste depositus. — Oypr. Epist. 68, p. 96. Colonise,
1617. X Manente concordiae vinculo, et perseverante catholicse ecclesise individuo
Sacramento, actum suum disponit et dirigit unusquisque episcopus, rationem
propositi sui Domino redditurus.— Cypr. Ep. 53, p. 59. Colonise, 1617.

62 EQUALITY OF AUi BISHOPS.
prian never dreamt of any bishop giving him orders, or demand
ing an account of his acts.
Again, in a letter to Pope Stephen himself, he says : * "In
which matter we neither force any one, nor give law, since every
prelate hath in the administration of his church the free power of
his will, having to render unto the Lord an account of his acting."
Pius IX. would be astounded at such sentiments in a letter from
one of his bishops, but Stephen was not. No other obedience wa
given to popes by bishops like Cyprian in Stephen's times. Cy
prian writes to Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, after the same inde
pendent style.
As Du Pin translates him, he says : f " What benefit can they
expect from going to Rome? If they repent of their faults they
ought to understand that they must come back hither again to
receive absolution for them, since it is an order established all the
world over, and, indeed, but reasonable, that every one's cause
should be examined where the crime was committed. Every
pastor has received a part of Jesus Christ's flock ta govern,
and shall render an account of his actions to God alone.
Upon this account it is not to be allowed that those persons who
are under our charge should run to and fro, and sow dissensions
among bishops by their temerity and artifices ; but on the other
hand, it is necessary for them to defend themselves in that place
where they may be confronted with their accusers, and the wit
* Qua in re nee nos vim cuiquam facimus, aut legem damus ; cum habeat
in ecclesise administratione voluntatis suse liberum arbitrium unusquisque
prsepositus, rationem actus sui Domino redditurus. — Id., Ep. 72, p. 104. Co-
loniae, 1617.
f Quae autem causa veniendi et pseudoepiscoporum contra episcepos factum
riutciandi f aut enim placet illis quod fecerunt, et in suo seclere perseverant :
aut si displicit et recedunt, sciunt quo revertantur. Nam cum statutum sit
omnibus nobis et aequum sit pariter ac justum, ut uniuscujusque causa illic
audiatur, ubi est crimen admissum, et singulis pastoribus portio gregis sit
adscripta, quam regat unusquisque et gubernet, rationem sui actus Domino
redditurus. Oportet utique eos quibus praesumus non circumsare, nee episco
porum concordiam coherentem sua subdola et fallaci temeritate coUidere, sed
agere illic causam suam ubi et accusatores habere et testes sui criminis pos-
sint. Jam causa est cognita eorum: jam de eis dicta sententia est, nee
censurse congruit sacerdotum mobilis atque inconstantis animi levitate repre
aen""!. — Oypr. Ep. 55, p. 70. Colonise, 1617.

EQUALITY OF AI-L BISHOPS. 63
uesses of their crimes. Thdr cause has been e.vamined, sentence
has been pronounced againd them, aud it would be below the
gravity of bishops to be justly reproaohed with being wavering
and inconstant." The translation is very free, amounting to a
paraphrase, aud it is given because Da Pin has caught the exact
drift of Cyprian's indignant deuuueiatioii of appeals to Rome
against an African * decision. He plainly tells Cornelius through
out his lengthy letter, that he has nothing to do with Fortunatus
and Felicissimus, the guilty African bishops, and that his inter
ference could not help them. They must abide by the local deci
sion, or have it reversed at home ; as each bishop is independent.
According to Cyprian, no benefit could be obtained by an
appeal to Rome. Even Du Pin is not always to be trusted. In
the quotation from Cyprian's letter, he passes over four f lines to
reach the end of his quotation without a hint that he omits any
thing, and the discarded part intimates that the African decision
only appeared unimportant to a few ruined and abandoned men.
So that only a handful of desperate persons approved of appeals
from their own bishops.
There are eighty-three letters to and from Cyprian published in
nis works. These letters employ a style of address to Cyprian some
what varying, Cyprian gives every bishop the same title, and
that the simple one. Brother. He published seven epistles ad
dressed to Cornelius, Bishop of Rome ; the first one is his 41st
Epistle, and it is inscribed : " Cyprianus % to Cornelius, a brother,
health." The other six begin in the same way. " Cornelius to
Cj^rian, a brother, health," is the address adopted by the Roman
Bishop, as seen in the 46th § Epistle of Cyprian's collection.
Firmilianus addresses Cyprian in this way in the 75th Epistle.
" Cyprian and other colleagues assembled in council to the number
of 66, address Fidus, a brother," in the usual form; though
Fidus was a very obscure and ignorant bishop. This letter is the
59th. The 67th is addressed in the same form to Stephen, Bishop
of Rome. The 71st is addressed to Quintus, after the same
fiishion ; the 73d to Jubianus, the 74th to Pompey, and the 52d
* Du Pin, i. 123 ; Dublin ed., 1733.
t See Ep. 55, Cypr. p. 70. Colonise, 1617.
X Cypr. Ep. Opera. Colonise, 1617, p. 47. § Id., p. 61

64 EQUALITY OP ALL BISHOPS.
to Antonianus. All unimportant African Bishops. The 26th* is
addressed to " Pope Cyprian," by Maximus and Moyses, presby
ters, Nicostratus and Ruffinus, deacons, and other confessors who
are with them. The 30th and 31st are addressed to "Pope
Cyprian," f by the presbyters and deacons of the Church of Rome.
In Cyprian's time, as he himself says, each bishop had powers
in his own city equal to every other, and the Roman Bishop,
while treated with respect, as the pastor of the first city in the
world, had no title not given to his brethren in the episcopal
)ffice, and no jurisdiction over the churches outside of his own
liocese, Cyprian was more the " Head of the Church " than
any Roman pontiff in his day, as Hosius of Cordova was three-
quarters of a century later. He was consulted by bishops in
France and Spain ; and though living in Africa, time and again,
he was approached for advice by the bishops, presbyters and
deacons of Rome itself.
Du Pin says of Cyprian that :% "He looked upon the Bishop
of Rome as superintendent of the first church in the world. But
then he was of opinion that he ought not to assume any authority
over the rest of the bishops, that were his brethren, or over thdr
churches. That every bishop was to render to God an account
of his ovm conduct. That the episcopal authority is indivisible,
and every bishop has his portion of it."
Augustine.
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Africa, was the ablest man pro
duced in the Christian Church for centuries. North Africa has
laid the world under obligations for its Cyprian and its Augustine.
The industry of Augustine has left the Church a superb legacy in
the voluminous works to which his mighty mind gave birth. In
common with all his countrymen, he denounced appeals from an
African synod or bishop to any authority outside of the church of
his countrymen. He very modestly denounces one of these ap
peals in his 16 2d letter : § " Probably Melchiades, Bishop of
* Cypr. Opera., p. 33. Colonise, 1617. t Id., p. 36.
X Dupin, i. 133 ; Dublin ed., 1733.
§ An forte non debuit Romanfe Ecclesiae Melchiades episcopus cum col-

EQUALITY OP ALL BISHOPS. 65
Rome, with the transmarine bisluqis, his colleagues, ought not to
have usm-ped that judgment which had been decided by seventy
Africans, when Tigisitanus presided as primate. But why might
he not assume it? Because the Emperor, when requested, sent
bishops to be judges, who would sit with him, and would deter
mine whatsoever appeared just in the whole case." In the exer
cise of a humility, for which Augustine is to be commended, he
gently brands Melchiades as a usurper, and he tells him that
seventy Africans had ah-eady settled the question.
The titles given in epistles to Augustine, and by him, show the
wonderful reverence in which the Bishop of Hippo was held ; and
prove that, in the Christian world he had no superior,
Jerome in five letters addresses Augustine with these compli
mentary words : * "To the lord, truly holy, and the most
blessed Pope Augustine." Surely, the learned St. Jerome knew
the proper designation of a bishop.
Augustine is equally courteous to the distinguished scholar.
His letters are addressed to : f " The most illustrious and most
desired lord, the brother in Christ to be honored, my fellow pres
byter, Jerome."
The 254th letter in Augustine's epistles is addressed ¦.% "To the
lord, truly holy, and sacredly preferred by us above all things,
and revered with holy joy, the most blessed Pope Augustine, by
Valentinus, the servant of thy holiness." Certainly Augustine
could desire nothing more in the way of high-sounding words of
flattery,legis transmarinis episcopis illud sibi usurpare judicium, quod ab Afris sep-
tuaginta, ubi primas Tigisitanus prsesedit, fuerat terminatum. Quid quod
nee ipse usurpavit ? Rogatus qnippe Imperator judices misit episcopos qui
cum eo sederunt, et de tota ilia causa quod justum videretur statuerent. —
Auguatini Opera, Ep. 163, vol. ii. p. 379. Paris ed., 1614.
* Domino vere sancto et beatissimo Papse Augustino. — Augustini Opera,
Ep. 11, vol. ii. p. 19. Paris ed., 1614.
f Domino clarissimo et desideratissimo, et honorando in Christo fratri et
compresbytero Hieronimo. — Auguatini Opera, Ep. 13, vol. ii. p. 23. Paris ed.,
1614. X Domino vere sancto ac nobis venerabiliter super omnia prseferendo, et pia
exultatione colendo beatissimo Papae Augustino. Valentinus servus tua
sanctitatis. — Augustini Opera, Ep. 354, vol. ii. p. 358. Paris ed., 1614.
5

6ti EQUALITY OP ALL BISHOPS.
Augustine addresses Pope Innocent : * "To the lord, most
happy, the brother deservedly most honored, Pope Innocent,"
Augustine does not pay such compliments to Innocent as he receives
from Valentinus.
Augustine addresses his 94th letter to : f " Hilary, the most
lilessed lord, a brother in the truth of Christ, worthy of veneration,
and a fellow priest."
Consentius addresses his letter to : J " The holy lord, and most
blessed Pope Augustine. "
The titles of the 270 letters in the works of St, Augustine show
that no one in the Christian world was more honored than himself.
From those in his collection addressed to the Roman popes, it is
abundantly manifest that they were not the rulers of the churches,
the masters of the spiritual affairs of Christendom ; and it is just
as clear that in the discharge of their episcopal duties all bishops
were equal, Antioch.
The Synod of Antioch, complaining of the behavior of Pope
Julius in the affair of Athanasius, as Sozomen relates,§ " Did not,
therefore, think it equal that they should be thought inferiors,
because tliey Imd not so large and numerous a church."
The Apostolical Canons
ordain that: || "The bishops of each nation should know him that
is first among them, and should esteem him the head, and should
* Domino beatissimo meritoque honorandissimo fratri Innocentio Papse. —
Augustini Opera, Ep. 95, vol. ii. p. 161. Paris ed., 1614.
\ Domino beatissimo et in Christi veritate venerando fratri et consacerdoti
Hilai'io. — Auguatini Opera, Ep. 94, vol. ii. p. 161. Paris ed.,1614.
:|. Domino sancto ac beatissimo Papse Augustino. — Augustini Opera, Ep.
231, vol. ii. p. 835. Paris ed., 1614.
I Ov rtapa tovto ta Sfvttpila ^ipeiv rfiiovv, 6ft f«j nryiSn rj n7.ri9ci ixx7.i{-
Bt'as ttXiovixtovaiv. — Soz., book iii. chap. 8.
II Toiij irtiffxortODf 'ixdrstov i9vovs etSivat x?V *<"' ^ oifotf rtpupfo*, xa(
riyela9at aithv wj xt^aXrjv, xat litjSiv tt, rlpdttti/v ittprithv autv tiji txtivai
yviipjS* Ixciva Si fiova rtpattei^p txaatov, offa *^ a^v^toi jfapotxta lrtt|3aMic( xat
Tttt; irt ojvfriv arupatj' aXXk firjSs ixti^oi avtv t^i rldvlav yxiifwjf ttoititu IC
9itCi yap ouovota satai. — Ap. Can. 34,

EQUALITY OP ALL BISHOPS. 67
do nothing considerable without his advice ; as also that each one
should only meddle with those affairs which concerned his ovm dis
trict, and tlie places binder it. But he (the primate) should not do
anything without the opinion of all, so that there may be concord."
The apostolical canons are as old as the fourth, and might reach
up to the close of the second century. And, according to their
testimony, the Pope of Rome had no preeminence in the govern
ment of the cliurches. The principal city in each country was the
seat of the first bishop ; but even he must act by the advice of hia
fellow-bishops in everything of moment, that concord may be pre
served. The Bishop of Rome the equal of other Bishops,
At a council held in Rome, a. d. 359, a synodical letter was
adopted, and sent to the Bishops of Illyria, which began : *
" Damasus (the pope), Valens, and the other bishops assembled at
the holy council held at Rome, to the beloved brethren, the
Bishops of Illyria." Here Damasus, the pope, is only first on
the list ; Valens is in a position equally important ; the others are
evidently the peers of the two whose names are given. The pope
is only primus inter pares, the first among equals.
Jerome.
Jerome says : f " Wherever a bishop may be, whether at Rome or
at Eugubium, at CoTistantinople or at Rhegium, at Alexandria or at
Thanis, he is of the same worth, and of the same priesthood ; the
force of wealth and lowness of poverty do not render a bishop
higher or lower ; for all of them are the successors of the apostles,"
Again, the renowned monk and scholar condemns the whole papal
system ; for that scheme is destroyed by the removal of the pontiff,
and there can be no proper pope without preeminent authority
over the churches.
* Theod. Eccl. Hist., book ii. 22.
t TJbicunque, episcopus fuerit, sive Romse, sive Eugubii, sive Constanti-
nopoli, sive Rhegii, sive Alexandriae, sive Tanis, ejusdem est meriti, eju3-
dem est et sacerdotii. Potentia divitiarum et paupertatis humilitas, vel
Bublimiorem vol inferiorem episcopum non facit : caeterum omnes apostolo-
rom Buccessorcs sunt. — Epist. 85, ad Evag., vol. i. p. 359. Colonise, 1616.

QUALITY OP ALL BISHOPS.

Hilary.

Hilary, of Aries, was a vigorous bishop, a sound thinker, a Bible
reader, and a man of fearless independence. Celedonius, a bishop,
had been married to a widow, and followed secular employments.
For these two crimes, Hilary, in a council, deposed him. He
appealed to Leo I., of Rome, and the pope restored him to his see.
But neither Hilary nor the bishops of France would yield to the
dictation of the pontiff. They were unaccustomed to obey such a
master, and it was needful to obtain an imperial decree from Jus
tinian, commanding, among other things, that : "Forever hereafter,
neither the French bishops, nor the bishops of other provinces, shall
undertake anything without the authority of the Bishop of Rome;
that all that he orders shall be acknowledged for a law." Well may
Du Pin say : * " This edict is contraiy to the canons, as also to the
decrees of the council of Sardica." But it shows that up to that
time, the first half of the fifth century, the French and German
churches owed no allegiance to the See of Rome.
Gregory I.
Eulogius, of Alexandria, had flatteringly said to the great
Gregory, " sicut jusistis," — as ye ordered. Gregory replied rf
" That word of command I desire to be removed from my hearing,
because I know who I am, and who ye are ; by place ye are my
brethren ; in goodness, fathers. I did not, therefore, command, but
what seemed profitable I hinted to you." Gregory was not the man
to stop at giving an order where he had authority to do it. He
was the first of the popes to begin his letters with the well known
words, "servant of servants." But none knew better than ht
how to climb the slippery heights of spiritual ambition and pre
sumption. Writing John the Faster, he reproachfully compares him to

» Du Pin, i. 469 ; Dublin ed., 1733.
f Quod verbum jussionis peto a meo auditu removeri ; quia scio quis sum
qui estis ; loco enim mihi fratres estis, moribus patres, non ergo jussi, sed quss
tttilia visa sunt, indicare curavi.— (?re£r. L, Ep. vii., ad Eulog. Alex.

EQUALITY OF ALL BISHOPS. 69
Lucifer in his defeated ambition in heaven. " What," says he, *
" wilt thou say to Christ, the Head of the Universal Church, in the
trial of the last judgment, who, by the appellation of Universal,
dost endeavor to subject all his membere to thee ? Whom, I pray,
dost thou mean to imitate in so perverse a word, but him Avho,
despising the legions of angels constituted in fellowship with him,
did endeavor to break forth unto the top of singularity, that he
might both be subject to none, and alone be over all ? Who also
said, I will ascend into heaven, and will exalt my throne above
the stars, — for what are thy brethren, all the bishops of the uni
versal Church, but the stars of heaven, to whom, as yet, by this
haughty word, thou desirest to prefer thyself," and to trample on
their name in comparison to thee ? "
On another occasion, he writes :t " I confidently say that whoso
ever calls himself universal bishop, or desires to be so called, does
in his elation forerun Antichrist, because he proudly places himself
before others."
It cannot be doubted that, in the estimation of Gregory and
the other leading bishops of his day, that no prelate had any
authority from God to be the master of his fellow-bishops ; that
in all fundamental matters the bishops of the Christian world were
on a common platform, notwithstanding the honor conferred by
the bishopric which contained the imperial residence, or the lustre
which surrounded bishops of extraordinary talents or unusual piety.
But the time had now come when these primitive views were to be
buried out of sight, and when the Roman bishops should appear as
the lords of Christ's spiritual heritage, as the masters of the min-

* Tu quid Christo universalis ecclesise Capiti in extremi judicii dicturus
examine, qui cuncta ejus membra tibimet coneris Universalis appellatione
supponere ? Quis rogo in hoc tam perverse vocabulo nisi ille ad imitandum
proponitur, qui despectis angelorum legionibus secum socialiter constitutis ad
culmen conatus est singularitatis erumpere, ut et nuUi subesse, et solus
omnibus praeesse videtur ? Qui etiam dixit. In coelum conscendam, super
astra coeli exaltabo solium meum — quid etiam fratres tui omnes universali's
ecclesise nisi astra cceli sunt ? quibus dum cupis temetipsum vocabulo elationis
prseponere eorumque nomen tui comparatione calcare. — Oreg. Ep. iv. 38.
t Ego autem fidenter dico, quia quisquis se Universalem Sacerdotem vocat ;
vel vocari desiderat, in elatione sua Antichristum prsecurrit quia superbiendo
»e caeteris prseponit. — Oreg. I., Lib. vi. Ep. 30.

70 STEPS TO PAPAL SOVEREIGNTY OVER THE CHURHCES,
isters and doctrines of the whole Church of God in nearly all
Europe.
THE MEANS BY WHICH THE POPE BECAME SOVEREIGN OF ALL
CATHOLIC CHURCHES,
The royal dominion of the popes, in its two grand divisions,
over sovereigns and over the churches, is the wonder of the ages.
Mighty empires were born, reached maturity and perished after
its birth and before its death. It witnessed the last throes of the
government of the Csesars, and it exercised the rights of chief ma
gistracy when the peoples of France, Germany, and England were
almost barbarians. It wielded the sceptre of supreme dominion
in Europe over the little affairs of hearts and homes, and over the
mighty events that convulsed nations, with a grandeur of power
and minuteness of universality never equalled in earthly history.
The thinkers, the statesmen, and often the monarchs, for the
greater part of a thousand years, felt honored by the patronage of
the popes. The dominion of Babylon, of Alexander, the Caesars,
Charlemagne, or of the first Bonaparte, never equalled the kingly
authority of the "Priest enthroned on the Seven Hills." The
method by which this sacerdotal empire was built up and shielded
against the assaults which overthrew other kingdoms not half so
corrupt and tyrannical, has excited astonishment for centuries, and
is a fit subject for wonder in this, the most enlightened period of
human history.
The temporal power of the pontiffs over their own states, and
over kings and governments, is altogether the outgrowth of their
spiritual supremacy over the churches. The rise of the spiritual
usurpation of the popes is the creation of that platform on which
their secular throne was placed.
All great movements among men, wicked and holy, have had
some mighty principle or principles, true or false, which gave
them a firm grasp on the consciences, hearts, or interests of large
numbers. Material instrumentalities, favorable circumstances,
heroism, or the weakness of enemies, may aid liberally in securing
success. But the thoughtful observer will always look for the
great principle which gives birth and vigor to every gigantic
mcvement. Turning away from the pride of the Bishops of Rome

THE CHURCH SUPPOSED TO BE BUILT ON PETER. 71
which led them to covet universal dominion over the churches, the
argument which persuaded the churches to accept the sovereignty
of the popes, was that
Christ had buiU his Church on Peter, and had made him master of
it, by giving him the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.
All the skill, audacity, and struggles of the popes would have
been fruitless without this Scripture, and the supposed authority
with which it invests Peter and his successors. The Saviour's
words are : " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it ; and I
will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; and what
soever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven,"
Matt. xvi. 18. The papal exposition of this saying is : Peter sup
ports the whole Church, and the pope succeeds him in this posi
tion ; by the keys which the pontiff receives as Peter's successor,
he is the ruler of the whole kingdom or Church of God, with
authority to bind or loose whomsoever or whatsoever he will.
This interpretation seemed plausible, and the claim of the
Bishop of Rome, when stubbornly made, a little difficult to resist,
especially as his pretensions were urged in an age totally ignorant
of the divine Word.
At the Council of Chalcedon, this doctrine was prominently
announced /or the first time, by the representatives of Pope Leo the
Great. Dioscoros, Bishop of Alexandria, the President of the
second councii of Ephesus, was the most unpopular man in the
episcopal assembly at Chalcedon. Nearly the entire Church, East
and West, hated him. Pope Leo, for resisting him, was regarded
with enthusiasm. He had given Dioscoros some heavy
blows, and received some keen thrusts in return. Dios
coros excommunicated Leo, pope though he was; and on two
occasions in the Council of Ephesus, he insolently refused
permission for the reading of an eloquent letter of Leo, de
nouncing the heresy of the monk Eutyches. At this council, while
every one was condemning Dioscoros and commending Leo, his
delegates leclared Dioscoros deprived of his dignity by the

72 THE CHURCH SUPPOSED TO BE BUILT ON PETER.
authority of Leo, the most blessed and holy archbishop of the greui
and elder Rome, and in conjunction with : * " The twice bl^e.1
and all honored Peter, who is the rock and bads of the Catholic
Church, and the foundation of the orthodox faith." When these
words were pronounced, they were not used to urge a claim to
any precedency by the bishops of Rome ; they were spoken to give
force to the condemnation of Dioscoros, whom all abhorred, and no
censure was passed upon them. A little later, when the epistle of
Leo was read, the bishops were so charmed with its doctrine that
they exclaimed :t "This is the faith of the fathers; this is the
feith of the apostles. Peter has uttered these words through Leo.
Thus has Cyril taught, the teaching of Leo and Cyril is the same.
Anathema to him who does not thus believe." From the state
ment, " Peter has uttered these words through Leo," it has been
inferred that the prelates at Chalcedon received Peter as the master
of the Church ; as its foundation ; and as the owner of its keys ; and
Leo as the successor of Peter's privileges. But the bishops never
dreamt that Peter was lord of the Church, or that Leo had any
authority outside his own province. All they meant by Peter
speaking through Leo was, that the present Bishop of Rome wrote
the same truths which Peter, the first bishop, published.
No early council so emphatically declares that the dignity of the
Church of old Rome rests only on the fact that it was the imperial
city. X It awarded equal precedency to the Church of New Rome
(Constantinople), { " Reasonably judging that a city which is
honored with the government and senate, should enjoy equal rank
with the andent queen, Rome, and, like her, be magnified in eccle
siastical matters, having the second place after her." Here was
the place to recognize Peter as the rock and keytolder of the
Church, and the pope as his successor. But at Chalcedon, th
pontiff was only respected as the bishop of the old capital of th
world. Leo, in a letter to the lUyrian bishops, asserts the same doc
trines in the strongest terms ; and on the basis of it makes the
most presumptuous claim to supremacy over the churches. He
• Eccl. Hist., Evagrius, book ii. chap. 18. f Id., book ii. chap. 18
X See 28th Canon o' Chalcedon, p. 47.

THE CHURCH SUPPOSED TO BE BUILT ON PETER. 73
says : * " That on him as the successor of the Apostle Peter, on
whom, as the reward of his faith, the Lord had conferred the primacy
of apostolic rank, and on whom he had firmly grounded the universal
Church, was devolved the care of all the churches, to participate
in which, he invited his colleagues, the other bishops."
This fortunate discovery, in the middle of the fifth century, was
destined to revolutionize the churelies, aud the Christian religion.
At first it was rejected even when mildly asserted ; but in process
of time, people became accustomed to it ; the pope's friends, who
were legion, published it all over the West ; the holiest men were
engaged in its advocacy ; those who sustained it were upheld by
Rome in all troubles, and honored by the highest ecclesiastical pre
ferments its bishop could bestow or procure. Finally, St. Peter
became a kind of omnipresent deity, whose head-quarters were
at Rome, where from his tomb he watched with jealous eye and
mighty arm over his successors, and those who befriended them ;
whose all-powerftil protection was stretched over the most distant
priest of Rome, and the poorest devotee who paid any reverence
to the great bishop who lived on the Tiber. Gifts to Rome
became donations to St. Peter. Insults to Rome became wrongs
to St. Peter. The patronage of Rome became the favor of St.
Peter. The protection of Rome became the shield of St. Peter.
And all over Western Christendom the identity of privileges
existing between the departed Peter and the living pope, made
the Roman Bishop the most revered of mortals. In the council
at Whitby, A. d. 664, already noticed, Wilfrid, the Romanist,
addressed Coleman, the anti-papist, and said : f "If that Columba
of yours was a holy man, and powerful in miracles, yet could he
be preferred before the most blessed prince of the apostles to whom
our Lord said: " Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will
build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it, and to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven ?"
* Quia per omnes ecclesias cura nostra distenditur, exigente hoc a nobis
Domino, qui apostolicse dignitatis beatissimo apostolo Petro primatum fldei
suae remuneratione commisit, universalem ecclesiam in fundamento ipsius
soliditate constituens, necessitatem solicitudinis, quam habemus, cum his,
qui nobis collegii caritate juncti sunt, sociamus. — Leo Ep. v. ad Metropoliianot
TUyr. in Neander, ii. p. 170.
t Bede's Eccl. Hist., at a. d. 664

74 THE CHURCH SUPPOSED TO BE BUILT ON PETER.
King Oswy demanded if it were true that Christ had spoken
these words to Peter ? Coleman replied : " It is true, O king,"
Then, says he : " Can you show any such power given to your
Columba ? " " None," Coleman answered. The king immediately
decided against the anti-papists, received the Romanists into favor,
and ordered the pope's observances to be kept throughout his
dominions. And his adversaries found it pleasanter to leave
Oswy's kingdom than to remain in it.
St, Peter became an object of terror throughout the barbarous
nations of Western Europe, through the astonishing fables told
about him by the clerical friends of the Roman Bishop, Law
rence, Archbishop of Canterbury, A. D. 617, was about to leave
Britain on account of the harsh treatment he received from Ead-
bald, the heathen and incestuous King of Kent, On the night
before his departure, there appeared to him "The most blessed
prince of the apostles," who gave him a long and severe scourg
ing, and demanded why he was going to forsake* the flock he
had committed to him, surrounded as they were by wolves?
Next day he told the story to Eadbald, and showed him the
marks of the severe flagellation, Eadbald was greatly alarmed,
no doubt fearing a similar visit, and sorer blows; and imme
diately renounced idolatry and his father's wife, and embraced
the faith of Christ and the fear of Peter, whose successor was
Bishop of Rome.
Pope Vitalian, A. D. 657, in granting a charter for the English
Abbey of Peterborough, added to it these words : f "If any one
break this in anything, may St. Peter exterminate him with his
sword : if any one observe it, may St. Peter, with the keys of
heaven, open for him the kingdom of heaven." Thus was Peter
turned into a demon or a deity, to frighten or favor Christians,
by the adherents of the pontiff.
When Pepin, A. d. 755, reconquered from the Longobards the
territories they had acquired, he declared that he fought for the
" Patrimony of St. Peter," and he had a deed of gift made out
handing over the subjugated region to the Church of Rome ; %

• Matt. Paris, at a. d. 617. t Bede's Anglo-Saxon Chron., at a.d. 667.
X Neander, iii. 122.

PETER ALMOST A DEITY, 75
and this document was placed by his chaplain on the tomb of
St, Peter,
Charlemagne, * the illustrious sovereign and statesman, was
filled with the highest reverence for St. Peter ; and accompanied
by the most distinguished persons iu his empire, he often visited
Rome, and there, where the grave of Peter was shown, he missed
no opportunity of paying the highest honor to the memory of the
prince of tlie apostles.
From England monks * and nuns, ecclesiastics of all ranks,
nobles and kings came to Rome, for the purpose of visiting the
tomb of St. Peter ; that tomb, in the seventh and eighth centu
ries, to the Anglo-Saxons, was the most sacred spot in Europe, or
perhaps in Asia.
St. Peter, with the pope as his successor, became the creator of
papal supremacy over the churches ; he wrote a famous letter to
Pepin, t telling him to come to the aid of his representative, the
pope, with all his forces ; and undoubtedly the letter had great
influence with the superstitious Frank ; he appeared in visions,
encouraging obedience to his vicar, the Roman Bishop, or recom
mending the presentation to him of some costly gift. Under the
standard of St. Peter victory succeeded conquest, until over almost
the entire churches of the West the flag of Simon, that is of
Rome, waved in triumph.
At the Revolution, in 1775, the words floated from every lip :
" No taxation without representation." This declaration involved
the great principle which tore the colonies from the mother coun
try, and banded the energies and forces of American patriots on
every battle-field. What that cry was to the heroes who defended
our freedom, the words of Jesus about the rock on which he
should build his Church, about his gift of the keys, and the
power of binding and loosing to Peter, were to the popes. It
gathered nearly all the churches and peoples of the West into
their fold.
This passage gives Peter no power not enjoyed by his br oilier Apostles.
The Saviour's words to Peter, by a candid interpretation, show
* Neander, iii. 118-20. f Bower's Lives of the Popes, vol. ii. 105.

76 PETER NOT THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH.
that Peter was not the rock ; that the rock was his confession.
The Greek word Petros, or Peter, is not the word translated rock :
that word is petra. It is very manifest, that if the Saviour meant
Peter to be known as the rock upon which he was about to build
his Church, that he would have said : " Thou art Petros, and upon
this Petros {pv d rcitpoi, xai iTti Totif(^ t^ 7iitp(f) I will buiid my
Church." But instead of that, he says : " Thou art Petros, and
upon this petra Q'^i tavtv; trj Hetpa) I will build my Church."
Petra is a Greek noun in the. feminine gender ; the pronoun " this,"
iu the Greek text, is in the feminine gender, agreeing with the
gender of the noun petra ; Petros, or Peter, is in the masculine
gender. Petra then MUST refer to something different from Peter.
There would have been Petros on two occasions in this verse,
mstead of Petros and petra, if Peter had been the rook. Besides,
Petros is a stone, a movable stone ; petra is a rock, a mass of
rocks, a cliff. The one, such a stone as a maid-servant in the
hall of judgment might upset ; the other the Rock of Ages — the
confession that Peter made that Christ was the Son of the living
God, And this view was entertained by the most eminent fathers.
Says St, Augustiue : * " The Church does not fall, because it is
founded on the rock from which Peter received his name. For
the rook is not called after Peter, but Peter is so called aftei- the
rock : just as Christ is not so denominated after the Christian, but
the Christian after Christ ; for it is on this account our Lord de
clares, ' on this rock I will found my Church,' because Peter had
said: ' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' On this
rock which thou hast confessed, he declares, ' I will build my
Church ;' for Christ was the rock on whose foundation Peter him
self was built."
Chrysostom held the same opinion about this passage. He says :*
* Ecclesia non cadit, quoniam fundata est super petram, unde Petrus
nomen accepit. Non enim a Petro petra, sed Petrus a petra ; sicut iLon
Christus a Christiano, sed Christianus a Christo vocatur. Ideo quippe ait
Dominus, Super banc petram sediflcabo ecclesiam meam, quia dixerat Petrus :
Tu es Christus, Filius Dei vivi. Super hanc ergo petram, quam confessis
sedificabo ecclesiam meam. Petra enim erat Christus super quod fundamen-
tum etiam ipse aediflcatus est Petius.—Traetat. 124, § 5.
* t'fj TTETpa . . . tovteatif tfj rttff'S'st tijs o/to>,oytaj. — Chrysos. in Matt.
^vi. 18.

PETER AND THE KEYS. 77
" Upon the rock, that is, upon the faith of his confession," and
agam : * " Christ says that he would build his Church upon Peter's
confession." Theodore says : f " Our Lord permitted the first of the apostles,
whose confesdon he fixed as a prop or foundation of the Church, to
be shaken."
The same xiesv of this Scripture was taken by other leading
fathers of the Church. And, outside of Rome, for the first five
centuries of our era, no Christian father of any note dreamt that
this saying gave Peter the sovereignty of the Church.
The Rock on which the Church was built was not Petros
(Peter) but petra, the Rock of Ages, the Divine Son.
The Keys.
Romanists, by the keys, sometimes understand Peter's power to
Dpen heaven for whom he will, and to close it against his enemies ;
and sometimes the absolute mastery which the Saviour gave him,
as they suppose, over his Church, As the keys of a house confer
upon a man the control of that structure, so the keys of the kingdom
of heaven, given to Peter, it is believed, gave him complete lord
ship over the Church.
The kingdom of heaven in Matt. xvi. 18, is undoubtedly the
gospel dispensation, as it is in Matt. iii. 2 ; iv. 17 ; x. 7, and else
where. And the keys of Peter conferred a special honor on him,
but no particular power. The gospel kingdom was never properly
established till the ascension of Jesus, and his occupancy of the
mediatorial throne, and the descent of the mighty Comforter. And
when this Comforter comes down in the majesty of regenerating
power for the first time, on the day of Pentecost, Peter is the
preacher, and Cephas, with his keys of grace, opens the heavenly
kingdom to all Israel, and to the assembled Jews of many lands,
tliree thousand of whom are converted.
And when the kingdom of heaven is to be opened to the Gentile
* triv ixxXrjalav f^njffsv irti tijv o^oXoyia/v oixoSofitjaciv tfjv ixtivov.^
Chrysos. in John i. 50.
y aTiomoXiav tov rtputtov ov tvjv i^oTMyiwp otav tiva xpTjTiiSa, xat. OefiiXtot
trji ixxXri<Si,ai x'vtiytij^e 'I'l/t j;upijff £ aaXcv9^vai. — Theod. Ep. 77,

78 PETER BINDING AND LOOSING,
nations, Peter is assigned the post of honor, Cornelius, by dii-ec-
tion of Heaven, sends for Peter ; by the same high authority, Peter
is admonished to go to the house of the centurion, and there he
preaches to its Gentile inmates, and they are born into the king
dom of Jesus, the first gospel converts from heathen nations. As
Adoniram Judson opened the heavenly kingdom to the Burmese,
Peter opened it to Jews and Gentiles. And after this labor, whicl"
conferred on him an immortality of honor, was over, the work
of Peter's keys was ended. The promised keys gave Peter no
jurisdiction, no authority over the Church.
The Binding and Loodng.
Peter received undoubted power through the promise : " What
soever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Peter had the loan of the all-pierdng eye of the Divine Spirit to
see facts, truth, and error, and states of soul, as no man but an
apo.stle ever had in the same omniscient fullness. Hence, when
Ananias came before him, he could tell the covetous hypocrite his
hidden sin, through divine inspiration. So much was he possessed
of the Spirit of God, that the falsehood Ananias addressed to him
appeared to be " a lie, not unto man, but unto God." Since the
days of the apostles, the power to write Scripture, to possess a
supernatural knowledge of facts, or to discern the condition of the
soul, so as to know if it was truly penitent, and if so, or if not so,
to assure it that its sins were bound on it in heaven, or loosed
from it by the great Saviour's loving hands, has not existed in any
mortal. The power of binding and loosing was common to all the
apostles. The Saviour says to them, Matt, xviii. 18 : " Verily I
ay unto you. Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in
heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in
heaven." Peter had no privilege above his brother apostles. His
rights and powers were the same as theirs.
The saying of Jesus to Peter, " I have prayed for thee that thy
faith fail not," has been quoted by popes on various occasions as
evidence that Peter was above his apostolic brethren. It furnishes
testimony only that Peter might be sifted as wheat by the wicked

THE APOSTLES IGNORANT OF PETER's SUPREMACY. 79
one, and that he needed the Saviour's intercession to keep him
from showing the most disgraceful infirmities of the human heart.
Anyhow, these words have no more to do Avith the pope than the
other words of Jesus to Peter : " This night, before the cock crow,
thou shalt deny me thrice."
The commands of Jesus, to feed his lambs, aud to feed his sheep,
have been urged repeatedly to prove that Peter was pastor of the
Church universal, or head of the whole Chm-ch. The words
convey no such meaning. Peter was a teacher of the gospel ; and,
evidently as a rebuke to him for past denials, the Master asks him
three times if he loves him. Peter is grieved by the question, and
forthwith he receives the command to feed the lambs and sheep of
Jesus. " Peter," says Jesus, " if you love me, be faithful in your
calling, and feed my flock, young and old." It seems absurd in
the extreme to gather papal sovereignty over the churches from
such commands. Besides, Peter, not the pope, is addressed.
The Apostles were ignorant of Peter's Authority over them.
When the apostles at Jerasalem heard that Samaria had received
the word of God, they " sent unto them Peter and John " (Acts
viii. 14) to confirm them. Surely, Peter is not the prince of the
apostles, sent on a mission by his subjects. After the celebrated
council held at Jerusalem, a letter is sent to the Christians of Gen
tile antecedents in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia ; and the letter
comes from " the apostles, and elders, and brethren."" Acts xv. 23.
Now, Peter was among the apostles sending this letter ; but there is
not a word about him showing that he was not on an equality with
his brethren. If the papal theory is correct, the letter ought to
have come from, " Pope Peter, the apo.stles, elders, and brethren."
When deacons were to be elected. Pope Peter has no more to do
with the business than his brethren. It is said (Acts vi. 2) : " Then
the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them," and
gave them instructions to choose seven deacons. Paul says :
" For in nothing am I behind the very chief est apostles." 2 Cor
xii. 11. Surely, then, he could have no ecclesiastical superior, or
his inspired words are false. And at AntiocJi, Peter acts like one
onworthy of his Master, and Paul rebukes him, as he would have

80 PETER HAS NO SUCCESSOR.
admonished Timothy or Philemon, "And he vnthstood him to the
face, for he was to be blamed." Gal. ii. 11. Undoubtedly, Poter
had not yet learned his own infallibility ; and Paul was totally
unconscious of Peter's elevation to the sovereignty of the apostles
and of the Church. And the whole Scriptures are ignorant of
this lordship of Peter over Christ's family. It is destitute of
Biblical warrant ; it has, therefore, no claim to Divine authority.
Peter has no successor as Prince of the Apostles.
It is difficult to succeed one in an office which he never filled,
and which never existed.
Peter had no successor as an Apostle.
Peter himself took an active part in the choice of a successor to
the apostle Judas, an account of which is given in the first chapter
of The Acts. Matthias was elected to the place vacated by the
traitor. No successor was ever appointed to any other departed
apostle. There could not have been a successor to the apostles, according
to Peter, after the companions of Jesus died.
In describing the qualifications of a successor to Judas, he says :
" Wherefore of these men who have companied vnth us all the
time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from
the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from
us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection."
Acts i. 21, 22.
The chief business of an apostle was to be an eye-witness of and
for Christ, and especially of his resurrection. To this end, accord
ing to Peter, he must have been vnth Jesus from his baptism to his
ascendon. And as the class of favored men who enjoyed this dis
tinction left the world soon after their Master, earth soon lost the
entire materials out of which (if Peter was not mistaken) successors
to the apostles could be made.
There was an unlovely office, the duties of which, on one occa
sion, Peter discharged with great earnestness — the office of blas
phemer. When he denied his Master, Mark says : " But he began
to curse and to swear, I know not the man." Mark xiv. 71.

STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE C!HURCHES. 81
The word translated curse is "anathematize" (aiuflf/iaftfttV), the
very word used at the end of every canon of the Council of Trent.
That council made 126 canons aud five decrees on original sin, in
the form of canons, without the name, and each decree and canon
is followed by Peter's curse, even Peter's word, transferred into
Latin, is used {anathema dt).
The last words uttered in the Council of Trent by its bishops
were a response to the Cardinal of Lorraine, who exclaimed : "A
curse upon all heretics " (anathema cunctis Iweretids), and immedi
ately the bishops replied : " Let them be accursed, let them be
accursed " {anathema, anathema). Peter's word, when he wished to
give solemnity and credibility to his denial of Jesus, was the last
word uttered in the Coundl of Trent by its episcopal members.*
If the succession to Peter fails in some things, it can be stoutly
maintained in reference to Curdng, by the testimony of every papal
canon published for many centuries.
Universal Bishop.
This title had been denounced by Gregory the Great with scorn
and horror when given to the Patriarch of Constantinople. Never
theless, Boniface, A. d. 609, according to Matthew Paris, solicited
it from the emperor. Phocas, at the time, sat on the throne of
Constantinople. This monarch was diminutive and deformed,
with shaggy eyebrows,t red hair, a beardless chin, and a cheek
disfigured and discolored by a formidable scar. He was qidte
illiterate, and totally destitute of that culture and capacity which
would fit him for his imperial station. In his moral deficiencies,
he was remarkable for drunkenness, lewdness, and other brutal
pleasures. From the rank of a centurion, at a bound, he ascended
the throne of the Csesars. He had Maurice, his predecessor, and
his five sons, dragged forth from the church at Chalcedon, in which
they had taken refuge ; the sons were slain before the eyes of their
father, and then he was dispatched. Their bodies were thrown
* Cancnes et Decreta Goncilii Tridentini. — Acclam. Patr. 8ess. xxv. p. 208.
Lipsiae, 1863.
t Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. iv. pp. 356, 357. New York ed.,
¦ 822. 6

82 STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES.
into the sea, and their heads exposed at Constantinople. A little
later, Theodosius, another son, was butchered by his order at Nice,
Constantina, the wife of Maurice, was respected as among the
purest and noblest of living women; she had three daughters, who
were held in the highest esteem. These ladies were seized by
command of Phocas, and beheaded at Chalcedon, on the same
ground where the father and his sons perished.
Other enemies of Phocas had their eyes pierced, their tongues
torn out, their hands and feet cut off, or their bodies transfixed
with arrows ; or they were scourged to death ; or they were con
sumed to ashes. The hippodrome was ghastly with human heads
and limbs, and mangled bodies. A baser wretch never stained a
throne, or invited the vengeance of Heaven.
Gregory the Great wrote to Phocas on his accession to the
throne, extending his congratulations in terms of unusual delight,
saying : * " What thanks are we not bound to return to the Al
mighty who has, at last, been pleased to deliver us from the yoke
of slavery " (the mild government of the good Maurice), " and to
make us again enjoy liberty under your empire ! " He says : " It
has pleased the Almighty, in his goodness and mercy, to place vou
on the throne." Truly there is cause for astonishment in reading
these and kindred sayings of large-hearted old Gregory, commend
ing and glorifying a man who carried as many execrations as any
wretch that ever cursed his race.
Matthew Paris says that, f "At the request of Boniface, Phocas
decreed that the Roman Church should be head and mistress of all
churches ; for, in times past, the Church of Constantinople had
styled herself the chief of all churches," Phocas repealed the law
bestowing the title of universal bishop on the patriarch of New
Rome ; and he gave that title, with all its privileges, to Boniface,{
The pope assumed it with joy, and resolved to test its worth
immediately, by exercising the powers it conferred. He forthwith
called a council,! which met in Rome, consisting of 72 bishops and
some inferior clergy, in which he acted as if he was monarch of
the whole Church, By a decree which he issued in that Council,
• Bower's "History of the Popes," vol. i. p. 420.
+ At A Ti. 611. X Bower's " History of-the Popes," vol. i. p. 426,

STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES. 83
it was declared, pronounced, and defined, that no election of a
bishop should henceforth be lawful unless made by the people and
clergy, and approved by the prince, aud confirmed by the pope in
terposing his authority in the following terms : * " We mil and
command " {volumus et jubemus). Thus the imperial power in
vested with its high sanctions tlie claims of the Roman bishops to
universal supremacy over the churches. Phocas, the basest of
usurpers and murderers, anointed Boniface as sovereign of Christ's
entire kingdom. The imperial decree, coupled with the supposed
saying of Jesus, that he built liis Church on Peter, seemed to fur
nish all needed authority, mundane and celestial, for the lordly,
spiritual empire of Peter's successors. And these two considera
tions did give immense aid to the erection of the spiritual tyranny
of the popes.
Mohammedan Victories over the Eastern Empire and Churches.
If the churches of the East had retained their old numbers and
importance, they woidd have fought Rome for equality, with the
proudest of her bishops, till the blasts of the last trumpet were
heard, or the death-knell of superstition was sounded. But help
came from strange quarters to the Bishops of Rome.
In the seventh century the warlike followers of the False Pro
phet conquered all Arabia, and passed like a whirlwind over the
famous countries and cities of the East. Palestine fell, and its
holy city became the prey of the victorious Omar ; and the site of
Solomon's temple fiirnished the ground for his mosque.
Damascus yielded to the far-famed Khaled; and all Syria
submitted to the Moslem yoke. Antioch, whose patriarch proudly
traced his descent from Peter, was forced to wear the chains of
Islam. Egypt was snatched from her Christian Emperors. Alex
andria, after a siege of fourteen months, surrendered to the Sara
cens under the fiery Amrou, giving up four thousand palaces, four
thousand baths, four hundred theatres, twelve thousand stores for
the sale of vegetable food, and an incalculable amount of wealth.
In ten years of Omar's administration, the Saracens captured
thirty-six thousand cities, and four thousand churches. In a hun-
• Bower's " History of the Popes," vol. i. p. 426.

84 STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES.
dred years after the prophet set up his oracle at Medina, his fol
lowers had seized Persia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, and Spain. And
they imperilled the independence of France and Italy. But in
the East everything Christian either perished at their approach,
or became palsied and panic stricken. In a few years millions of
Christians died in their fierce wars ; and other millions became
slaves, proselytes, or martyrs.
The tide of Christian progress in the East was rolled back
ward, and has flowed in that direction ever since. Two centuries
after Mohammed, Christians were distinguished from their Moslem
neighbors by a turban, or a girdle of a less honorable color;
instead of horses or mules they must ride on asses in the attitude
of women ; their houses must be smaller ; on all public occasions
they must bow to the meanest follower of the Prophet ; their tes
timony before a magistrate could not be taken against one of the
faithful. They must ring no bells to invite the followers of Jesua
to his house. They must make no converts. Nor may they
hinder as many as please from deserting to the fold of Mecca.
The Greek Emperors were reduced to comparative helplessness ;
army after army of the faithful had laid siege to Constantinople, and
only its strong walls and Greek fire preserved it from the Moham
medan whirlwind of victory that threatened to sweep the empire of
the Csesars out of existence ; and it appeared for a time not unlikely
to achieve the conquest of the world. The Greeks would cheerfiilly
have ransomed with gold their church and country from these ruth
less conquerors ; a price, which the old Romans, whose name they
proudly bore, or the ancient Macedonians, with whom some of
them claimed kindred, would have perished rather than have paid ;
but the Arabians, on more than one occasion, rejected the cowardly
bribe. In the time of Irene, however, Harun encamped on the
heights of Scutari with an army one hundred thousand strong,
and so terrified were the sovereign and people, that it was agreed
to pay an annual tribute of 70,000 dinars of gold for the absence
of these terrible strangers, and the possession of a temporary
peace. The old and eminent patriarchates of Jerusalem, Antioch, and
Alexandria were almost annihilated. The see of Constantinople
wa= tottering on the brink of ruin. The Emperor of the East

STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES, 85
distinctly perceived that his days were numbered, and that he was
powerless to maintain either the temporal or spiritual supremacy
of the countries and cities immediately surrounding his throne.
All rivalry to the pope was at an end. Ancient episcopal
claimants to co-ordinate jurisdiction were begging his help, and
though not willing to recognize his pretensions, had no heart for
controversy ; and stripped of their wealth, and robbed by death,
or the Koran, of a large portion of their flocks, would only have
been subjects of ridicule if they had.
At this very time the Roman Bishop stood forth, the owner of
immense estates in all parts of Italy; controlling the greatest
resources of any man in the Eternal City. As the government of
the Emperor became feeble, and his Italian exarch either fled
from Ravenna, or wielded an impotent sword from that ancient
city over the western territories of the Csesars, the pope became
the acknowledged head of old Rome; its natural chieftain to
whom its people looked up for counsel in civil things, at first, and
whom they subsequently obeyed as their sovereign. So that the
ruins of the eastern chm'ches, and of the empire east and west,
largely tended to glorify the vicars of Peter, as for centuries they
loved to be called. Papal Missions.
No church, ancient or modern, perfect or defective, has a nobler
missionary record than the church of the popes. Gregory the
Great saw in Rome some boys exposed for sale ; their bodies were
white, their countenances beautiful, and their hair very fine. He
inquired about their religion, and was grieved to find that they
were pagans. He asked about their nation, and on learning
they were Angles : " Right," * he replied, " for they have
an angelic face, and it becomes such to be co-heirs with the
angels in heaven." He asked about the province fi-om which
they came. He was answered, that " The natives of that province
were called Deiri." " Truly are they De ira," said he, " withdrawn
from wrath, and called to the mercy of Christ." And from that
time Gregory felt a strong desire to see the Anglo-Saxons under
the gospel yoke. • Bede's Eccl. Hist., book ii. chap. 1.

86 STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES.
Ethelbert, the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kings, was
married to Bertha, a French princess, and a Christian. She
enjoyed the free exercise of her religion, and the instructions of a
bishop who came with her. Gregory took advantage of this
circumstance to send Augustine, a Roman abbot, in A. D, 596, to
Ethelbert to preach the gospel to him and his people. Forty
monks accompanied the missionary. After starting on his jour
ney he began to reflect upon the character of the barbarous people
among whom he was going to labor, and of whose very language
he was ignorant ; and possessing but little of the material out
of which martyrs are made he became discouraged, if not terrified,
by the prospect before him ; and he returned to Rome. Gregory
persuaded him again to go to the heathen islanders. The second
time he persevered until he reached Britain. He landed on the
Isle of Thanet, where he remained for some time. Then he and
his associates were permitted to locate in Canterbury, the capital
of Ethelbert's kingdom of Kent, A dilapidated church, dedicated
to St, Martin, existing from the times of the Romans, furnished
them their first temple in Canterbury, In process of time Ethel
bert was converted; others followed his example, though he
publicly proclaimed universal freedom of conscience. The work
prospered in Augustine's hands so extensively, that, during one
Christmas he baptized more than ten thousand. Canterbury was
made the ecclesiastical capital of England, because London,
though much larger, was in the hands of Pagans. Gregory
not only made Augustine Archbishop of Canterbury, but he
sent him " copies of the sacred Scriptures,* relics to be used in
consecrating new churches, ecclesiastical vessels;" and some
lengthy and curious answers to certain questions Augustiue
proposed. The labors of Augustine were attended by the most remarkable
results, even in his lifetime, though he died A, D. 605, And after
his death, his companions and followers spread over all England,
and never rested until the cross was planted on every hill, and
gave its protection to every valley, and stood, in his own home,
before the eye of every Angle, Jute, and Saxon in Britain, as a

¦ Neander, iii. 15.

STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES. 87
dearer emblem than the image of Thor or Woden ; as the most
sacred treasure under the skies.
The island thus converted, added largely to the numerical
strength of the Papal Church ; and in tliree or four centuries,
became not only a large centre of population, but a powerful
kingdom. All the churches of the Anglo-Saxons were bound to Rome by
the strongest ties. They admitted her supremacy, obeyed her
edicts, and vastly increased her glory among the nations, and her
supremacy over the churches.
The Conversion of the Germans.
An Anglo-Saxon, named Winfrid, bom at Kirton in Devon
shire, and educated in the convents of Exeter and Nutescelle, was
the apostle of Germany, He is best known as Boniface, Win
frid was a man of great courage, untiring perseverance, consider
able mind, and extreme credulity.
He greatly loved the Scriptures ;* and in his German home often
sent for them from the land of his birth, with expositions of them,
distinctly written, on account of his weak eyes. He requested an
abbess, who was accustomed to send him clothes and books from
England, to procure him a copy of Peter's epistles, written with
gilt letters, for his use in preaching. He regarded himself as the
missionary of St. Peter, whose successor* had sent the gospel to
his fathers, and in all his labors he felt called upon to pay peculiai
honor to that apostle.
He was set apart to preach in Germany, by Gregory II, at
Rome, A, D, 718, and after twenty-one years' labor he had baptized
100,000 converts, German forests had rung with his honest fer
vor ; by German rivers listening multidudes had learned the ctoss
fi'om his glowing representations.
At Geismer, in Upper Hesse, grew a gigantic oak, sacred to
mighty Thor, the god of thimder ; this tree was reverenced with
the most profound awe by the population far and near ; to it the
whole people frequently came, on solemn occasions, Winfrid saw
* Neander, iii. 52.

88 STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES.
in it a great enemy to his Master and to his own mission, and at
all hazards he resolved to destroy it. Boniface and his friends
came to the sacred oak armed with a formidable axe, the pagans
gathered in terror to watch the scene ; they expected that Thor
would destroy the impious wretches the moment the first stroke
was given ; but the huge tree was cut down and divided into four
parts, before their eyes, without miracle or accident ; and Thor and
his system fell with it. This remarkable man lived to carry the
cross over as wide a field as ever was planted by the Christian
enterprise of one person, and he died in Friesland, in his seventy-
fifth year, A. d. 755, by the hands of pagan persecutors, where he
had recently baptized thousands, and founded many churches.
He was a man of spotless purity of life, and he urged the same
godliness upon others. Few nobler appeals against an unholy life
were ever made than his letter to Ethelbald, an Anglo-Saxon king,
in which he shows him that even the heathen Saxons in Germany
spurned such crimes as his with horror. William of Malmsbury
honors his country by preserving the document.*
He was the slave of the popes ; brought up from childhood to
revere them, he felt bound in conscience to obey them in everything;
had it not been for that, Winfrid would have been equally great
as a missionary, and free from all religious mistakes. This error
made him oppose and even persecute the British and Scotch mission
aries in Germany. And it made him bind his German church hand
and foot, and deliver it over to the Bishop of Rome, to be ruled,
taught, or kept in ignorance, in coming time, at his pleasure.
The mighty work commenced by Boniface was carried on by
succeeding hands till Germany was placed under the spiritual
supremacy of the pontiffs. Germany and England, both the fruits
of Augustine's mission at Canterbury, gave the largest contribu
tion to papal supremacy ever presented on two occasions, to the
vicars of Peter. Men of similar principles and labors led the
Scandinavians and others to the cross, and bound them firmly to
the spiritual sovereignty of the pope. Through missions, the
Roman bishop received his most obedient subjects, and the great
est number of them, • English Chronicle, book i. chap. 4.

STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY' OVER THE CHURCH ES. 89
Papal interference in the troubles of Bishops.
This was another stream which aided to swell the mighty cur
rent of papal supremacy over the churches. Every bishop in dis
grace with his sovereign, or his archbishop, or his synod of bisho|is,
naturally looked out for a friend who was able to help him. The
influence of so great a bishop as the pope would be of advantage
to any troubled prelate ; and nearly every unhappy bishop appealed
to his brother in the Eternal City. With an utter indifference to
annoyance and responsibility, the pontiff was ready to examine
every application, and with a peculiarity which became generally
known, more commonly than otherwise, decided in favor of the
first applicant ; and as these appeals became exceedingly numerous,
and as the befriended bishops natm-ally magnified the wisdom and
authorityof the judge who had justified them, the Bishop of Rome
increased in spiritual power immensely.
Papal intermeddling with the troubles of Kings.
This became a common practice of the pontiffs, and one which
tended largely to advance their priestly authority. In France, in
the eighth century, the descendants of the warlike Clovis lived in
a palace near Compiegne, the nominal sovereigns of the Franks ;
they wielded no power over the nation, and they enjoyed no respect;
once a year they were conducted in a wagon drawn by oxen to the
assembly of the Franks, to give audience to foreign ambassadors,
and to ratify the acts of the mayor of the palace ; that officer was
the master of the king, and the head of the nation. But he wished
the nominal monarch to be deposed, and the title as well as tho
functions of royalty to be conferred upon himself. Childeric, as
king, had received oaths of loyalty from his leading subjects, and
in that age an oath still meant something. Pepin saw no way of
reaching the throne except through the authority of St. Peter and
his successor. He applied to Pope Zachary ; his holiness decided
that Childeric should be degraded, shaved,* and confined for life in
a monastery, and that the throne might be given to Pepin. The
French were pleased ; Pepin and his family were delighted, and

• Gibbon's " Decline and Fall," vol. v. p. 28. Boston, 1854.

90 STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES,
any number of advantages accrued from this decision to the bishops
of Rome.
Pepin twice crossed into Italy and inflicted such chastisements
upon the Lombards as freed the Roman bishops from all appre
hensions from them. And the French sovereign generously gave
to the pope the exarchate of Ravenna, " the limits of which were
included in the territories of Ravenna, Bologna, and Ferrara:
Pentapolis was its inseparable dependency, which stretched along
the Adriatic from Rimini to Ancona, and advanced into the coun
try as far as the ridges of the Apennine." * And the pope
became a king with all the rights of royalty. Charlemagne
confirmed and increased the grants of his father Pepin. The
popes stood before the world as the favorites of Pepin and Charle
magne, the two most illustrious statesmen and successful warriors
in the Christian world. Frankish bishops, with ideas of church
liberty such as were common two centuries before, were compelled to
acquiesce in the supremacy of the pontiffs. Irish bishops and
churches in Germany must not utter their protests against papal
supremacy very loudly, or they shall be driven from Charlemagne's
empire. All encouragement must be given to Boniface in extending
the borders of the Church in that country, and in chaining it to
St. Peter's chair. This one act of interference actually placed at the
service of St. Peter's vicar, the greatest influences and powers of
the age ; and it gave a force to the spiritual supremacy of the
popes, which for a time cleared its path of opposition. Similar
interferences often produced results of the same character, if not
reaching quite as lofty a standard. The Childerics pine in un
sought convents, and the popes are made secular sovereigns, and
spiritual despots, as the wages of injustice.
The Pallium.
This garment has played its part in the drama of spiritual
supremacy. It is composed of a long strip of fine woollen cloth,
ornamented with crosses, the middlef of which was formed into a
• Gibbon's " Decline and Fall," vol. v. p. 38. Boston, 1854.
t Bede. Bohn's ed., p. 45, note.

STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES. 91
loose collar resting on the shoulda-s, wliile the extremities before
and behind hung down nearly to the feet. It was conferred at
first by the Bishops of Rome * on their special representatives
{apostolids vicariis) among the bishops, or on the primates. Its
object was apparently to show favor to some choice friend, when first
conferred ; but it came in time to be an indispensable title to the
episcopal office.
Pope Boniface sends the pallium to Justus, Archbishop of
Canterbury, telling him in an accompanying letter that " He only
gives him leave to use it in the celebration of the sacred mysteries." f
Pope Honorius sent it to Paulinus, A. D. 634,| meaning thereby
that he was Archbishop of the Northumbrians. For a long
interval, the Archbishops of York received no pallium or pall,
Paris says : " In the yeai- of our Lord 745, Egbert, Archbishop
of York, laudably recovered the pall which had been omitted to
be received by eight bishops." §
Offe, King of the Mercians, having quarrelled with the people of
Kent, tried to deprive Jainbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, of the
primacy; and to accomplish this he sent messengers to Pope
Adrian, || to persuade him to confer the pall on the Bishop of
Lichfield, and make all his bishops subject to that prelate. From
which statement it is evident, that at that time, the pall was a
bishop's title to rule his brethren. It was equally needful to
ordain them, Du Pin quotes a letter of Pope John VIII., con
demning the metropolitans of France for consecrating bishops
before they received If the pall from the Holy See,
The pall was given to archbishops from the fifth century: from
the eighth it began ** to be given to metropolitans. At first it
was a mere ornament, and a token of papal regard ; a ribbon of
the papal " Legion of Honor." But in time it became a custom,
strong as law, that no metropolitan could perform any ecclesiastical
fvmction without it. And as the pope might give it or not as he
pleased, he acquired unlimited control over the whole episcopacy
• Neander, iii. 119, note. t Bede's Church History, book ii. chap. 9.
X Id., book ii. chap. 17. § Anglo-Saxon Chron., at a. d. 748.
1 Paris, A. D. 767. 1 Vol. ii. 145.
»* "The Pope and Council," by Janus, p. 136. Boston, 1S70.

92 STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES.
and priesthood, in part, by this article. In the fifteenth century *
German archbishops had to pay about $8000 for this precious
badge of slavery. Purgatory.
As faith in this doctrine became prevalent, from the end of the
seventh century onward, the power of the clergy in general grew
at an alarming rate. Men who could add a thousand or ten
thousand centuries to your torments by a word ; who could keep
your mother, wife, or child as long as they pleased, or only for a
moment, in raging flames, were not to be treated as other men,
who could only hurt the body. As the existence of these purify
ing torments seized the minds of men, they left money for masses
for the repose of their souls ; they were filled with unspeakable
terror in prospect of death; real estate in lai-ge quantities was
given to the Church to modify the pains and abridge tlie duration
of the torments of purgatory. So lucrative had purgatoiy become
that at one time, says Hallam, " nearly half the land f in England
belonged to the Church ; " and what was true of Britain may be
asserted of the continent of Europe. The Church became the
greatest landlord in the world ; and with the prestige of enormous
wealth, nothing could resist her.
The Roman bishop stood at the head of all the masters of purga
tory ; he, above all others, could give relief or continue pain, and
it became of the very highest importance to cultivate his good
will ; and not to thwart his wishes ; in short, to let him have su
premacy everywhere. Dying kings, expiring statesmen, departing
millionaires, and men of influence, alarmed for their souls, were
ready to make any sacrifice ; they were willing to concede any
thing to his Holiness for a cool and speedy passage through
Hades, While to the living, and ambitious, or covetous, the pope
was the chief officer of the richest corporation of all time, whose
fertile acres, great abbeys, gorgeous cathedrals, jewelled Madonnas
and mitres, and ever expanding wealth, ma-de her first priest a
man of infinite importance to conciliate. In this way, purgatory
* " The Pope and Council," by Janus, p. 137. Boston 1870.
t Hallam's "Middle Ages," vol. i. chap. 7.

.VI KPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES. 93
labored to give the pope that which he desired most, unlimited
authority over the churches.
The Benefits confen'ed by the Popes.
The bishops of Rome had two ciiaunels for making their
influence felt over the churches ; the clergy, and the monks.
Through the priests, for a long time, the popes showed themselves
kind fathers of the great masses of the people. In ages when the
serf, and the mechanic, and the merchant were of no more im
portance than stubble, and the chieftain was a dignitary almost
worthy of Divine honors, the Church took some honest son of
poverty and toU, and made him a bishop, a baron, the equal of the
proudest thanes of a kingdom. And in facts of this kind, the
priests appeared as the greatest friends of the lowly.
In times of oppression, the churches, and frequently the ceme
teries, were sanctuaries where the terrified fugitive might defy tha
constable, the court, or the king. The tortured slave could not
be tom from the church by his angry master, until assurances
were given that he should not be beaten on his return to hia
home. Frequently, when fierce kings were about to drag their iuno
cent vassals to fields of slaughter, a priestly representative of the
Roman Bishop would soothe their resentments, and sheathe their
swords. And often, when armies were drawn up in battle array,
papal delegates went from king to king, until a truce was settled,
and the soldiers disbanded.
The Bishops of Rome showed the greatest hostility to human
slavery, and for many centuries wielded a vast influence to uproot
the institution where it existed, and to mitigate its barbarities
when its destruction was not possible.
Through the monks of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries,
and, in some instances, later still, the popes were the benefactors
of the nations. These men were directly dependent on the pontiffs,
and their labors reflected credit or dishonor upon their commander-
in-chief in the Eternal City, They were the schoolmasters of
Europe for centuries, and they turned out some disciples of whom
the world is still proud. They wrote the histories of Europe

9 1 STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES.
for ages. Their literary performances are treasures which we
cannot spare, in which the cultivated reader has special pleasure.
These men manufactured all the boolis of the old world for centu
ries. In their humble cells they composed them, and then they
multiplied copies with the pen, until the largest works were acces
sible to all who could read, or cared to use them. And the
writing of those books was often done with a taste and splendor
which can scarcely be imitated by all the skill and mechanism of
the 19th century. A volume of fac-similes of capital letters, made
by these old monks, lies before me ; and any thing more exqui
sitely beautifiil, more superbly grand, in design and coloring, could
not be conceived. A few of these letters are six and eight inches
long ; sometimes, they are gilt ; more frequently, they are painted.
Flowers of gorgeous colors, perfect butterflies, glorious angels,
saintly priests, and venerable bishops appear in these letters. The
originals enrich museums, of which these are but pictures.
Monies made myriads of copies of the word of God ; from their
pen and bindery, it went forth to gladden the eyes and rejoice the
souls of millions.
The monk threshed his wheat, plowed his fields, performed a
list of religious duties every day, and, from the seventh to the
tenth century, was the instructor of his neighbors, not only in
letters from the alphabet up, but in the best modes of farming,
and in the use of the latest mechanical inventions.
The convent fiirnished meals and lodging to every traveller, as is
still done by monasteries in Palestine; it supplied the wants
of the poor for many miles around. It rendered needless the
hotel and the almshouse, the scourge of hunger, and the heavy
poor tax.
Bede, in the Convent of Yarrow, was a highly-favored monk, in
the light of science and learning, and in the grace of God,
Malmsbury says that his abbot, Benedict, " was the first person
who introduced constructors of stone edifices into England, as well as
makers of glass windows," He quotes Bede as stating : * " I have
given my whole attention to the study of the Scriptures, and amid the
observance of my regular discipline, and my daily duty of singing

? William of Malmsbury's English Chronicle, book i. chap. 8.

STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES. 96
in the chxirch, I have ever delighted to learn, to teach, or to
write." This monk wrote seventy-six books, and sent them
abroad in thirty-six volumes. He translated the Gospel of John
into English for the benefit of his friends who did not understand
Latin. He was constantly engaged in teaching. A more
blameless, active, and useful life has seldom been given to men
than his.
When he came near death, " I desire to be dissolved," he says,
" and to be with Christ ; I have not passed my life among you in
such a manner as to be ashamed to live ; neither do I fear to die,
because we have a kind Master." When sorely pained, he said
" The ftimace tries the gold, and the fire of temptation the just
man ; the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be
compared to the ftiture glory which shall be revealed in us." At
night, he spent the whole time in singing psalms and giving
thanks. On Ascension day, he lay down upon a hair cloth near
the oratory where he used to pray, he invited the grace of the Holy
Spirit, saying : " O King of glory. Lord of virtue, who ascend-
edst this day triumphant into the heavens, leave us not destitute,
but send upon us the promise of the Father, the Spirit of Truth."
When the prayer was over, his soul had ascended to God. Bede
died A. D. 734, in his fifty-ninth year.
In this account, given by the monk William of Malmsbury, he
is corroborated by Paris and St, Cuthbert ; and it is worthy of
notice that no prayer is offered to the Virgin Mary, or to any
saint or angel ; not a word is said about purgatory or penances.
Bede lived like a true disciple, and he died in a sure hope of
being with the Lord when he passed away,
Bede, as a scholar, was beyond the rivalry of any Englishman
in his day ; his piety, too, was probably unequalled in or out of
his own country. But there were thousands of monks in the
previous and two subsequent centuries who walked with God,
Doubtless they were defective in many things, but they were
heavenly-minded men, with Christ in their hearts; and they
shine in glory to-day among the most conspicuous of the re
deemed. The nations felt themselves under lasting obligations to these
school -masters, authors, pen-printers, book-binders, professors of

96 STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES.
sciences, of theology, of agriculture ; to these benevolent hosts,
who kept free hotels for travellers, and abundance of food for the
poor ; to these preachers who visited the homes of wealth and the
cottages of want, telling the story of the Cross, and communicat
ing the same blessed tidings by the wayside, in the village, in the
church, and wherever men congregated ; to these saints of God
who, while showing constantly the largest love to men, lived in
the closest intimacy with the Eternal King. It is not to be
understood that all monks, at the period named, even in the
country of Bede, were good or pious men. Indeed, in Italy, and
especially in Rome, religion had little place in the hearts of
monks, clergy, or people. But elsewhere the peoples, sensible of
the varied and vast benefits received from godly monks, bestowed
their finest lands upon the convents, showered their wealth upon
the abbeys, and fitted them, some ages later, to be scenes of sloth,
luxury, and odious vice.
The monks everywhere extolled the pope. He only could pro
tect them from the tyranny of bishops and parish priests, between
whom and them there was constant jealousy. And with a hearty
good -will they commended him everywhere as the purest and
mightiest of mortals, the successor of glorious Peter, the prince of
the apostles, the special favorite of God, They made Europe ring
with the praises and powers of the Bishop of Rome ; the priests
were inclined in the same direction; the people followed with
acclamation; and the pontiffs were carried on a great tidal
wave of popular enthusiasm into the throne of kings of the
Church, Fcrrgeries.
The Bishops of Rome have never been slow to take advantage
of anything that will aid them in obtaining power. Perhaps no
one of them ever committed or encouraged forgery. Several of
them certainly used the false documents made by others to increase
their authoritj', just as if they had been genuine records.
The most notorious, and we may add the most outrageous
instrument of this character, is known as the " Donation of Con
stantine," It is founded on a fable that he was healed of leprosy
and baptized by Pope Sylvester at Rome, and that the Great
Constantine, out of gratitude, bestowed the sovereignty of Italy

STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES, 9 (
and of the western provinces on the pope. The 2)outiff is repre
sented as lord of all bishops, having authority over the four patri
archs of Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Jerusalem.
Constantine confesses in it, how he served the pope as groom, and
led his horse some distance. The entire statement is a base forgery.
Constantine reigned over old Rome till his death. His successors
on the imperial throne exercised unquestioned dominion over the
Eternal City, No one ever heard of this grant for at least four,
and perhaps, five hundred years after it should have been made.
On the strongest authority, the Christian world has always be
lieved he was baptized in Nicomedia. * From the canons of
councils, and other undoubted testimonies, it is certain that the
Roman bishops, at no time, had any authority over one of the
Eastern patriarchs. In the language of a learned editor of
Mosheim,t " The document is universally allowed to be spurious,"
and yet it was used for centuries to sustain the pope's temporal
authority over Rome and Italy ; and his spiritual dominion over
the Church,
Under the revered name of Isidore, Bishop of Seville, in the
early part of the seventh century, the greatest batch of forgeries
ever palmed upon men was published in western Gaul about A, d.
850, It was believed at that time that the Church was built upon
Peter, and that his supposed successor was invested with extensive
powers ; but the pontiffs wanted something more, and by the
providence of the wicked one, it comes in the form of a " complete
series of decretals of the Roman bishops from Clement down ;
most of them utterly unknown before. The fraud was clumsily
contrived and ignorantly executed, J and had the deception not
fallen in with a predominant interest of the Church, it might have
been easily exposed. The letters were for the most part made up
of passages borrowed from tax later ecclesiastical documents, which
the compiler took the liberty to alter and mutilate to suit his pur
pose. These ancient Roman bishops quote Scripture from a Latin
translation formed from the mixture of one made by Jerome with
another that had been current in earlier times,"
* Eusebius' Life of Constantine, book iv. chap. 62.
f Mosheim. London 1848, p. 271, note.
X Neander, iii. 347.
7

98 STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES,
These letters occasionally forget the lapse of time. Victor,
Bishop of Rome, is made to write about the observance of the pass-
over to Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, who lived two centuries
later! The Bishop of Rome wanted some early authority for his power
over the keys ; and as it was never dreamt of before the middle
of the fifth century, and as then it was only a dream, Isidore makes
a letter from Pope Julius about A, d. 338, declaring that " The
church of Rome by a singular privilege has the right of opening
and shutting the gates of heaven to whom she wdll," * Julius little
imagined that he would be engaged in writing letters five hundred
years after his death, and in writmg opinions which he never enter
tained when living, and which none of the dead, holy or wicked,
ever received.
Ennodius in defending Pope Symmachus, f A. D. 503, said, "That
the popes inherit innocence and sanctity from St. Peter ;" and as
this doctrine was flattering, and fitted to increase their power, Isi
dore creates two synods at Rome, which unanimously approve the
teaching of Ennodius.
The Roman bishop wished to prohibit all men, even though kings,
from calling councils, and to keep these powerful bodies entirely in
his own hands ; and Isidore makes Pope Julius write that, " The
apostles], and the Nicene council had said that no council could be
held without the pope's command."
The Roman bishops saw that an excommunicated man could
buy and sell, enjoy the love of his friends and the society of his
circle as well after the Church's curse as before it ; and perceiving
that if excommunication forbade all intercourse with an anathema
tized man, his family would do nothing for him, his soldiers would
not obey him, his subjects would have nothing to do with him ;
he would be absolutely at their mercy ; and reflecting that they
could hurl this bolt at any time against the meanest or the most
exalted ; they quickly saw that exclusion from intercourse would
make every man their slave ; and, in Isidore, the " earliest popes
declare! that no speech could be held with an excommunicated

* "The Pope and Council," by Janus, p. 88.
fid., p. 91. tld, p. 95.

§ Id., p. 97.

STEPS TO PAPAL SUPREMACY OVER THE CHURCHES. 99
man," This bai-barous law, intended solely to further papal des
potism, soon became a part of the code of the Church, and is there
now. But these forgeries are too extensive to examine separately. They
declare the priests to be the apple of God's eye ; and as they are
the representatives of God, the decretals assert that a sin against
them is a transgression against Jehovali. The forgeries claim that
priests are subject to no secular tribunal; that Jehovah has
appointed them judges over all.
False Isidore frequently declares that Jesus Christ has made the
Church of Rome the head of all churches, the sole and sufficient
judge of all bishops, and the only authority by which a regular
.synod can ever be convened. Other forgeries followed the suc-
cessfiil efforts of Isidore, until Pope Nicolas I. and pontiffs of
equal ability and similar ambition, in ages of special darkness,
abolished the whole liberties of the churches in nearly every country,
and threatened the last vestige of freedom where a trace of it, as
in France, was permitted to remain. No agencies rendered better
service to the popes, in vaulting into their spiritual throne, than
tie labors of the pious forgers.
Oaths of obedience, binding the bishops to the pope and his
interests, have aided the pontiff in securing his spiritual empire.
The Inquisition, though a little late in the field, has done some
very gory service, in securing papal ascendancy.
The work has been crowned in Rome at the recent council, when
it declared the "dogma of infallibility." Now the bishops are
nothing ; the inferior clergy are nothing ; the laity, plebeian and
patrician, sovereign and subject are nothing. In the papal Church
in matters of faith there is one man, and all the rest are but sha
dows. He can proclaim anything as an article of faith, as a rule
of life, and the whole Church must accept it. The sovereignty of
the popes over the Church is now complete; only the celestial
Head, set aside for a crowned priest ; only the heavenly Founca-
tion, removed for a wavering apostle, can breathe Christian liberty
among the bondmen held in subjection by the Bishop of Rome.

THE FOPE CLAIMS TO BE LORD OF KINGS AND
NATIONS.
Systems of religion may teach contradictory opinions about the
persons of the Godhead, the character of the Divine government,
the nature of the Saviour's sacrifice, and about the freedom of the
will ; and yet those who receive these diverse opinions may live
in perfect harmony with each other. But it is otherwise when
the head of one sect claims the sceptres and nations as his own,
asserts a right to dethrone sovereigns, to act as the vicar of the
Almighty in this world, in confirming or overturning at his plea
sure its laws, institutions, and chief magistrates. The conviction
is universal, over the Protestant world, that the head of the
Catholic Church claims this power, would exercise it if he could
in every nation, and has employed it in many instances.
This conviction has prompted the enactment of laws excluding
Catholics from state offices, and of oaths requiring them to re
nounce the supremacy of the pontiff in civil affairs ; and it has
occasionally led to popular outbreaks in Protestant countries
against the adherents of the papal Church. It must be confessed
that there is a chronic apprehension among all the peoples whose
fathers threw off the Roman yoke in the sixteenth century, that
the Bishop of the Eternal City is only awaituig an opportunity to
subjugate their souls to his superstition, and their governments to
his tyrannical will. The history of the Bishops of Rome compels
the existence of this fear.
The Pope gave England to William the Conqueror.
Harold, whatever may have been his faults, or the defect of
hi's title to the English crown, was accepted by the nation as ita
100

ENGLAND GIVEN TO WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, 101
ruler ; the land enjoyed peace in all its borders ; the hopes of thci
people, based on the character and ability of the new sovcrci};!!,
were high. William, Duke of Normandy, born out of wedlock,
was a special favorite of Pope Alexander II. The Duke was full
of ambition, a man of extraordinary courage, and of great military
ability. His passions were unrestrained, his cruelty was nearly
unbounded, and the only rights which he saw or respected were
those which an invincible sword defended. Bent upon wearing
the English crown, he made all possible warlike preparations. He
¦was encouraged, secretly or openly, by Germany and France. But
he needed another ally to sow discord in the British ranks, and
give him a title to the throne which the islanders would respect,
and he appealed to Pope Alexander. The Roman pontiff had
nearly reached the lofty position of Deity in the estimation of
western Europe ; never in all human history did a mortal receive
such imquestioning homage from so many millions. His word
was the voice of the Ancient of Days ; his decision was authorita
tive, as the decree of the Almighty ; his favorite was guarded by
angels, and attended at every step by the assistance of the very
elements ; the legions of monks who swarmed throughout Europe
upheld his friend against all the world, and Alexander drew his
spiritual sword in William's favor ; he excommunicated Harold
and all his supporters, denounced him as a perjured usurper ; he
sent William a banner * which he had specially blessed, and which
was sure to lead to victory, and a ring with one of the hairs of
mighty St. Peter in it. And, thus armed, he went forth to
slaughter the spiritual children of Alexander in the kingdom of
England. William felt that he could have no more exalted sanc
tion ; that fiiilure, with such means as he possessed, was impos
sible ; and, from the hour in which he was assured of the pope's
approval, he never wavered, not even on the dark and gory day
that placed the crown of England at his feet. On the bloody field
of Hastings, when William had vainly made every effort to break
the ranks of Harold, when success seemed to many to be impos
sible, he ordered a pretended retreat, seeing which the English
scattered to pursue the flying Normans ; that act cost Harold his
* Matt. Paris, at A. n. 1066.

102 IRELAND A PAPAL GIFT.
crown, and England its independence. William quickly refcnned
bis men, who fell with fury upon their pursuers, and, after a des
perate struggle, the Duke of Normandy was master of England.
But, from the commencement of the battle, his army was confident
of victory from the assurances of the pope — the earthly voice of
God. The troops of Harold were sure of defeat from the utter
ances of the same oracle. It was with the battle-axe* of
Pope Alexander that William broke the arm and heart of Eng
land on the fatal field of Hastings, This faithftil son of the
Church lived to rob nearly every leading Saxon of his homestead ;
o lay waste whole counties ; to slaughter entire communities with
pitiless barbarity ; to plant lasting hatreds between the Norman
conquerors and their English vassals — hatreds which produced
harvests of burned dwellings, infamous oppressions, and sickening
murders, William inaugurated in England a reign of iniquity,
whose atrocious deeds cursed long centuries.
Ireland a Papal gift to England.
Matthew Paris tells us that Henry IL, king of England, sent a
solemn embassy to solicit Pope Adrian's permission to invade and
conquer Ireland, and to bring into the way of " truth its bestial f
inhabitants," by extirpating vice among them. This request was
gladly granted by his Holiness, who sent Henry the following
bull : X "Adrian, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his
* Hume's " History of England," chap. iii.
t Homines illos bestiales . . . extirpatis ibi plantariis vitiorum. — Matt.
Paris, at a. d. 1156, p. 95. London, 1640.
X Adrianus episcopus servus servorum Dei, charissimo in Christo filio,
illustri Anglorum, regi salutem, et apostolicam benedictionem. Lauda-
biliter sfttisfructuose de glorioso nomine tuo propagando in terris, et seternae
felicitatis prsemio cumulando in coelis tua magnificentia cogitat, dum ad
dilatandos ecclesiae terminos, ad declarandam indoctis et rudibus populis
Cihristianse fidei veritatem, et vitiorum plantaria de agro Dominico
extirpanda, sicut Catholicus princeps intendis, et ad id convenientius exe-
quendum, consilium sedis ApostolicEe exigis et favorem. In quo facto,
quanto altiori consilio et majori discrelione procedis, tanto in eo felici-
orem progressum te, parante Domino, confidimus habilurum. Siguificasti
siquidem nobis, flli in Christo charissime, te Hibernise insulam, ad sub-
dendum populum legibus Christianis, et vitiorum inde plantaria extirpanda
Tell*" mtrare, et de singulis domibus, annuam unius denarii beato Petro velle

THE BULL OP ADRIAN. 103
dearest son in Christ, the illustrious king of England, health and
his apostolical blessing. Laudably aud advantageously does your
majesty plan to secure a glorious name on earth, and to increase the
reward of everlasting felicity in the heavens, whilst as a Catholic
prince you strive <o extend the boundaries of the Church, to proclaim
the truths of Christianity to an uneducated and rude people, and
to banish the seeds of mce from the field of the Lord ; to secure this
object more conveniently, you demand the advice and favor of the
Apostolic See. In this project, the higher your aim, and the greater
your discretion, so much happier, the Lord preparing the way, we
are confident, will be your success in it. You have signified to
us, dearest son iu Christ, that you wished to invade the island of
Ireland, to subdue its inhabitants to the laws of Christ, and to
banish from it the seeds of vice ; and that you wished to pay
annually for every house to blessed Peter one denarius (fifteen
cents — 'Peter's pence'); and also to preserve the rights of the
churches in that land pure and unbroken. Now, we, regarding
your pious and praiseworthy dedre with deserved favor, and giving
a kind assent to your petition, reckon it agreeable and welcome that,
to enlarge the borders of the Church, to restrain vice, to correct
morals, to introduce virtue, and to increase the Christian religion.

solvere pensionem : ita et jura ecclesiarum illius terrae illibita et Integra con-
servare. Nos autem pium et laudabile desiderium tuum favore congruo pro-
sequentes, et petitioni tuae benignum impendentes assensum, gratum et
acceptum habemus, ut pro dilatandis ecclesise terminis, vitiorum restringendo
discursu, pro corrigendis moribus et virtutibus inferendis, pro Christianae re-
ligionis augmento, insulam illam ingrediaris, et quae ad honorem Dei et
salutem illius terrse spectaverint, exequaris : et illius terras popuJus te recipiat,
et sicut dominum veneretur, jure ecclesiarum illibato et integro permanente, et
salva beato Petro de singulis domibus annua unius denarii pensione. Sane
omnes insulas, quibus sol justitiae Christus illuxit, et quse documenta fidei
Christianae susceperunt, ad jus sancti Petri, et sacrosanctae Romanse ecclesise
(quod tua etiam nobilitas recognoscit), non est dubium pertinere. Si ergo
quou animo concepisti effectu duxeris prosequente complendum, stude gen-
tem illam bonis moribus informare, et agas tam per te, quam per illos, quos
ad hoc, fide, verbo, et vita idoneos esse, perspexeris, ut decoretur ibi ecclesia,
planteturet crescat fldei Christianae religio, et quae ad honorem Dei et salutem
pertinent animarum, taliter ordinentur: ut et a Deo sempiternae mercedis
cumulum consequi merearis, et in terris gloriosum nomen valeas in saeculia
obtinere. — Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1156, p. 95. London, 1640.

104 THE BULL OP ADRIAN.
you should invade that island, and do whatever may seem to ad
vance the honor of God and the salvation of that land. And let
the people of that land receive you and venerate you as thdr lord, pro
vided that the rights of the churches shall remain pure and un
broken, and that the annual payment of one denarius to blessed
Peter from every house be made secure. Truly, it is not to be
doubted that all the islands upon which Christ, the Sun of Justice, has
shone, and which have received lessons in the Christian faith, are
SUBJECT TO SAINT PETER AND THE HOLY ROMAN
CHURCH, as even your own nobles confess. If, therefore, you
intend to complete the plan you have conceived in your mind,
aim to teach that nation good morals, and act so by yourself, and
through those whom you shall deem to be qualified for this work,
in faith, conversation, and life, that in that land the Church may
be adorned, and that the Christian religion may be planted, and
may increase there, and that whatsoever tends to the honor of God
and the salvation of souls, may be so ordained that you may be
worthy to receive from God the treasures of an eternal reward ;
and even on earth that you may secure a glorious reputation
throughout the ages."
This Bull is given by Giraldus Cambrensis,* a Romish ecclesi
astic of the twelfth century, as well as by Matthew Paris, with
only a few verbal differences from the version of Paris. Giraldus
gives five claims which the king of England had upon Ireland,
the last and strongest of which was the gift of the pope. " Finally,"
says he (Giraldus was with the first English invaders of Ireland),
" we have the authority of the pope, the prince and primate of all
Christendom, who claims a sort of espedal right in all islands
whatsoever, and that is enough to complete the title, and give it
absolute confirmation." f Nor was the opinion entertained by
Giraldus of the pope's power to give Ireland to the English pecu
liar to him and his English friends. The papal Bull was solemnly
accepted at a synod of Irish bishops held in Waterford, shortly
afiter it was issued ; and the entire ecclesiastics of Ireland acknow
ledged his Holiness as the absolute master of their island. J At
• " Conquest of Ireland," lib. ii. cap. 6. f Id., lib. ii cap. 7.
X Id., lib. ii. oao. 6.

THE BULL OF ADRIAN. 105
another synod, held in Dublin soon after the convention at Water-
ford, Vivianus, the papal legate, " made a public declaration of the
right of the king of England to Ireland, and the confirmation of
the pope ; and he strictly commanded and enjoined both the clergy
and the people, under pain of excommunication, on no rasli pre
tence, to presume to forfeit their allegiance." * The synod offered
no objection to the decree of the pontiff: it appeared to be conceded
by ecclesiastics of all nations, that the Bishop of Rome ^vas mastei
of islands and kingdoms, and could bestow them upon any on«
acceptable to himself
The Bull of Adrian speaks with great contempt of the Irish
Chm'ch and people. The Irish had been converted to Christ cen
turies before, chiefly through the instrumentality of St. Patrick,
and yet the pontiff describes Henry's proposed invasion as an
effort to extend "the boimdaries of the Church," that is, the Roman
Church, whose authority was recognized then for the first time in
Ireland. Evidently the seeds of vice in the " field of the Lord,"
which Henry was to pluck up, were the independence of the
Church of St. Patrick, and the doctrines or practices in which it
differed from the Chm-ch of Adrian. Henry's proposition to pay
Peter's pence shows that the Irish had been entirely free from
papal taxation and jurisdiction down to the hour when English
soldiers landed in their country, and gave protection to Romish
legates, and supreme authority to the pope over the entire Irish
Church. To us, in the nineteenth century, it looks singular to see a
Roman bishop give away an island upon which a standard of the
Eternal City, Republican, Imperial, or Papal had never been
planted ; an island to which he had as good a title as he possessed
to the government of the sun, or to the sceptre of the Almighty.
We are partially inclined to suppose that the tempter who offered
Christ all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory, ages later
presented the same donation to the Roman bishops; and they,
unlike their Master, immediately accepted the gift, together with
the conditions prescribed by the assumed owner.
Adrian seems to have fully believed that the kings of the world

'The Conquest of Ireland," by Giraldus Cambrensis, lib. ii. cap. 17.

106 WORST OPPRESSIONS BORNE BY A NATION.
received their sceptres by his good-will, and reigned by his pleas
ure. A Swedish bishop was held in captivity by German knights
who had robbed him ; Adrian wrote to the Emperor Frederic, de
manding his release, and giving as one reason why he should
grant his request, that " He had bestowed upon him the imperial
f^ovm." * The letter excited the wildest indignation in the Em
peror's bosom, and in the diet at Besan5on, one of the legates who
brought the letter. Cardinal Roland of Sienna, on observing the
excitement produced by the pope's letter, asked in apparent aston
ishment : " From whom, then, did the Emperor obtain his govern
ment, if not from the pope ? " f When Frederic was approaching
Rome, to be crowned by Adrian, he visited the Emperor's camp,
and as he drew near the royal tent, Frederic did not hold his
stirrup as his servant, and assist him to dismount. For this
affront Adraiu refused him the kiss of peace, nor would he be
reconciled till the greatest prince in Europe, in the presence of
his whole army, attended his holiness as equerry — holding his
stirrup about the distance of a stone-cast. Such was the opinion
of his greatness cherished by the pope, who, as master of king
doms, continents, and islands, gave Ireland to the English, and
began as the aboriginal Irish suppose
The worst oppressions ever borne by a nation.
Without attempting to inquire about the measure of peace and
happiness which Roderic O'Connor, King of Connaught, Dermot
Macmorrogh, King of Leinster, O'Ruarke, Prince of Breffiiy,
Oniel, Prince of Ulster, and the other princes of Ireland, and
their successors, would have given to " The island of saints," we
shall take it for granted that they would have made their country
fi-ee, happy, wealthy — the glory of all lands. Then it follows, if
that supposition is true, ivhieh is only taken for granted, that at
the door of Pope Adrian is to be laid all the oppressions, real or
imaginary, endured by the Irish nation for seven hundred years.
He, as the vicar of Christ, gave the island to the English, and
upon his head should the curses of Irishmen, who feel the gov
ernment of England a burden and a tyranny, be liberally poured.

* Neander, vol. iv. 164. | Bower's " Hist, of the Popes," vol. ii. 489.

PAUL IV, MAKES IRELAND A KINGDOM. 107
Had it not been for Nicholas Brakespeare — Adrian IV. — Ireland,
to-day, the land where the pope's most loyal friends live, might
still be ruled by her Roderic O'Connors and Dermot Macmor-
roghs, A pope destroyed the independence of Ireland.
Paul IV. makes Ireland a Kingdom.
The sovereigns of England for ages were only called " Lords
of Ireland." But Paul IV. has just been seated upon the chair
of the Fisherman. No mere mortal ever had such extravagant
ideas of his power ; he can turn this world upside down when he
wishes ; princes to him are rubbish to be swept from under his
sacred feet; he owns all kingdoms; he is master of all things
¦\Tsible, and of many things that cannot be seen. Sarpi tells us
that this insolent old man never spoke with ambassadors * but he
thundered in their ears : " That he was above all princes, that he
did not wish any of them to be too familiar with him, that he
could change kingdoms, that he was successor of him who had
deposed kings and emperors. In the consistory, and publicly at
his table, he declared that he would have no prince for his com
panion — he would have princes under his feet (and he stamped
his foot against the ground), as it is fit, and as it is his will who
built the Church, and has placed them in that degree." And as a
Catholic, Mary, has ascended her father's throne in England,
whose husband is Philip II. of Spain, the most unscrupulous
Romanist among the living ; as the nation of Henry VIII. is
knocking at the palace of Paul for the honor of kissing his toe,
the country of Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley, of Tyndale and
his Bibles ; where monasteries and nunneries were thrown down,
and the holy drones who tenanted them were scattered to the four
winds of heaven to follow usefiil pursuits ; where sacred images
were dashed to pieces by the rough hands of unholy mobs ; where
ribs, sculls, thigh-bones, hands, toes, and pieces of the skin of
holy virgins, martyrs, and saints were torn from gold and
silver shrines, and were flung into rivers or obscure graves;
where relics of the greatest saints of all time were barbar
ously outraged ; where the king, a stupid and vile layman,
had thrust himself into Peter's chair, and declared himselfj
* Hist. Council of Trent, p. 395.

108 INNOCENT III. COMPELS JOHN TO SURRENDER CROWN.
"The head of the Church;" where a parliament of mere laymen
had laid sacrilegious hands on the consecrated property of the holy
Church ; where men and women of the highest rank and of the
greatest sanctity had laid down their lives for the Scarlet Lady ; where
it was supposed that the Catholic religion was forever destroyed ;
and where yesterday the papal world saw only causes for despair ; —
as Paul hears of the approach of ambassadors from that country
coming to offer him the English nation, he is in raptures ; no
other occurrence on earth could give him such joy, or reflect upon
him such honor. And as he thinks of some token of regard for
the daughter of Henry VIIL, he finds it in Ireland, Mary
recognizes that country as a kingdom ; the pope has never bestowed
that dignity upon it. And iii his estimation no sovereign has a
right to make a kingdom out of a mere lordship ; that is an act
of flagrant usurpation in the loftiest of our race, unless he wears
the triple crown. So to exhibit his semi-divine authority, and to
gratify* "Bloody Mary," he erected the country into a kingdom,
which Adrian had bartered to Albion for Peter's Pence, and
enforced obedience to the pontiffs ; and having crowned it with
royal honors, he handed it over in chains to the daughter of
Catharine of Arragon; as if Paul had been the owner of all
things mundane and celestial, and could exalt or degrade according
to his imperious pleasure. The proud chieftains, and wild, warm
hearted tribes of Ireland in the sixteenth century, owed little
gratitude to the popes.
Innocent III. compels King John to surrender the Crown of England
to the Bishops of Rome.
John was destitute of honesty, truthfulness, courage, chastity,
respect for human life, or for the good opinion of mankind. He
was impulsive, irritable, short-sighted, vindictive, and about .
equally free from mental powers and moral qualities. Seldom ha;
a baser man occupied a throne. It was his misfortune to be the
brother of Richard the Lion-hearted, as noble a king as ever
swayed a sceptre, as brave a soldier as ever drew a sword. The
contrast between the brothers was highly injurious to John. In-

* Hume's History of England, ch. xxxvii.

STRIPE BETWEEN ENGLAND AND ROME. 109
accent III, had a master mind ; for keenness of penetration, for
adapting means to ends, and for concentration of resources on the
right point, Innocait was not surpassed by any living man. Only
one of Rome's two hundred and fifty-three popes, many of .vliom
had talents of a high order, equalled Innocent in ability. The
controversy between John and him was like one between an eagle
and a hawk. At his coronation, Hubert, Archbishop of Canter
bury, put his elevation to the throne to the vote, and after the
assembled bishops, nobles, and others, elected John by crying,
" God save the king," he placed the cro^vtl on his head with the
usual ceremonies. And, on being questioned about his motive for
departing from the regular custom in adding the election of the
king to the coronation observances, he replied, that * " he knew
John would one day or other bring the kingdom into great confusion,
whereupon he determined that he should owe his elevation to elec
tion, and not to hereditary right."
On the 13th of July, Hubert died, and his vacant see created
The greatest strife between England and Rome.
The junior monks of the conventual church of Canterbury
elected Reginald, their sub-prior, to fill the vacancy ; and as they
had not obtained the king's consent, they were afraid that John
would hinder farther proceedings if the election was published ;
and, to complete the work, in the middle of the night, they
chanted the Te Deum, and placed him first upon the altar, and
afterwards in the archbishop's chair. The same night, he started
for Rome to obtain the ratification of Innocent,
Soon after, at the suggestion of the king, the monks unanimously
elected John de Gray, Bishop of Norwich, to the throne of St.
Austin. The monks inaugurated him, as they had been accus
tomed to invest his predecessors with the archbishop's authority.
The king immediately gave him possession of all the revenue and
property of his see.
Not long after, Innocent rejected Reginald, the sub-prior, and
John de Gray, and, under pretence of an election by certain monks
of Canterbury, on business in Rome, he appointed Cardinal Stephen
Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1199.

110 INNOCENT III. SENDS JOHN POUR RINGS.
Langton, an Englishman, who had been long absent from his na
tive country. Archbishop of Canterbury ; and commanded the king
and the monks of Canterbury, under great penalties, to receive
him as their archbishop. Stephen was a man of superior mind,
with a character far above the common herd of ecclesiastics in his
day ; and he loved his country more than he respected even Pope
Innocent himself. He was one of the most active patriots in se-
scuring Magna Charta in opposition to the pope's wishes, for which
Innocent suspended him.
To appease John at this time. Innocent sent him four rings and the
following letter : *
" Pope Innocent III., to John, king of the English, greeting, etc. :
Amongst the riches of the earth, which the eye of man desires and
longs for as more precious than others, we believe that pure gold
and precious stones hold the first place. Although, perhaps, your
royal highness may abound in these and other riches, however, as
a sign of regard and fevor, we send to your highness four gold
rings, with divers jewels. We wish you specially to remark in
these the shape, number, material, and color, that you pay regard
to the signification of them rather than to the gift. The rotundity
signifies eternity, which has neither beginning nor end. Therefore,
your royal discretion may be led by the form of them to pray for
a passage from earthly to heavenly, from temporal to eternal
things. The number, four, which is a square number, denotes the
firmness of the mind, which is neither depressed in adversity, nor
elated in prosperity ; which will then be fulfilled when it is based
on the four principal virtues, namely, justice, fortitude, prudence,
and temperance. In the first place, understand justice, which is
to be shown in judgment; in the second, fortitude, which is to
be shown in adversity ; in the third, prudence, which is to be
observed in doubtful circumstances ; and, in the fourth, modera
tion, which is not to be lost in prosperity. By the gold, is denoted
wisdom ; for, as gold excels all metals, so wisdom excels all gifts, as
the prophet bears witness : ' The spirit of wisdom shall rest upon
him,' etc. There is nothing which it is more necessary for a king
to possess. Wherefore, the peaceftil king Solomon asked wisdom
•Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1207

THE INTERDICT. Ill
only of the Lord, that, b}- tho.se iiK^aiis, he might know how to
govern the people entrusted to him. Moreover, the greenness of
the emerald denotes faith ; the clearness of the sapphire, hope ; the
redness of the pomegranate, denotes charity ; aud the purity of the
topaa good worlvs, concerning which the Lord says : ' Let your
hght shine,' etc. In the emerald, then, you have what to believe ;
in the sapphire, what to hope for ; in the pomegranate, what to
love ; and in the topaz what to practise ; that you ascend from one
virtue to another till you see the Lord in Zion."
Innocent thought that these gifts would calm John's anger about
Stephen Langton, and that tlie ingenious conceits about " their
shape, number, material, and color," would gratify his whimsical
mind. But it was John who ordered a Jew in Bristol to be cruelly
tortured to make liim give money to the king ; then to have * " one
of his cheek teeth knocked out daily until he paid ten thousand
marks of silver ;" and the process was continued till the poor son
of Israel lost seven teeth, and paid the demand. And as there
were other Jews in England with plenty of teeth and money, John
could do without the papal rings on account of their value. And
he had no genius to appreciate the wisdom of the letter accompa
nying them.
The king was in a fury about Langton ; and immediately or
dered the Monks of Canterbury to be driven from their convent,
and wrote Innocent a letter ftdl of threats and insults, and abso
lutely refused to permit Langton to exercise his office in England,
The conflict now began by the proclamation of an
Interdict.
The bishops of Ely, London and Winchester were authorized
to admonish John, and if that failed, to proclaim an interdict.
They were outrageously abused and threatened by John, and they
hurled forth the papal thunders. Immediately all church services
ceased, except f " The viaticum in cases of extremity, confession,
and the baptism of children ; the bodies of the dead were carried
out of cities and towns, and buried in roads and ditches without
prayers or the attendance of priests," We have not the precise
• Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1210. \ Id., a d. 1208.

112 EFPECTS OP THE INTERDICT.
form of interdict used by Innocent, but it probably differed little
from the one issued by the Council of Limoges against the Limosin,
which was : *
" Unless they come to terms of peace let all the country of the
Limosin be put imder a public excommunication, so that no per
son, except a clergyman, or a poor beggar, or a stranger, or an in
fant from two years old and under, be permitted burial, in the
whole Limosin, or be permitted to be carried to burial in any other
bishopric. Let divine service be privately performed in all the
churches, and baptism given to those who desire it. About the
third hour let the bells ring in the churches, and all pour out thdr
prayers on account of the tribulation and for peace. Let penance
and the viaticum be granted in the article of death. Let the al
tars of all the churches be stripped as in Easter eve, and the crosses
and ornaments be taken away, as a token of mourning and sad
ness to all. Let the altars be adorned at those masses only which
any of the priests shall say, the church doors being shut; and
when the masses are done, let them be stripped again. Let no
one marry during the time of excommunication. Let no one
aive to another a kiss. Let no one of the clergy or laity, no in
habitant or traveller eat flesh or other meat than such as is lawful
to eat in Lent, in the whole country of the Limosin. Let no lay
man or clergyman be trimmed or shaved till the censm-ed princes,
the heads of the people, absolutely obey the Holy Council,"
The Interdict at Work.
As the interdict came into operation terror spread over the na
tion as if a great judgment from God had fallen upon it. Every
one spoke with a subdued voice, felt as if some unutterable calamity
was about to desolate the land, and wore a countenance marked by
awful solemnity. Even children spoke in hushed tones and caught
the contagion of the general alarm. Nothing could exceed the
distress of those whose departed friends could not be placed in con
secrated ground near the protecting dust of some glorious saint;
the relics of one of whom gave safety to every Anglo-Saxon church,
and the dead surrounding it. It is impossible in our age to com
prehend the universal horror that prevailed. As the people be-
• Limborch, p. 274. London, 1816.

JOHN CONTINUES THE WAR, 113
held the images of the saints and their precious relics laitl upon
the ground, the altars stripped of their decorations, the bells re
moved from the churches, mass celebrated with closed doors for
the priests only, the use of flesh prohibited, the face unshaved, and
every expression and form of joy forbidden, they felt as if the
day of judgment must be at hand, or some other great day of the
wrath of the Almighty, This interdict lasted more than six
years. Perhaps there is not in the history of wickedness an act so im
pious as the proclamation of an interdict. As if Jesus, who prayed
on the cross for his enemies, and poured out his blood for more
persecuting Sauls than the one of Tarsus, could suspend the public
service of his religion over a whole kingdom, inflicting outrageous
wrongs upon the living, aud shocking indecencies upon the dead,
not to punish the sins of the nation, but through the woes and
cries of the people, to compel the king to receive an archbishop
whom neither the sovereign nor the nation desired, in defiance of
law, and simply at the command of a foreign pontiff! Tyranny
and blasphemous audacity never reached a more vigorous growth
than in the person of Innocent III,
John continues the War.
He confiscated all the property of the clergy, giving them only
a pittance to support them ; he seized their corn for the public
use ; he arrested * " the concubines of the priests and clerks, who had
to ransom themselves at great expense ; " the clergy when travelling
were robbed on the highways, and could obtain no justice. The
officers of a sheriff on the borders of Wales brought a robber who
had murdered a priest to the king, and asked his decision about
the murderer ; John immediately answered,t " He has killed an
enemy of mine, release him and let him go." He seized the re
latives of the dignified clergy who had fled out of England, and
cast them into prison and took possession of their goods.
Through the punishments he inflicted, some of the clergy opened
their churches for public worship, and in a measure upheld his
cause. While others, either for love of money or justice, did the
• Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1208. \ Id., at a. d. 1209.

114 INNOCENT EXCOMMUNICATES JOHN,
same thing, and chief among these was Alexander,* surnamed the
Mason. He proclaimed that : " This universal scourge was not
brought on England by any fault of the king." He showed that
the * " Pope had no business to meddle with the lay estates of Icings,
or of any potentates whatever, or with the government of thdr subjects."
The king gave him benefices and his confidence, and he became a
man of great note in these troubled times. But the people looked
upon him and others of his class as wretched apostates unworthy
of a kind word ; and when in subsequent days Alexander's ene
mies deprived him of everything he possessed, the * " multitudes
regarded him with derision, saying : ' Behold the man who did
not make God his helper, but put his trust in the magnitude of
his riches, and strengthened himself in his vanity ; ^et him there
fore be always before the Lord, that the recollection of him may
perish from the earth,' " With these and other reproaches Alex
ander and the king's clerical friends were everywhere greeted and
insulted. The thought is suggestive, that in a controversy with the pope,
in which by law and custom the king of England was right, that
NEARLY ALL THE CLERGY, AND THE CONSCIENCES
OF NINE-TENTHS OF THE NATION WENT WITH
THE PONTIFF, HIS INFLUENCE WAS RESISTLESS,
Innocent excommunicates the King.
The interdict for nearly two years had been blasting the social
happiness, the pecuniary prosperity, and the religious hopes of
the English people, John had exhibited the greatest contempt for
the clergy of all ranks, and instead of any disposition to yield, was
increasing the miseries of all the friends of Innocent in his dominions ;
and the pope promulgated the sent'snce of excommunication against
him. The bishops of Ely, London and Winchester were to proclaim
the decree in all the conventual churches in the land, that thus *
" the king might be more strictly shunned by every one." But as these
worthies regarded flight as the better patt of valor, and as the other
prelates who remained in England, * " thro'igh fea.'* of ot regard
for the king, became like dumb dogs, not daring t<^ Ijaik," the

*Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1209.

INNOCENT ABSOLVES JOHN's SUBJECTS PROM ALLEGIANCE. 115
announcement of the pope's curse on John did not receive the
prescribed solemn publication. Nevertheless, it was soon known
eveiy where, and it became the subject of universal comment. And
had not John been dreaded for his merciless cruelty, he would
have been forsaken as a child of Satan by liis entire kingdom. As
it was, not a few turned from him in horror. Among these was
Geoffi-ey,* Archdeacon of Norwich, an officer of the Exchequer,
While attending to his duties, he said to liis companions : " It is
not safe for beneficed persons to continue allegiance to an excom
municated king," and he retired without asking the king's permis
sion. The tidings quickly reached John, who threw him into
prison, in chains ; ordered a cap of lead to be festened on him, and,
overcome by the want of food and the weight of the leaden cap, he
expired. No condition could be more deplorable than the state of the
nation at this time ; to serve the king in any way was to incur
the curse of an oppressive pope ; to adhere to the pope was to
invite imprisonment and death from John, Truly it was not
comfortable to be placed between these two millstones in motion.
Still John, as an English king, would not submit to the imposi
tions of the Italian priest ; and Innocent proceeded to a more
high-handed crime by
Absolmng his subjects from thdr allegiance.
In the words of the celebrated monkish historian : f " He
absolved from all fealty and allegiance to the English king, the
princes, and dE others, low as well as high, who owed duty to the
English crown, plainly and under penalty of excommunication,
ordering them strictly to avoid associating with him at the table,
in council, or converse." Truly here is a modest place for a servant
of Jesus to occupy. He declares broken, the solemn oaths bind
ing a nation to its sovereign — oaths whose sanctity could not be
set aside with impunity from God, by any mortal of all time ;
and he orders John to be isolated ; no one must sit with him at
table, act as his adviser, or have anything to do with him, on pain
of excommunication ; that is, on pain of the greatest calamity on
• Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1209. \ Id., 1212.

116 INNOCENT DEPOSES JOHN.
earth, and the worst Avoes of the abyss. And as John perseveres
in his rebellion The pope deposes him from his Crown.
Says Paris : * " The pope being deeply grieved for the desola
tion of the kingdom of England, by the advice of his cardinals,
bishops, and other wise men, definitely decreed that John, King of
England, should be deposed from the throne of that kingdom,
and that another, more worthy than he, to be chosen by the pope,
should succeed him." Carrying out this decision. Innocent
Avrote Philip, King of France, ordering him, in remisdon of
all his sins, to execute the sentence against John, to expel him
from the throne of England, and then to take possession of it for
himself and his successors forever.* What a situation for an
independent sovereign I to be hurled from his throne, not by force
of arms ; not by a decision of law ; not by the votes of his own
subjects to whom only, under God, he was responsible; not by
the nations as an enemy to the human race; not by the pope
speaking for suffering men unable to resist intolerable oppression,
but by the pontiff claiming, in virtue of his office, authority over
all kings aud commonwealths, and driving John fi'om his throne
solely because he refused to receive an archbishop of the pope's
selection, contrary to the laws and customs of his kingdom. And
what usurpation for the Pope of Rome to select the future King
of England ! He had just as much right to select wives for all
the young men of that nation, or to remove all the landoAvners,
and bestow their estates upon others. Were the pope to depose a
President of the United States, and order the King of France to
come and expel the occupant of the White House, and seize the
sovereignty of the nation, the act would be no more audacious, no
more unjustifiable in the light of all just laws and self-evident
rights. Peter never pretended to dethrone the pettiest prince on
earth, or to remove the lowest officer of any government. And
as the " powers that be are ordained of God," it is blasphemous
presumption for any servant of Christ to overthrow those powers
by Church authority — by the pretence that the Church or any of

* Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1212.

INNOCENT PUBLISHES A CRUSADE AGAINST JOHN. 117
its members is investal with dominion over the chief magistrates
whom God has appointed.
Innocent publishes a Cnisade against John.
He sends letters to the different countries, to nobles, knights
and warriors, commanding them to go with Philip to remove
John from his throne. Aud as in the efforts to drive the Saracens
out of the Holy Land, the crusaders wore a large cross wrought
upon their coats, so the pope orders those who go with Philip to
wear the same sacred sign, as they are " To avenge * the insult
offered to the universal Church ;" and by this nations were taught
by the highest authority in Christendom, that John was as great
an enemy to God and his Church as the worst infidel ever driven
by pious warriors from the localities consecrated by the birth,
agony, death, and grave of the Son of God. Innocent also prom
ised that all who gave money or personal assistance to overcome
the rebellious king, should, like those who went to visit the
Lords sepulchre, * " remain secure under the protection of the
Church, as regarded their property, persons and spiritual inter
ests." Innocent put forth every effort to let loose all Europe on
John, to send every man ambitious of military glory, and every
zealot anxious for the honor of the Church, and every malefactor
hungry to have his iniquities blotted out by participation in a
crusade, and his pockets filled by the plunder of ravaged homes.
Nor were his efforts vain.
Philip is vyiUing to execute the Pop^s Sentence,
He collects an army, regarded in that day as very great ; he
gathers a fleet of 1700 vessels, of all sizes ; and from his personal
courage and distinguished ability, there is little doubt but that he
could have conquered John, though he led an army of 60,000
strong, encamped at Barham Down.
Pandulph makes an insidious Attack upon John.
He crosses the sea and visits him, tells him the extraordinary
preparations which Philip has made, the number of his troops, and
* Matt. Paris, at a.d. 121?.

118 JOHN MUST RESIGN HIS KINGDOM TO THE POPE,
the accessions which daily reach his army. He assures him tnat,
as the pope's enemy, when he appeals to the God of battles, the
Church's God, he is sure to be defeated ; that the banished bishops,
clergy, and laity, are coming with Philip to obtain their rights and
their property, and to render him the obedience formerly enjoyed
by John and his ancestors ; that Philip had pledges of assistance
and submission from almost all the nobles of England ; that if he
hujnbled himself as if he were on his dying bed, and submitted
himself completely to the Holy See, the compassionate pontiff
might restore to him his kingdom ; but that, should he persist in
his wickedness, all hope was gone ; his enemies would surely
triumph ! *
Terrified at the prospect of losing his soul through the anger of
that God whose chief priest, for years, he had resisted ; * afraid of
the French king, whose countless army was on the coast, ready to
sail for his dominions, and sure of the probable treachery of his
nobles should he lead them into battle, most of whose wives,t
daughters, or property he had injured, he gave up the contest,
and submitted to nearly everything proposed by Pandulph ; and,
among the exactions of the legate, there was one which required John
To redgn his crown and kingdoms to the Pope.
On the 16th of May, 1213, in the house of the Knights Tem
plars, near Dover, the English king, in the presence of his nobles,
" according to a decree pronounced at Rome" resigned hia crown and
the kingdoms of England and Ireland into the hand? jf our lord
the pope, through Pandulph, the legate.* He, then, by a formal
" Charter," as it is called, agreed :* " To assign and grant to God
and his holy apostles, Peter and Paul, and to the Holy Church of
Rome, our mother, and to our lord. Pope Innocent and his Cath
olic successors, the whole kingdom of England, and the whole
kingdom of Ireland, with all their rights aud appurtenances, in
remisdon of the dns of us and our whole race, as well for those living
as for the dead, and henceforth we retain and hold these countries
from him and the Church of Rome as vicegerent, and this we de
clare in the presence of this learned man Pandulph, sub-deacon ana
* Matt. Paris, at A. d. 1213. f Id., at a. d. 1913.

THE LEGATE TRAMI LES ON JOHn's TRIBUTE MONEY. 119
familiar of our lord, t/ie pope  And, in token of this lasting
bond and grant, we will and determine, that from our own income,
and from our special le venues, arising from the aforesaid king
doms, the Church of Rome shall, for all service and custom which
we owe to them, sa'i/ing always the St. Peter's pence, receive annu
ally a thousand marks steiding money ; that is, seven hundred for
the kingdom of England, and three hundred for Ireland 
And, as we wish to ratify and confirm all that has been above
written, we bind ourselves and our successors not to contravene it ;
and if we or any one of our successors shall dare to oppose this,
let him, whoever he be, be deprived of his right in the kingdom.
And let this charter of our bond and grant be confirmed forever."
John declared, in the preamble to the charter, that : " He was im
pelled to make this grant (of his kingdom) by the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit ; that the act was performed, not through fear of the
interdict, but of his own free will and consent, and by the general
advice of his barons. What flagrant falsehoods the sub-deacon
Pandulph put in John's charter and made him sign !
When John handed his crown to the legate, and a part of the
tribute money along with it, he appeared in the character of an
obsequious vassal. Pandulph was seated upon a throne represent
ing Pope Iimocent ; John fell on his knees before him, and lifting
up his joined hands, and putting them within those of Pandulph,*
he swore fealty to the pope. He placed the tribute at Pandulph's
feet, who trampled upon the money, as a representation of the sub
jection of the kingdom. How it must have made Englishmen
blush to witness such an exhibition of triumphant tyranny, such a
display of priestly arrogance ! Viewing the whole trouble of In
nocent with John, from his refusal to receive Langton down to the
moment when Pandulph held his crown and danced on his tribute
money, we are forced to the conviction that Innocent III. was an
enemy to every government on earth ; that he was one of the most
grasping despots that ever tried to crush the independence of a
nation ; and that, if his successors urge the same claims to authority
over States and kingdoms, the nations are only safe while the pon-
tiffe are feeble. * Hume's History of England, chap. xi.

120 INNOCENT ABOLISHES MAGNA CHARTA.
Innocent the enemy of Magna Charta.
Magna Charta, wrung from King John by his barons at
Runnymede, Jime 18th, 1215, has protected and expanded, if i(
has not directly given birth, to the liberties of England. It
may be safely affirmed, that the document of Runnymede has done
more to encourage freedom in all existing nations than any other
instrument or effort of our race. The heroes of freedom's battle
fields, the sages of all time who meditated about liberty, must yield
the palm for far-reaching and ever-expanding results to the bishops
and barons of John, Pope Innocent III. issued a Bull condemning
every step taken to secure the Great Charter, and the immortal
document itself, in which he says : * " We are not inclined to
cloak the audacity of so great a display of malice, tending to con
tempt of the Apostolic See, and the detriment of regal rights, the
disgrace of the English nation, and serious danger to the whole
affairs of the Crucified OnC; which would certainly be realized un
less by our authority all things were revoked which had been.
extorted in such a way from so great a prince, now bearing the
sign of a crusader, although he himself were willing to observe
these engagements. We, on behalf of Almighty God, Father, Son
and Holy Spirit, also by the authority of his apostles, Peter and
Paul, and by our own, with the general advice of our brethren,
reprobate and utterly condemn an agreement of this kind, prohibit
ing, under a threatened anathema, said king from presuming to
keep it ; and the barons, with their accomplices, from demanding
that it should be observed. WE COMPLETELY ANNUL
* Nos tantae malignitatis audaciam dissimulare nolentis in Apostolicse sedis
contemptum, regulis juris dispendium, Anglicanae gentis opprobrium, et
grave periculum totius negotii Caucifixi ; quod utique immineret, nisi per
authoritatem nostram revocarentur omnia, quae a tanto principe crucesignato
taliter sunt extorta, et ipso volente ea servare, ex parte Dei omnipotentis
Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, authoritate quoque apostolorum ejus Petri et
Pauli ac nostra, de communi fratrum nostrorum consilio, comiiositionem
hujusmodi reprobamus penitus et damuamus ; sub interminatione anathematis
proliibentes, ne dictus rex earn observare praesumat, aut barones cum com-
pliolbus suis ipsam exigant observari ; tam chartam, quam obligationes sen
cautiones, quaecunque pro ipsa vel de ipsa sunt factse, irritantes penitus et
cassantes; ut nullo unquam tempore aliquam habeant fiimitatem. — Matt
Paris at a. n 1215, p. 267. London, 1640.

POPE Ej: COMMUNICATES PRIENDS OP MAGNA CHARTA, 121
AND QUASH BOTH THE CHARTER AND THE BONDH
OR SECURITIES WHICH HAVE BEEN GIVEN FOR
ITS OBSERVANCE, THAT AT NO TIME THEY MA\'
HAVE ANY VALIDITY."
Innocent, iu the Bull from which the above is quoted, applies to
nimself the words of the prophets : " I have appointed thee over
peoples and kingdoms, to pluck up and destroy, to build and to
ulant, cast loose the bonds of wickedness, shake off the oppressor's
burden ;" and Innocent gives a fair exhibition of his desire to
pluck up and destroy libeiiy, and to fasten the bonds of wicked
oppression upon a nation. There is no ground for surprise when
we read in the monkish histories that Innocent was stoutly de
nounced all over England, and by many viewed as the infamous
protector of the meanest tyrannies. The world will never forget
that Pope Innocent III. ANNULLED AND QUASHED
MAGNA CHARTA.
Innocent hirls his thunders on the Barons for compelling John to
keep Magna Charta.
" Innocent, bishop, etc., * to P, bishop of Winchester, the Abbot
of Reading, and Master Pandulph, subdeacon of the church of
Rome, health and the Apostolic benediction. We are very much
astonished and annoyed that, although our well beloved son in
Christ, John the itlustrimis King of England, gave satisfaction be
yond what we expected to God and the Church, and especially to
our brother the Archbishop of Canterbury and his bishops, some
of these showing no due respect, if any, to the business of the
holy cross, the mandate of the Apostolic see, and their oath of
fealfy, have not rendered assistance or shown good will to the said
king against the disturbers of the kingdom, which, by right of do
minion, belongs to the Church of Rome, as if they were cognizant
of, not to say associates in, this wicked conspiracy ; for he is not
free from the taint of participation who fails to oppose transgres
sors. How do these aforesaid prelates defend the inheritance of
the Church of Rome? How do they protect those bearing the
cross ? (John pretended an intention to become a crusader.) Yea,
• Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1215.

122 FRIENDS OP MAGNA CHARTA DISTURBERS OP KINGDOM.
how do they oppose themselves to those who endeavor to ruin the
service of Christ ? These men are undoubtedly worse than the
Saracens, since they endeavor to expel from his kingdom, him
who, it was rather to be hoped, would afford assistance to the Holy
Land. Therefore, that the insolence of such men may not prevail,
not only to the danger of the kingdom of England, but also to
the ruin of other kingdoms, and above all, to the subversion of
all the matters of Christ, we on behalf of the omnipotent God,
tht' Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and by the authority
of the apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, lay the
fetters of EXCOMMUNICATION ON ALL THESE DIS
TURBERS OF THE KING AND KINGDOM OF ENG
LAND, as well as on all accomplices and abettors of theirs, and
place their possessions under the ecclesiastical interdict : and we
most strictly order the archbishop aforesaid and his fellow-bishops,
by virtue of their obedience, solemnly to proclaim this our sen
tence, throughout all England on every Sunday and feastday,
amidst the ringing of bells, and with candles burning, until the
said barons shall give satisfaction to the king for his losses and
for the injm-ies they have inflicted on him, and shall faithfully re
turn to their duty. We also, on our own behalf, enjoin all the
vassals of the said king, in remisdon of their dns, to give advice
and render assistance to the said king in oppodng such transgres
sors." Verily Innocent had a poor opinion of the men who obtained
Magna Charta, and supported it after securing it. They were
" Disturbers of the king aud kingdom of England," only fitted
for excommunication— that is, for the tender mercies of the Wicked
One here, and the worst pains of the pit hereafter. Notwithstand
ing this, the patriots of the world will ever rank the barons of
Runnymede among the greatest benefactors of mankind.
If Innocent was infallible, as the late Vatican Council decided,
then it folloAvs that Magna Charta, with the whole British Consti
tution built upon it, is dead m law now, and should that country
ever be restored to the popedom, its liberties would only need the
application of this law to give them a death-blow.
As the infallibility of the pope rests on the supposed fact that
the Holy Spirit guides him, and a.s that Spirit never changes, it

POPE EXCOMMUNICATES AND DEPOSITS KING HENRY. 12;i
therefore follows, that all GREAT CHARTERS OF FREE
DOM ARE OFFENSIVE TO GOD, and that their friends,
as the authors of such unholy instruments, have fitted themselves
for expulsion out of the earthly chm-ch and the heavenly Paradise.
The protracted wai-fare between Innocent and John, and the
pope and the barons of England, presents an appalling and irre
sistible mass of testimony to the offensive doctrine that : " The
Bishop of Rome claims to be LORD OF THE NATIONS."
Paul III. excommunicates Henry VIII., and declares his Throne
forfeited.
The Bull is very lengthy, and only the more important por
tions of it are quoted. It can be seen entire in Bower's " History
of the Popes:"*
" Paul, Bishop, the servant of servants of Christ, For per
petual memory.
" We, though unworthy, being placed over all nations, and in
the seat of justice, by the clemency of him so ordering it, who
remaineth himself immovable, does in his providence give to all
things to move in an admirable order. And we, also, according
to the prophecy of Jeremiah, saying : ' Behold, I have set thee
over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull
down, and to destroy, and to throw down, and to build and to plant ;'
having obtained supreme power over the kings of the whole earth,
and over all people.
" If King Henry, his favorers, adherents, advisers and followers
shall not effectually hearken to these exhortations and injunctions,
we declare the said King Henry, his favorers and adherents in
capable of absolution ; and as for his counsellors, followers, and
others culpable in the premises, from our apostolical authority,
and of our certain knowledge, and out of the plenitude of our
apostolical power, by the tenor of these presents, and in virtue of
holy obedience, and under the penalty of the greater excommuni
cation de facto incurred, and from which they shall not be
absolved, under pretence of any privilege or faculty, though in
the form of a confessional one ; no, not with any of the most
effectual clauses anywise granted by ourselves, or the aforesaid see,
*Vol. iii. pp. 475-81. PliiUdelpliia, 1844.

124 KING SUMMONED FOE TRIAL AT ROME.
and though they should be more than once reiterated. We de
clare them incapable of being otherwise absolved than by the
Roman Pontiff himself, except at the point of death ; and even
then, if it shall happen that any are absolved who shall afterward
recover, he shall fall under the same sentence of excommunication,
except upon his recovery he shall effectually obey these our moni
tions and commands.
" Moreover, we do by these presents admonish those and every
of them, that we do actually intend, that thereby they should incur
the crime of rebellion ; and as to King Henry, the FORFEIT
URE ALSO OF HIS KINGDOMS AND AFORESAID
DOMINIONS, And as well him as those before admonished,
we will have it to be understood that they, and every one of them
de ipso facto, respectively incur the penalties before, and hereafter
written, if they shall not obey the monitions and commands as
declared above; and we do also separately command them, aud
every of them, that King Henry do APPEAR BEFORE US
IN PERSON, OR BY HIS LEGAL PROXY, and him suffi
ciently empowered, within the term of ninety days. But as to
his favorers, adherents, advisers, followers, and others anywise
culpable as aforesaid, Avhether secular or ecclesiastical, and even
regulars, that they do personally appear before us within sixty
days, in order lawfully to excuse or defend themselves with refer
ence to the premises, or else to see and hear sentence pronounced
against them, and every of them by name, whom we admon
ish, as it shall be found expedient, to be proceeded against, as to
all and singular acts, even to a definitive, declarative, condemna
tory, and privatory sentence, as well as to an excusatory mandate.
But if the said King Henry, and others before admonished, shall
not appear within the said term respectively prefixed them, and
shall sustain with an obdurate mind the foresaid sentence of
excommunication for three days, which God forbid, we do aggra
vate, and successively reaggravate the said censures, and do declare
King Henry DEPRIVED OF HIS KINGDOM AND OF
HIS DOMINIONS aforesaid; and as well him as those before
admonished, and every of them, to have incurred all and singular
the other penalties aforesaid, and that they and all that belong to
them be eternally exploder! by all the faithful. And if, in the

NONE OF THE KING's SUBJECTS TO OBEY HIM. 12C
mean time, he shall depiu't this life, out of our aforesaid authority
and plenitude of power, we declare and decree, he ought to
WANT CHRISTIAN BURIAL. AND WE DO SMITE
THE:\I ALL WITH THE SWORD OF ANATHEMA,
MALEDICTION AND ETERNAL DAMNATION."
No one to obey King Hoiry on pain of Excommunication.
'And ftirther yet, we do absolve and altogether set free from
the said king and his accomplices, favorers, adherents, and advisers
and followers aforesaid, however deputed, and from thdr oath of
fealty and their vassalage, and from all subjection towards the
king and others aforesaid, all the magistrates, judges, castellanies,
wardens and officials whatsoever of King Henry himself, and hia
kingdom, and all other his dominions, cities, lands, castles, vil
lages, fortresses, forts, towns and any other his places ; as also tha
universities, colleges, feudatories, vassals, subjects, cities, inhabit
ants; also denizens under actual obedience to the said king, as
well secular persons as others, who by reason of any temporality
recognize King Henry as their superior, and also ecclesiastical
persons. Moreover, commanding them that under pain of excom
munication, they wholly and altogether withdraw themselves from
the obedience of the said King Henry, and of all his officials, judges
and magistrates whatsoever, and that they do not recognize them as
thdr superiors, nor obey thdr commands."
Henry and his supporters cannot be Witnesses, make Wills, or inherit
Property.
" That others, being terrified by their examples, may learn to
abstain from such excesses, we will and decree, by the same know
ledge and plentitude of power as before, that King Henry and his
accomplices, adherents, counsellors, followers, and other criminals,
as to the premises, after they have respectively incurred the other
penalties aforesaid, that they, and also their descendants, from
thenceforward shall be, and are, accounted as persons infamous,
and as such shall not be admitted witnesses, nor shall they be
capable to make any wills and codicils, or other dispositions, nor to
grant anythuig, even to those who are living, and they are hereby

126 NO ONE MUST HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE KING.
rendered incapable to succeed to any estate, by virtue of any will
or testament, or to any person intestate."
No one must have any social Relations or business Transactions with
Henry, or his Supporters.
"And we further admonish all and every, the faithful in Christ,
under the penalties of excommunication, and other the penalties
undervTritten, that they avoid all the forementioned criminals, who
have been admonished, excommunicated, aggravated, interdicted,
deprived, cursed, and damned ; and, as much as in them lies, that
they cause them to be avoided by all others, and that they have no
commerce, conversation, or communion with the same persons, or with
the citizens, inhabitants, or dwellers, or with the subjects or vassals
of the cities, lordships, lands, castles, counties, villages, fortresses,
towns, and places aforesaid, of the said king, in buying, selling or
bartering, or in exercising merchandise or any budness with them.
And that they presume not to carry or hire, or cause to be carried
or conveyed, any wine, grain, salt, or any other victuals, arms,
cloth, wares, or any other merchandise or commodities, either by
sea in their ships, galleys or other vessels, or by land on mules or
other beasts belonging to them ; as also that they presume not to
receive things carried by them publicly, or by stealth, or to afford
any manner of assistance, counsel or favor, publicly or privately,
either by themselves or others, or indirectly, under any felse color
to such persons, which, if they presume to do, they likewise shall
incur the penalties of the said excommimication, a nullity also of
the contracts into which they have entered ; and, moreover, the for
feiture of their wares, victuals, and of all their goods, so carried.
which shall be free prize to the captors."
The Nation must unite far the Expuldon of Henry and his Supporters
by Force of Arms.
" Furthermore, if the premises notwithstanding. King Henry,
his accomplices, favorers, adherents, advisers and followers afore
said, shall persist in their obstinacy, and if remorse of conscience
shall not reduce them to a right mmd, but they shall confide in
their own power and arms, we require and admonish, under the
penalties of the same excommunication, and forfeiture of their goods.

THE SOLDIERS OP THE WORLD MUST ATTACK THE KING. 127
which shall be the prey of tlie captors, as hereafter is approved, all
and singular, the dukes and viarquiscs, counts, and all others whatso
ever, as well seculai" as ecclesiastical, and also men of the law, actu
ally obeying King Henry, that, Ayithout delay and excuse, they,
with force of arms, if need be, e.rpel out of the kingdom and afore
said dominions, them, and every of them, and their soldiers and
stipendiaries, as well horse as foot, and all others whatsoever who
shall favor them with arms." 
AU fighting Men in other Nations to attack Henry, and drive him into
Obedience to the Pope.
" Moreover, we, in like manner, exhort and require, nevertheless
commanding them, in virtue of their holy obedience, as well c£ the
aforesaid as any others, even those that fight for hire, and what
ever other persons having under them such as bear arms, either by
sea or land, that they take up arms against King Henry, his ac-
Tomplices, favorers, adherers, counsellors, and followers af )resaid,
so long as they shall remain in the foresaid errors, and in robellion
against the Holy See ; and that they persecute them, and every one
of them, that they MAY FORCE AND COMPEL THEM,
AND EVERY ONE OF THE^NI, TO RETURN TO THE
UNITY OF THE CHURCH, AND TO THE OBEDIENCE
OF THE HOLY SEE." 
The Goods of Englishmen, disobeying the Pope, when sdzed, belong
to the Captors; and thdr Owners, when they fall into the hands of
the Pontiff's friends, are to be sold into Slavery.
"And we, from the same power, knowledge, and authority, do
grant license, leave and liberty, to the same persons, of converting
the same goods, merchandises, money, shipping, commodities, and
cattle, to their own proper use ; decreeing these presents, all those
things wholly to pertain and belong to the captors. And the
persons deriving their origin from the same kingdom and domi
nions, or otherwise inhabiting therein, and not obeying our com
mands aforesaid, wheresoever they shall be taken, THEY SHAIjL
BE THE SLAVES OF THE TAKERS 
" Dated at Rome, at St. Mark, in the year of the incarnation of
our Lord, 1535, The third of the Calends of September, in the
first year of our pontificate."

128 EXCOMMUNICATION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.
This Bull was to be read in all churches on the " Lord's days
and other festivals, when the greatest number of the people shall
be assembled." And it was to be published with awful solemnity
" The standard of the cross was to be shown, the candles were to
be lighted, the bells were to be tolling, and then the candles were
to be extinguished and thrown on the ground and trodden under
foot," *
Surely the pontiff who could deprive Henry of his kingdom,
summon him to Rome to defend himself before the pope, order his.
subjects to expel him from his kingdom, command the warriors of
other nations to constrain Henry and his supporters to obey his
holiness, and forbid all men to have anything to do with Henry
in conversation, in trade, in advice, in showing him kindness, is, in
his own imagination, the master of kings and empires, the lord of
the world. The Excommunication of Queen Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth ascended the throne of England, she wrote to
Sir Edward Carne, f the English Ambassador at Rome, to notify
liis holiness of her accession to the throne. But Paul told the
ambassador that England was a fief of the Holy See, that Eliza
beth had no right to assume the crown without his permission, that
she was not born in lawful wedlock, and could not therefore reign
over England, and that her safest course was to renounce all claims
to the throne, and submit herself entirely to his will, then would
he treat her as tenderly as possible. But if she refused his advice
he would not spare her. She declined it, and his hatred was genu
ine. So was the dislike of each successor of Paul during her
reign. Sixtus V. promised J Philip II. of Spain a million of scudi
to aid in equipping his " Invincible Armada," to destroy the
throne of Elizabeth, and the only conditions he made in the be-
stowment of his gift were that, " He should J have the nomination
of the English sovereign, and that the kingdom should be a fief
of the Church." The Armada came to the coasts of England
• Bower's History of the Popes, vol. iii. p. 480.
t Hume's History of England, chap, xxxviii.
X Ranke's History of the Popes, vol. i. p. 517.

EXCOMMUNICATION OP QUEEN ELIZABETH. 129
freighted with strange instruments of tortm-e * to cure the heresies
of the subjects of Elizabeth, and with papal benedictions; but the
storms of heaven, aud the valor of Protestants, sent the boastful
fleet to destruction on the coasts of Spain, never again to trouble
Elizabeth. Rome seldom hurled a fiercer excommunication than that
launched by Pius V. at this queen, a woman with the intellect of
a hundred ordinary kings; but papal thunders then were nearly as
harmless as they are now, and yet, as a specimen of the Romish
system, it ought to be inserted here :
"Pius, t bishop, servant to the servants of God; for a perpetual
memorial of the matter.
" I. He that reigneth on high, to whom is given all power in
heaven and in earth, committed one holy Catholic and Apostolic
Church, out of which there is no salvation, to one on earth, namely,
to Peter the prince of the apostles, and to Peter's successor, the
Bishop of Rome, to be governed in fullness of power. Him alone
he made prince over all people and all kingdoms, to pluck up, des
troy, scatter, consume, plant and build, that he may retain the faith-
fill that are knit together with the bond of charity, in the unity
of the spirit, and present them spotless and unblamable to their
Saviour. In discharge of which function, we, who are, by God's
goodness, called to the government of the aforesaid Church, do
spare no pains, laboring with all earnestness, that unity and the
Catholic religion, which the Author thereof hath for the trial of
his children's &ith, and for our amendment, suffered to be exer
cised with so great afflictions, might be preserved incorrupt.
" II. But the number of the ungodly hath gotten such power,
that there is now no place left in the world, which they have not
assayed to corrupt with their most wicked doctrines. Amongst
others, Elizabeth, the pretended queen of England, a slave of wick
edness, lending thereunto her helping hand, with whom, as in a
sanctuary, tlie most pernicious of all men have found a refuge; this
very woman having seized on the kingdom, and monstrously
usurping the place of the supreme head of the Church in all Eng-

* Neal's History of the Puritans, i. 393. Dublin, 1755.
\ Bower's History of the Popes, vol. iii. pp. 482-3.
9

130 EXCOMMUNICATION OP QUEEN ELIZABETH.
land, and the chief authority and jurisdiction thereof, hath again
brought back the said kingdom into miserable destruction, which
was then nearly reduced to the most Catholic faith and to good
order. For having by strong hand inhibited the exercise of the
true religion, which Mary, the lawful queen oi famous memory,
had by the help of this see restored, after it had been formerly
overthrown by Henry VIIL, a revolter therefrom, and following
and embracing the errors of heretics ; she hath removed the royal
council, consisting of the English nobility, and filled it with ob
scure men, being heretics, hath oppressed the embracers of the
Catholic faith; hath placed impious preachers, ministers of iniquity,
and hath abolished the sacrifice of the mass, prayers, fastings, the
distinction of meats, a single life, and the Catholic rites and cere
monies ; hath commanded books to be read in the whole realm,
containing manifest heresy and impious mysteries and institutions,
by herself entertained and observed, according to the prescript of
Calvin, to be likewise observed by her subjects ; hath presumed
to throw bishops, parsons of churches, and other Catholic priests
out of their churches and benefices, and to bestow them and other
church livings upon heretics, and to deteimine of church causes;
hath prohibited the prelates, clergy and people to acknowledge the
Church of Rome, or obey the precepts and canonical sanctions
thereof; hath compelled most of them to condescend to her wicked
laws, and to abjure the authority and obedience of the Bishop
of Rome, and to acknowledge her to be sole lady in temporal and
spiritual matters, and this by oath ; hath imposed penalties aud
punishments on those who obeyed not, and exacted them of those
who persevered in the unity of the faith, and their obedience afore
said ; and hath cast the Catholic prelates and rectors of churches
into prison, where many of them, being spent with long languish
ing and sorrow, have miserably ended their lives.
" III. All which things, seeing they are manifest and notorious
to all nations, and by the gravest testimony of very many so sub
stantially proved, that there is no place left at all for excuse, defence,
or evasion ; we seeing that impieties and wdcked actions are mul
tiplied one on another, and moreover, that the persecution of the
faithfiil, and affliction for religion, groweth every day heavier and
heavier, through the instigation and means of said Elizabeth.*

EXCOMMUNICATION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. 131
because we understand her mind to be so hardened and indurate,
that she hath not only condemned the godly requests and admoni
tions of Catholic princes concerning her healing aud conversion,
but also hath not so much as permitted the nuncios of this see to
cross the seas into England ; are forced of necessity to betake
ourselves to the weapons of justice against her, not being able to
mitigate our sorrow, that we are constrained to take punishment
on one to whose ancestors the whole state of Christendom hath been
so much bounden.
" IV. Being therefore supported with his authority, whose pleas-
m-e it was to place us, though unequal to so great a burthen, in
this supreme throne of justice, we do, out of the fullness of our
apostolic power, declare the aforesaid Elizabeth being a heretic,
and a favorer of heretics, and her adherents in the matter afore
said, to have incurred the sentence of anathema, and to be cut off
from the unity of the body of Christ.
"And moreover, we do declare her TO BE DEPRIVED
OF HER PRETENDED TITLE TO THE KINGDOM
AFORESAID, AND OF ALL DOMINION, DIGNITY,
AND PRIVILEGE WHATSOEVER. And also the nobility,
subjects, and people of the said kingdom, and all others who
have, in any sort, sworn to her, TO BE FOREVER AB
SOLVED FROM ANY SUCH OATH, AND ALL MAN
NER OF DUTY, DOMINION, ALLEGIANCE AND
OBEDIENCE ; as we also do by the authority of these presents
absolve them, and do DEPRIVE THE SAME ELIZABETH
OF HER PRETENDED TITLE TO THE KINGDOM,
and all other things above said. And we do command and inter
dict all and every the noblemen, subjects, people and others
aforesaid that they presume not to obey her or her monitions,
mandates, and laws ; and those who shall do the contrary, we
do innodate with the like sentence of anathema. And because
it were a matter of too much difficulty to convey these presents to
all places wheresoever it shall be needful, our will is, that the
copies thereof, under a public notary's hand, and sealed with the
seal of an ecclesiastical preiate, or of his court, shall carry alto
gether the same credit with all people, judicial and extrajudicial,
aJ these presents should do, if they were exhibited or showed.

132 THE POPE ABOVE ALL KINGS.
" Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of the incarnation of
our Lord 1570, the fifth of the Calends of May, and of our
popedom the fifth year."
Had the power of Pius V. been equal to his extravagant
claims, Elizabeth would have been driven from her throne to
obscurity, or an untimely and cruel death, the brightest page in
British history would have been torn out, the England of to-day
night have been like modern Spain, a country splendid in memo
ries of the past, but for the time being clothed in rags, steeped in
ignorance, and covered with a dense cloud of superstition. While
North America, the glorious daughter of Britain, instead of
standing forth a miracle of light and progress, unmatched in the
history of our race, would have appeared like Mexico, a country
of beggars, bandits and priests, with the richest resources, and the
most restless and improvident population that ever wasted the
bounties of a generous climate and soil. But fortunately for the
nations, happily for the liberties of the world, the "Virgin
Queen," notwithstanding her undoubted defects, had a hold on
the English heart which the pope and all his allies could not
shake; and her triumph over her enemies not only made her
strong, but overwhelmed them with confusion and disgrace.
That the Pope is above Kings is the Doctrine of the great Ex
pounders of Papal Rights.
Sixtus V. was probably as well informed about the claims of
the Bishop of Rome as any of his predecessors or successors ; and
on the 22d day of March, 1590, he told Olivarez, the ambassa
dor of Philip IL, that " The pope is appointed by God as THE
SUPERIOR * OF EVERY OTHER SOVEREIGN." Inno
cent IV., in the Council of Lyons, July 16th, 1245, issued a
decree against Frederic, Emperor of Germany, in which he says : f
"We hold on earth THE AUTHORITY OF OUR LORD
JESUS CHRIST,  and we do hereby delare the above-
named prince, who has rendered himself unworthy of the honors
of sovereignty, and for his crimes has been deposed from his

• Ranke's History of the PopcB, vol. ii, p. 28.
t Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1245

POPE GREGORY VII. DEPOSES HENRY IV. 133
throne by God, to be bound by his sins, and cast off by the Lord,
and deprived of all his honors, and we do hereby sentence and
deprive him, and all who are in any way bound to him by an
oath of allegiance, we forever absolve and release from that oath,
and by the apostolic authority, stridly fmbid any one from obey
ing him, or in any way whatever attempiing to obey him as Em
peror or King ; and we decree that any who shall henceforth give
him assistance or advice, or show favor to him as Emperor or King,
shall be ipso facto excommunicated ; and those in the empire upon
whom the election of an emperor devolves, MAY FREELY
ELECT A SUCCESSOR IN HIS PLACE." And such was
the reverence with which this act was regarded that the German
princes elected Henry, landgrave of Thuringia, to the throne from
which Innocent had expelled Frederic, and at his death, William,
Count of Holland.
Gregory VII., with a rare grandeur of intellect, a towering
ambition, a daring spfrit, an unrivalled power of penetration, ex
hibits the claims of the popes in the boldest light. He thunders
forth : * " For the dignity and defence of God's holy Church, in
the name of Almighty God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I
DEPOSE FROM IMPERIAL AND ROYAL ADMINIS
TRATION, King Henry, son of Henry, some time Emperor,
who too boldly and rashly hath laid hands on thy Church ; and I
absolve all Christians subject to the empire from that oath whereby
they were wont to plight their faith unto true kings ; for it is
right that he should be deprived of dignity who doth endeavor to
diminish the majesty of the Church.
" Go to, therefore, most holy princes of the apostles, and what I
said, by interposing your authority, confirm ; that all men may
now at length understand, if ye can bind and loose in heaven, that
ye also can upon earth TAKE AWAY AND GIVE EMPIRES,
KINGDOMS, AND WHATSOEVER MORTALS CAN
HAVE : for, if ye can judge things belonging unto God, what is
to be deemed concerning these inferior and profane things ? And
if it is your part to judge angels, who govern proud princes, what
becometh it you to do toward their servants ? Let kings, now.

"Pope's Supremacy," by Isaac Barrow, p. 7. New York ed., 1846.

134 TERRITORIES GIVEN AWAY BY POPE ALEXANDER VI,
and all secular princes, learn by this man's example, what ye can
do in heaven, and in what esteem ye are with God ; and let them
henceforth fear to slight the commands of holy Church ; but put
forth suddenly this judgment, that all men may understand that,
not casually, but by your means, this son of iniquity doth fall from
his kingdom."
Gregory declared that kingly and papal government might be
compared to the sun and moon.* The pope's government is like
the sun, filling the world with its power and glory ; the dominion
of monarchs is like the moon, diminutive in its light, and derived
exclusively from the mighty sun of the " Seven Hills." His doc
trine is : " That royal authority is ordaiued of God, and should
remain within its proper limits, SUBORDINATE TO THE
PAPAL POWER, WHICH IS SOVEREIGN OVER
ALL, "
Gregory put forth prodigious efforts to persuade the sovereigns
of Europe that their kingdoms were fiefe of St, Peter, and that
they owed obedience to the Roman pontiff, his successor ; and,
with boundless zeal and commanding eloquence, and, we must add,
undoubted sincerity, he tried to subject the entire f affairs of kings
and chief magistrates, and the concerns of the whole world, to a
congregation of bishops meeting annually at Rome, of which, of
course, he was to be master. His celebrated Dictates claimed
power for the popes such as Jehovah alone possesses.
One is inclined to smile when he reads that Alexander VI., who,
as vicar of Christ, owned all countries inhabited by infidels, gave
to the crown of Castile the territories of all unbelievers which its
servants should discover and subdue. And, lest this grant might
conflict with his " deed of gift " to the Portuguese, he decreed that
a line, supposed to be drawn from pole to pole, a hundred leagues
westward of the Azores, J should serve as a boundary between them.
In the exercise of his world-wide sovereignty, he gave the coun
tries east of this line to Portugal, and those west of it, to Spain.
" In 1254, the pope," says Matthew Paris, § " gave the kingdom of
* Neander's Hist, of the Chist. Relig. and Ch., vol. iy. p. 88. Bostos.
t Mosheim. London ed., 1848, p. 360.
X Robertson's "America," p. 65. New York ed., 1829.
§ Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1254.

THE POPE GIVES SICILY TO EARL RICHARD. 135
Sicily to Earl Richard ; but Earl Richard told Albert, his legate,
that, ' unless the pope would give hostages from his own family as
security for his good faith, aid an expedition with money, and de
liver up some of his frontier fortresses to protect his army in case
a retreat w^as necessary, his gift looked very much as if some one
said : I give or sell you the moon ; climb up and take it.' " The
gift of Alexander bore the same features, aud showed the same
presumption. But the claims of the bishops of Rome to universal temporal
monarchy plunged all Europe, at various times, into confusion,
and large parts of it into carnage. It would require volumes in
stead of a few pages to exhibit the bitter fruits produced by these
usurpations. If the Master said : " My kingdom is not of this world," the
Church of Rome is governed by another spirit ; for, during eleven
hundred years, her bishops have held an earthly sceptre, and
struggled, like the conqueror of Darius, for an empire bounded
only by the limits of the globe ; a monarchy in which kings are to
be tolerated as papal viceroys, and nations are to be treated as de
pendent nurslings ; chastised with a scourge, or rewarded with a
smile, at the pleasure of the Holy Father.
These arrogant pretensions have never been recanted; and as
the renunciation of one of them would prove the Roman Bishop
a fellible mortal like the rest of us, not one of them shall ever be
surrendered until the papacy is in ruins. And though masses of
enlightened Catholics may repudiate and denounce them, they are
still in the heart of the Romish creed ; and, as in the past, they
will live in the ftiture history of the Catholic Church when an
opportunity offers for their exhibition. Infallibility cannot
change for the better ; it can never admit the necessity for its own
refi)rmation.

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.
As this ecclesiastical legislature has a wider reputation and in
fluence in the Church of Rome than any convention of prelates
known to history, and as it interests Protestants more than any
assemblage of Catholic bishops ever called together, a brief sketch
of the synod is indispensable to the completeness of this work.
The Council of Trent acted on the baseless assumption that
The Holy Spirit directed its Deddons.
In the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles there is an
account given of a consultation between the apostles and elders
about circumcision in its bearings upon Gentile converts. The
conference ended in a decree which was introduced in these words :
" It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us, to lay upon you no
greater burden than these necessary things." The apostles, of
course, were inspired men, qualified by the Spirit of God to write
Scripture, and give infallible decisions about everything pertaining to
the government and instruction of the Church of God. From this
record of the proceedings of inspired apostles at Jerusalem, Romish
ecclesiastics have found the doctrine that their uninspired bishops,
convened in a General Council, are led by the Holy Spirit in
everything ; and, as a result, that their decrees are the decisions of
the Fountain of Wisdom, incapable of error, and invested with
perpetual force. Acting upon this conviction, the decree of a
General Council, for ages, begins thus: "The sacred and holy
(Ecumenical and General Synod of  , lawfiilly assembled, in the
Holy Spirit." There is no more authority for the assumption that
the Comforter leads a Catholic Council to right conclusions because
136

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT, 137
he discharged this office for the apostles, than there would be to
imagine that he would enable it to make Holy Scriptui'c whenever
a synod tried its hand at writing " Revelations," because he gave
this power to the apostles. Nothing has made great synods look
more ridiculous than this, even in the opinion of some Catholics,
At Trent, the idea that the Spirit governed the cormcil was a
standing joke with many of the witty fathers. As nothing could
be done without orders from Rome, it became a common proverb
among the bishops that : * " The synod was guided by the Holy
Spirit, sent thither from time to time from Rome in a cloak-bag."
The Bishop of " Five Chm-ches," one of the leading men in the
synod, declared that : f " The Holy Spirit had nothing to do in
that assembly ; that all the counsels given there proceeded from
human policy, and tended only to maintain the pope's immoderate
and shameftd domination ; that answers were expected from Rome
as from the oracles of Delphos and Dodona ; that the Holy Spirit,
which they boast doth govern their councils, was sent from thence
in a postilion's cloak-bag, which, in case of any inundations, coidd
not come thither (a thing most ridiculous), until the waters were
assuaged. So it came to pass that the Spirit was not upon the
waters, as it is in Genesis, but by the waters. Oh, monstrous, ex
traordinary madness ! "
The Causes which led to the calling of the Coundl of Trent
The court of Rome, in the early part of the sixteenth century,
was flagrantly corrupt. No language could be too strong to de
scribe its falsehood and treachery, and its accursed love of money,
its sumptuous extravagance, its loathsome licentiousness, its fierce
despotism, and its unrelenting cruelty. Its turpitude was known
over the world, and shocked the moral sense of all Christian na
tions ; so that, wherever the name of Jesus was breathed with
reverence, there was one universal demand, that there should be a
reformation in the Church, in its head and in its members. Princes
were disquieted on their thrones by these demands ; popes shook
in the chair of the Fisherman as they rung in their ears ; and all
Europe felt the first vibrations of a coming earthquake, that would
Sarpi, p. 497. t Id., pp. 841-2.

138 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.
shake, and eventually overturn, the throne of the Man of Sin, and
give an impetus to liberty and intelligence that would reach the
ends of the earth, and the limits of the empire of- time. St. Bernard
writes to Pope Eugenius : " Your court receives good men, but
makes them not : lewd men thrive there ; the good pine and fall
away." This statement was true to the letter of the court o^
Clement VII. Indeed his predecessor, Adrian VI., admitted that
" the mischief proceeded from the court of Rome and the ecclesias
tical order," which had provoked Germany, and excited heart
burnings in all Christian countries. Dante, in his visit to the
infernal regions, represents himself as seeing a pope in a part of
hell where exquisite torture was inflicted, of whom he says :
He a new Jason * shall be called ; of whom
In Maccabees we read ; and favor such
As to that priest his king indulgent showed.
Shall be of France's monarch shown to him.
I know not if I here too far presumed.
But in this strain I answered : Tell me, now,
What treasures from St. Peter at the first
Our Lord demanded, when he put the keys
Into his charge ? Surely, he asked no more.
But follow me ! Nor Peter, nor the rest.
Or gold, or silver of Matthias took.
When lots were cast upon the forfeit place
Of the condemned soul.f Abide thou there ;
Thy punishment of right is merited ;
And look thou well to that ill-gotten coin.
Which against Charles X thy hardihood inspired.
If reverence for the keys restrained me not.
Which thou in happier days didst hold, I yet
Severer speech might use. Your avarice
O'ercasts the world with mourning, under foot
Treading the good, and raising bad men up.
Of gold and silver you have made your god,
Diflfering wherein from the idolater.
But that he worships one, a hundred you ?
Ah 1 Constantine, to how much ill gave birth,
Not thy conversion, but that plenteous dower
Which the first wealthy Father gained from thee." §

* Jason offered 860 talents of silver, and of another revenue 80 talents, ti
Antiochus Epiphanes, for the high priesthood. — 2 Maccab., iv. 7, 8.
tJudaa t King of Sicily. § Carey's Dante. N. Y. ed., 1853.,pp. 145-G.

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT, 139
Such, in Dante's day, was the common opinion among thinking
men about several popes. The conviction grew stronger towards
the sixteenth century; and, in its first half, the uuiversal remedy
for these evils was a general council. As Luther commenced his
great work, the papal system, the work of ages, and the pride of
millions, tottered to its underworld foundations, the wildest excite
ment rolled over Em-ope ; a vast upheaval threatened to overturn
German thrones, and the foundations of society in that land. Its
princes. Diet and emperor, time and again, demanded a council, and
other countries united in the urgent appeal, Clement VII, is
frightened by the cry. He is of illegitimate birth, a stain which,
in his day, was regarded as a disqualification for Peter's chair.
And he is charged with securing the popedom by unhallowed
means. A general council might depose him, as Constance
served John XXIII, But he is compelled, in 1531, to promise a
synod which he never intended to gather. At first, Mantua is the
proposed place of meeting for the council, then Piacenza. But, as
in either place the synod would be wholly at the mercy of the pon
tiff, the Germans made resistance, and insisted that it should be
held in their country. There was, however, no council till Clement
was in his grave. After an agitation running over many years
and all Christendom, it was at last decided by Paul III, to call a
council. Those who were invited to the Coundl.
Paul siunmoned all patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, abbots, and
those who, by privilege, should appear in a general synod ; also,
the emperor, king of France, and all other kings, dukes and
princes ; and, should they be unable to appear in person, they were
to send representatives.
The council was most anxious to have the Protestants repre
sented in it ; and, to induce them to appear at its meetings, it sent
them several safe-conducts, whose proferred protection they obsti
nately reftised. They demanded that it should be held in Ger
many; that the bishops should be released from their oath of
obedience to the pope ; that he, neither in person nor by legates,
should preside in the council ; and that, if they came to it, they
should be entitled to vote as well as to deliberate ; and, failing

140 THE COUNCIL OP TRENT,
to secure these requisites of justice, they utterly refused to take any
part in the discussions of the approaching great synod. The
council met December 13th, 1545, at
Trent
Trent is in the southern part of the Tyrol, on the left bank of
the Adige, in a beautiful valley, surrounded by lofty hills. It is
nearly fifty miles north of Verona. It is an Austrian possession.
Its cathedral was commenced in the beginning of the thirteenth
century, and it is a fine architectural work. The Church of Santa
Maria Maggiore stands on the site of the structure in which the
Council of Trent held its meetings. The Synod.
Its presiding officers were the legates. Cardinal John Maria de
Monte, Cardinal Marcellus Cervinus, and Cardinal Reginald Pole.
Paul III. gave these cardinals their positions.
At the session held on the 7th of January, 1546, there were
present, beside the legates and the cardinal of Trent, four arch
bishops, twenty-eight bishops, three abbots and four generals of
religious orders. Of the archbishops, two were titular, that is
bishops without flocks. One of these was Robert Venante, a
Scotchman, Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland, who, though near
sighted, had a splendid reputation in Italy as the " best post-rider
in the world." These two bishops had lived for years on papal
alms, and they gratefully came to Trent to vote for their benefec-
tor's measures.
Only the ambassador of the king of the Romans was present at
the first session. At a later period every state of any note belong
ing to the Catholic Church was represented by secular ambassa
dors in the synod, who made speeches in that body, and took an ac
tive part in its affairs. What a scanty delegation of bishops to
legislate for the universal Church in a general council.
The modes of transacting Business adopted by the Coundl.
A special congregation or committee was appointed to examine
every question, and frame decrees for the general congregation, in

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. 141
which all were free to express their sentiments, and fit the subject
under discussion for formal proclamation as a decree or canon. A
session was the meeting when the jjcrl'cctcd work received the
fiual vote, and the solemn sanction of the synod as a jiart of the
code of the Catholic Church.
In a congregation the prelates wore caps ; in a session they ap
peared with mitres in all the pomp of episcopal dignity.
The right of speaking in the synod in 1551 was given to the
pope's representatives first ; the emperor's spoke next ; the bishops
of Louvain sent by the queen next ; after them the divines who
came with the electors ; secular clergymen in the order of their
promotion next ; and after them the friars.
The bishops of the council were a jury ; inferior clergymen were
the lawyers who made speeches ; and after their addresses had ex
hausted the debate, the bishops were generally ready to vote. Of
the powerful and learned speeches delivered in the synod, few
came from the bishops.
The council decided that the Holy Scriptures might be quoted
as authorities, the traditions of the apostles, the decisions of coun
cils, constitutions, the authority of popes and holy fathers, and the
consent of the Catholic Church.
The Position of the Pope in the Coundl of Trent,
The pontiffs watched the deliberations of the synod with un
wearied vigilance ; they viewed its every movement with unhid
den jealousy. They used every effort manly and mean to regulate
its entire affairs, insignificant and important. If any father was
troublesome, means must be used to keep him quiet. If fearless
bishops at any time were too numerous, good prelates, who would
speak and vote as they were instructed, came speedily from Rome
or from some other part of Italy, If the council became con
scious of their manhood and their episcopal rank, the synod was
threatened with suspension or removal ; or the council was dis
banded for a time; or it was transferred to some Italian city
where the pope was all powerful, or where the persuasive elo
quence of an adjacent inquisition would suggest submission to
papal dictation.

142 THE COUNCIL OP TRENT.
Every bishop in the Council of Trent at his consecration had to
take this oath : " I., N. C.,* bishop, will henceforward bear true faith
to St. Peter, and to the holy apostolic Roman Church, to my lord
the Pope N. and his successors, who shall enter canonically. I
will not be a means, either by word or deed, that he may lose
either life or member, or be taken prisoner ; I will not reveal any
counsel he may impart unto me, either by letter or message which
may be any way damageable to him ; I will help to defend and
maintain the papacy of the Church of Rome against all the world
and the rules of the holy fathers."
Each bishop in the synod of Trent was bound hand and foot
by this oath, to obey the successor of St. Peter. And the pontiff
sent orders to his legates who presided over the council, about the
business which was to be pushed forward, or that which was to be
excluded, and nothing was formally discussed which had not his
approval. He was master of the entire deliberations of Trent.
He used Sacred Bribes and Holy Jests.
To make his authority undoubted he employed ecclesiastics, who
watched every father at the synod : at the head of these men, for
some time was Simoneta, the confidential manager of the council
for his Holiness. Simoneta, with other agents, employed a number
of needy bishops who could jest soberly, and by provoking inde
pendent men, make them look ridiculous, while they remained
unmoved themselves. These artful operators often broke up con
gregations of the synod by their sober jokes at the expense of
worthy bishops. By their sarcastic interruptions and sneering
criticisms at the conclusion of an oppositioti address, they often
created the greatest confusion and secured the adjournment of a
debate which was becoming troublesome to the friends of the pon
tiff. And as the hirelings of Simoneta were numerous and needy,
and as his funds were regularly and largely repleiiished from
Rome, he could silence most opponents, or so tarnish their reputa
tion or orthodoxy by private slanders, that their influence was
destroyed.

• Bishop Jewell's Letter on the Council of Tn ai

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT, 143
In 1563, * the Emperor Ferdinand wrote Pius IV- to give
liberty to the council, of which it had been deprived by three
causes : first, everything must be managed at Rome before being
presented to the synod ; the second difficulty was, that only the
presidents could make propositions in the council ; and the last
was, that prelates bent on tlie pope's glory rendered their brethren
powerless. This difficulty was occasioned by the grave jesters
who aided the holy spirit which guided Catholic coimcils to reach
proper conclusions. It can be easily seen that a council whose
members were bound to the pope by solemn oaths, whose pro
positions must all come from his legates, and whose bishops
were bribed, browbeaten, or ridiculed, was a mere expression of
the pope's will. One of the Decrees of Trent, f
" That the memory of paternal incontinency may be banished
as far as possible from places consecrated to God, wliich purity
and holiness most especially become, it shall not be lawful for the
sons of clerks, who are not born from lawful wedlock, to hold, in
those churches, in which their fathers have, or have had an eccle
siastical benefice, any benefice whatsoever, even though a different
one, nor to minister in any way in the said churches, nor to have
pensions out of the fruits of benefices which their fathers hold, or
have at another time held. And if a father and a son shall be
found, at this present time, to hold benefices in the same church,
the son shall be compelled to resign his benefice, or to exchange it
for another out of that church, within the space of three months ;
otherwise he shall, by the very fact, be deprived thereof." A law
in any Protestant church forbidding the sons of its clergy, born out
of lawful wedlock, to enjoy a benefice jointly with their fathers,
would have a ring of iniquity too loud and clear to be misap
prehended. Controversies in the Coundl.
Men differed in opinions, in feelings, and in proposed acts

* Sarpi, p. 688
] Cauones et Decreti Cone. Trid., Deer, de Reform., cap. 15, seas, xiv
p. 200. Lipsise, 1863.

144 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.
And not a few instances of apparent harmony were but compul
sory submissions.
The cup excited a deeply interesting and prolonged discussion in
Trent. It may be safely asserted that three-fourths of the Catho
lics in Europe were in favor of having it given with the bread.
And this preponderance was nearly as great among the clergy as
among the laity. In 1562, the ambassador of the Duke of
Bavaria, in the council, demanded the cup for the laity in the
name of his master, declaring that Paul III, had granted it to
Germany ; and he insisted in a spirit of honest earnestness that it
should not be refused. The ambassadors of the Emperor Ferdi
nand about the same time presented a paper to the council, in which
they declared, that there were Catholics in Hungary, Austria,
Moravia, Silesia, Carinthia, Carniola, Styria, Bavaria, Suevia, and
other parts of Germany, who desired the cup with great zeal. In
Hungary, said they, " They force the priests to give them the
cup by taking away their goods, and threatening to kill them ;"
and in manly words they appealed for the chalice given by Jesua
to all. The legates themselves were strongly inclined to yield to
the appeal, and grant the cup to Germany. Pius IV. was equally
disposed to gratify one of the most popular desires that ever
agitated the Catholic Church. Nor was Charles IX., King of
France, a whit less anxious for the cup than the Catholic Em
peror and princes of Germany : with him and his people the desire
amounted to a passion, and on many occasions it was urged with
vehemence on the bishops at Trent. The Council of Constance,
in 1414, had first changed the character of the Supper, by keeping
back the chalice: the date was too recent, and the change too
senseless to make the people calm, when another council gave
them an opportunity to restore the honored forms of other days.
Against the change, the talented but unscrupulous party who
governed the council, urged that if the Holy Spirit guided coun
cils, he ruled at Constance, and it would be impiety to reveree
the decree he inspired there ; besides, they said, many demands
were made, and if the synod began to yield, it would be difficult
to find a stopping place. They brought in Scripture in abundance
to support their positions ; they instanced the case in St, John
where it is said : " He that eateth this bread shall live forever •"

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT, 145
they pointed to the disciples going to Emmaus, who only knew
Jesus in the breaking of bread, not in the drinking of wine;
to St. Paul, ready to suffer shipwreck, who blesses Irread, but
speaks not of wine ; to the Lord's Prayer, in which daily bread is
asked without any allusion to wine ; to the manna which repre
sents the eucharist, and yet has no drink in it ; to Jonathan, who
tasted the honey, but did not drink. James Payva, a Portuguese
leclared that when Christ gave the bread to his disciples first,
they were all laymen, but when he ordaiued them prifests, in these
words : " Do this in remembrance of me," he then gave them the
cup. And the cup was therefore only for priests, while the bread
was for all. Another argued in the council that " the cup being
the blood of Christ might fall on the ground, or hang on the
beard of a layman ; that the vessels to hold it would not be kept
clean, and that giving it to a layman would make him the equal
of a priest," But reasons of this character weighed little ; and
when the discussion was exhausted there were three opinions,
one that it should not be granted, another that the cup should
be permitted with conditions, and still another that it should be
referred to the pope. And " fifty * of the most intelligent persons
in the synod maintained that the cup should be conceded with
jome cautions," And when the question was to be decided, it
was found that it could not receive the number required to pass it
as a doctrine, it could only receive the vote needed for a decree of
reformation. It was a maxim in Trent, that " a decree of faith
could not be made if a considerable part contradicted ; but to estab
lish a decree of reformation, a major part of voices was suffi
cient," And the cup resolution, though recognized as an article
of feith, t owing to the impossibility of passing it in its true
character for lack of requisite votes, was introduced as a decree of
reformation, and by this artifice it became the permanent law of
the CathoKc Church, and a lasting insult to Jesus.
Claims of the Clergy over Secular Affairs.
Perhaps the most exciting controversy in the Council of Trent
was aroused by the presentation of certain articles giving the

• Sarpi, p. 559. fW-, P.576.
10

146 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.
clergy supremacy in many affairs purely civil. * One of these
articles declared that ecclesiastical persons should not be judged
in a secular court; another, that the civil magistrate shall not
interfere in any spiritual case, such as one about matrimony,
heresy, patronage, benefices, tithes, ecclesiastical fees, temporal
jurisdiction of churches, and other cases civil, criminal, or mixed,
belonging to the Ecclesiastical Court ; another, that laymen shall
not appoint ecclesiastical judges ; another declares that the eccle
siastical judge shall be free from secular authority in imposing or
revoking excommunications, in summoning whom he will, and in
pronouncing sentence of condemnation on him, and in having
officers to execute it ; another forbids the Emperor, or any other
prince, to interfere with ecclesiastical causes or persons by edicts,
or otherwise, and commands all sovereigns to lend the secular
arm to execute ecclesiastical decisions ; another declares that the
letters, citations and sentences of ecclesiastical judges, especially
of the Court of Rome, shall be immediately executed by all rulers
without any consent from the civil authorities. These articles, no
doubt, contained the sentiments of three-fourths of the father i at
Trent. In many countries, the articles had been laws at work for
centuries, if not fully developed, at least in a modified form. But
they raised an immense commotion in every court in Europe, and
most of all in Catholic courts. The ambassadors at Trent, were
indignant at their presentation, and took the earliest occasion to
denounce them.
De Ferrieres, f one of the ambassadors of France, among othei
things, told the council, that their proposed reforms of princes
were not the plaster of Isaiah, to heal the wound, but of Ezekiel,
to make it raw, though healed before ; that these additions of
excommunications and curses, were without example in the ancient
Church ; that their articles had no other aim than to take away the
liberty of the French Church, and offend the majesty of the most
Christian kings, who, by the example of Constantine, Justinian,
and other emperors, have made many ecclesiastical laws. He
said, the kmg marvelled at two things : one, that they, the fathers,
adorned with so great ecclesiastical power, assembled only to

Sarpi, p. 769. f Id., p. 772-8,

The council of trent. 147
restore church disct^line, not regarding this, should bind them
selves to reform those whom they ought to obey, though they
were stiff-necked ; another, that they should think they can and
ought, without any admonition, excommunicate aud anathematize
kings who arc given by God to men, which ought not to be done
to any ordinary man, though persevering in a most grievous
offence. He said that Michael, the archangel, durst not curse the
devil, and yet they were wholly conversant with maledictions
against kings, and against his sovereign, if he will defend the laws
of his ancestors, and the liberties of the G^llican Church. He
told them that the king desired the council not to decree anything
against those laws ; and his ambassadors to oppose such decrees as
he did then oppose them. Afterwards, speaking not for the king
but himself, he invoked heaven, earth and the fathers to consider,
whether the king's demands were just ; whether it were honest for
them to make orders for themselves throughout the whole world ;
whether this was a time to take compassion, not upon the church,
nor upon France, but upon themselves, their dignity, reputation,
and revenues, which cannot be preserved but by the arts by which
they were first obtained; that in so great confusion they must be
wary, and not cry when Christ comes, "SEND US INTO THE
SWINE ;" that if they would restore the Church to its ancient repu
tation, and compel the adversaries to repentance, and reform princes,
they should follow the example of Hezekiah, who did not imitate
his father, nor his first, second, third, or fourth grandfather, who
were imperfect, but went higher, to the imitation of his perfect
ancestor ; so the council must not look to its next predecessors,
though very learned, but ascend as far as Ambrose, Augustine,
and Chrysostom, who overcame the heretics, not by arming princes
for war, while they sat picking thdr nails at home, but by prayers,
a holy life, and sincere preaching. For the fathers, becoming
like these ancient worthies, will make princes to become Theodosii,
Honorii, Arcadii, Valentinianii, and Gratiani, which he hoped for,
and would praise God if it should be so.
The oration stirred up a perfect tempest in the sacred breasts of
the assembled clergy. It was assailed publicly and privately
with all kinds of weapons. But its author was sustained by the
combined monarchs of Europe, for whom he was scourging the

148 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.
insolence of the council ; and both he and his hearers knew well
that he had the keen intellect and the material resources which
fitted him to defy them. The subject was discussed at great length,
and then was allowed to fall ioto an untimely grave. No spirit
guided the Council of Trent but the unholy spirit of cunning, ty
ranny, worldliness, obsequiousness, and superstition. Little wonder
that the witty French made a proverb : That the modern council
has more authority than that of the apostles, for its own pleasure
only was a sufficient ground for its decrees, without admitting tha
Holy Spirit. Numbers and Charade)- of the Council.
In 1646 the council was composed of five cardinals and forty-
eight bishops, * It was at this time it issued its famous decrees
about the scriptures, giving inspired authority to apocryphal writ
ings and uncertain traditions ; and authenticity or superiority over
all other copies of the word of God to the Vulgate, a mere version,
and one so full of errors that the council itself had to appoint a
committee of six to correct it ; and restraining men in their proper
liberty to discover its meaning.
Among the prelates in the council at this time, there was no
man "remarkable for learning, * some were lawyers, perhaps
learned in that profession, a few divines, but of less than ordinary
merit, the greater number were gentlemen or courtiers. As to
their dignities, some were only titular, and the greater part bishops
of such small cities, that if each one represented his people, it could
not be said that one in a thousand of Christendom was represented.
And from Germany at this time there was not one bishop or di
vine," In the sixth session, which issued the decrees on justification,
there were present four cardinals, ten archbishops, and forty-seven
bishops ; f in the thirteenth, which defined transubstantiation, there
were four legates, six archbishops, and thirty-four bishops ; in the
last session there were, according to Labb6 and Cossart, seven
legates, two cardinals, three patriarchs, thirty-three archbishops
and two hundred and thirty-seven bishops, besides eleven proxies.
* S»rpi, 163. t Perceval on the Roman Schism, p. 95.

THE COUNCIL OP TRENT, 149
Of these about two-thirds were from Italy, the rest, with few ex
ceptions, from France and Spain. Those Italian bishops and the
natives of Italy wearing titular dignities, were all the mere crea
tures of the pope, and through them the council was constantly
in the power of the holy father.
At the close of the proceedings of the council, * according to
the authoritative report of its doings, four legates, two cardinals,
three patriarchs, twenty-five archbishops, one hundred and sixty-
eight bishops, seven abbots, thirty-nine proctors of absent prelates,
and seven generals of religious orders, subscribed with their own
hand the decrees of the coimcil. The number, notwithstanding
this statement, at the last meeting of the council, is not to be fully
credited. But that most of its sessions were very slenderly at
tended, and that the attendance was made up of men of limited
attainments and ability, is undoubted. Even Paul IV. said scorn
fully of the council : f "It was a great vanity to send into the
mountains sixty bishops of the least able and forty doctors of the
most insufficient, as was twice done already (1556), and to believe
that by those the world could be better regulated than by the
vicar of Christ aided by his cardinals, prelates, and doctors at
Rome." The Bishop of Five Churches, in a letter to the Emperor Maxi
milian, says of the Council of Trent : J " What good could be
done in that council in which the votes were not weighed but
numbered ? If goodness of cause and reason had been the weapons,
though we were but few, we had vanquished a great army of our
enemies. The pope had a htmdred for one, and in case that were
not sufficient, he could have created a thousand. We daily saw
hungry and needy bishops come to Trent ; youths, for the most
part, who just began to have beards, given over to luxury and
riot, hired only to give their voices as the pope pleased. They
were unlearned, and simple, but supplied with impudent boldness.
When these were added to the pope's old flatterers, iniquity tri
umphed, and it was impossible to determine anything but as they
pleased.

* Canones et Decreta Goncilii Tredentini, p. 308. Lipsiae, IPeS.
t Sarpi. p. 399. X Sarpi, 841.

150 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.
" There was a grave and learned man, who was not able to bear
so great an indignity, and as he made the fact known, he was
traduced as not a good Catholic, and he was terrified, threatened
and persecuted that he might approve things against his will.
Matters were brought to this pass by the iniquity of those who
came there, fitted and prepared, that the council seemed to consist,
not of bishops, but of disguised maskers, not of men but of
images, such as Dedalus made, that moved by nerves which were
none of their own. They were hireling bishops, who, as country
bagpipes, could not speak but as breath was put into them. The
Holy Spirit had nothing to do in this assembly." Such is the tes
timony of a man of great power, truth and observation. And
yet this council, composed of such materials as it was, gave theii
present cast to all the doctrines and usages of the Catholic Church.
These youthful bishops were no doubt titular prelates, bearing thf
name of an eastern diocese, and performing no episcopal acts ex
cept voting at the Council of Trent.
The Pontiffs who Reigned during tlie Sessions of the Council.
These were Paul III., Julius III., and Pius IV. The coun
cil first assembled in 1545, and after several prorogations, and
some protracted intermissions, it finally adjourned in 1563,
Influence of tlie Coundl.
It exerted for centuries, and it enjoys still, the greatest power
ever springing from any assembly of ecclesiastics. The world is
more familiar with its name than with the insignificance of its
membership ; and it is remarkable that such a body should stretch
long and vigorous arms over the gulf of time since its dissolution,
and over all the Catholic countries of the world, and hold the
entire papal nations in its powerful grasp. Several causes con
tribute to this result : the first is the profound reverence entertained
for councils in the Catholic Church. In several Protestant communi
ties there are ecclesiastical legislatures who make authoritative
enactments for the government of their churches, but such laws
are regarded, even by those who make them, as wise or unwise ac
cording to the principles embodied in them. But a Catholic coun-

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT, 151
oil, constituted in proper form, is believed to be an "Inspired
Assembly," speaking by the promptings of the unerring Jehovah,
whose decisions are the revealed will of the Lord of all, which
ought not to be questioned, and can never be repealed. As the
clergyman who addressed the Council of Trent, when Mascarenius
the Portuguese ambassador was received, said : * " The authority of
councils is so great that their decrees are to be received as dimne
oracles." Such is the general doctrine of the Catholic Church.
And this view of councils gave great force to the decrees issued at
Trent. The second was the extensive range of the council in the
adoption of new articles of faith. The synod received every sanc
tified folly, almost without exception, revered in any quarter of
the Romish communion, as a tenet of the Church ; and in this way
gained a wide extent of favor. Another reason was the able
management of the council by the pontiffs, who selected the
shrewdest strategists of the entire papal Church and employed them
to direct the decisions of the council. Another reason is found in
the extraordinary deference paid by the bishops of Rome to the
canons and enactments of Trent, The fifth reason why the Coun
cil of Trent became such a potent power in the papal Church is to
be found in the condition of Catholicism when the council held
its meetings. The Reformation, like an earthquake, had shaken
and shattered the Romish world, and burst the ties which bound
the system together, its old mighty ties of force and terror ; and it
compelled the council to give a new shape to nearly all her ancient
doctrines ; and such a cast as would fit them to bear the most
searching scrutiny. As worn out rails are rolled again, and after
the process come forth totally unlike their former ground, ragged,
rusty selves : so in the foundery at Trent, through canons, decrees
and the Catechism, the old rails of the Romish system were rolled
over again, and some of them received a greater thickness; some
of them an altered shape, and all of them new and additional
sleepers, to sustain without injury the thundering trains of the
great Reformation.
The Church of Rome before the Council of Trent was like a
tower built of stones from many ancient structures. A great many
• Sarpi'g History of the Council of Trent, p. 477. London, 1629.

152 THE COUNCIL OP TRENT,
came from Solomon's temple, and quite a number from the build
ings adjoining the manger in Bethlehem ; some jagged rocks were
placed upon the tower that once formed a part of a temple of Mo
loch ; not a few stones from a temple of Jupiter ; and a block of
marble beautifully sculptured from a temple of Venus, Cement
made from the rock of Calvary, well crushed, and bitumen from
the Dead Sea joined the stones together. The tower was strong,
and a source of terror to the world. Lightning from Wittemburg
struck it fiercely several times and burned off the roof, exposing
the inmates to the pelting fury of the storms, and so shattering the
walls that the fathers at Trent, thinking it was going to tumble to
pieces, carefully took down the tower and rebuilt and greatly en
larged it. They put in every old stone, carefully placing it in a
new position ; they procured new materials from the walls of the
Sorbonne, the graves of St, Bernard, Thomas Aquinas, Duns
Scotus, Peter Lombard, Gregory VII., and Innocent III., from
the battlefields of Judas Maccabeus, and from nearly every quarter
of the world. They made the many window sashes and doors
out of the wood of the true cross and the nails with which the
Saviour was fastened on it. Each one of its many hundred guards
imagined that he carried the identical spear with which the soldier
pierced the Saviour's side, and every one of them wore some gar
ment which belonged to the Saviour or his mother ; the tower was
intended to reach heaven, and was indeed a very lofty structure ;
it was designed as a home for the heroes who should conquer the
world. As we have seen a school-house once, whose walls, on
close inspection, showed angel figures, a sculptured Holy Spirit,
several saints, the plunder of an ancient neighboring nunnery : so,
on closely examining this massive tower, you easily detected re
presentations in the stones of Moses, Aaron, Levi, a Jewish altar
and sacrifice, a censer, Judas Maccabeus making an offering for
his dead soldiers, the virgin and child, Jupiter, Venus, Moloch,
the Angelic Doctor, the Master of the Sentences, and other scho
lastic divines by the hundred, and saints and angels without num
ber, with an occasional scene from purgatory. The architecture
was a mixture of all orders ; the building was of all shapes, and the
careful observer could easily see above its main doorway its name :
BABEL, CONFUSION. While on its corner, stone were cut the
words : Buih by the father.' nf Trent, after designs sent from Rome

BAPTISM.
During the period beginning with the commencement of the
fourth century, and ending with the sixth, baptism was commonly
idministered twice in the year, at Easter and Pentecost.
Preliminaries of Baptism.
There were three classes of sponsors generally employed during
this period for three distinct lists of persons ; one sponsor became
surety for an infant, another for an adult, and a third for a person
of deranged or defective intellect. In each case, the sponsor was
bound to look after the religious welfare of his charge : even the
sureties of adults " were their curators and guardians, bound to
take care of their instruction before and after baptism." *
The baptized were anointed with oil, from head to foot, before
receiving the sacred rite. This ceremony signified, in that day,
the unction of the Holy Spirit, and grafting into the Olive Tree,
Christ Jesus. It also denoted that celestial chrism, which qualified
Christ's earthly wrestlers for heroic struggles with the powers of
evil. The bishop breathed upon the candidate for baptism after he
had been exorcised to expel demons, to indicate the gift of the
Spirit to be conferred.
He touched his ear, saying : " Ephphatha (Mark vii, 34), Be
opened; may God send thee an open understanding, that thnu
mayest be apt to learn and to answer."
In north Africa, after signing candidates with the crosn, the
bishop gave them a portion of consecrated salt,
* Bingham's Antiquities, book xi. chap. 8, ss. 1-8. 153

154 CEREMONIES AFTER BAPTISM.
Just before the baptism was administered, the candidate faced
the west, the supposed region of diabolical and dark influences, and
then, by his sponsor or personally, he renounced Satan with his
works and pomps, his service, his angels, his inventions, and all
things that owe or render him obedience. This renunciation was
commonly repeated three times, the speaker stretching out his
hands, and striking them with horror, and spitting, in defiance of
the Wicked One, in the direction in which his power was supposed
to be exercised. Then, facing the east, the region of the rising
sun, the quarter in which Eden, the type of the heavenly paradise,
was planted, the candidate vowed to live ever after in obedience to
the laws of Christ. After this, a solemn profession of ikith was
made in the articles of a gospel creed, with the eyes directed
towards heaven. Such was the custom which continued at Rome
and elsewhere, for a great while, in defiance of opposition. The
baptism was administered after these observances,*
Ceremonies immediately after Baptism.
When the candidate was baptized, his forehead, ears, nostrils and
breast, were anointed with holy chrism.
White robes were placed upon him, to show that he was washed
in the blood of the Lamb, and meant to keep himself unspotted
from the world.
Lighted tapers were placed in his hands, as emblems of the
lamps of faith, with which virgin souls go forth to meet the divine
bridegroom. The kiss of peace was always given to the babe or adult just
baptized, to show the perfect reconciliation with God now
enjoyed. Milk and honey were imparted to the baptized, to teach that, as
oabes in Christ, they required as simple food, of a spiritual kind,
as natural infants needed of a material sort.
The ingenuity of the early fathers was sorely taxed to discover
some new ceremony to add to the dignity of baptism, to make it
more imposing and glorious in the estimation of men.

^ Bingham's Antiquities, book xi. chap. 7, ss. 8,

MIRACULOUS POWERS OF BAPTISM. 155
The Effects of Baptism.
Nothing in all earthly history ever wTought such prodigies as
baptism at this period was supposed to accomplish. It removed
the taint of original sin, blotted out actual transgrecsions, made
the baptized as iunoceut as an angel, gave him a new heart, and
bestowed upon him an outfit for heaven so perfect that it was
imagined that the best time to die was just after being baptized.
How early these heresies appeared in the churches it is somewhat
difficult to settle. Justin Martyr uses the word regenerate about
baptism in a way that looks in the direction of baptismal regene
ration. The passage is : * " They who are persuaded and do be
lieve that those things which are taught by us are true, and do
promise to live according to them, are directed first to pray and ask
of God with fasting the forgiveness of their former sins ; and we
also pray and fast with them. Then we bring them to some place
where there is water, and they are regenerated, according to the
manner of regeneration by which we were regenerated." Possibly,
Justin may have used this word regenerate in a figurative sense ,
but the probabilities are not favorable to that opinion. Evidently
he attached an amount of importance to baptism unknown to
Christ or his apostles.
Tertullian, a little later, expresses the doctrine of baptismal re
generation in terms as vigorous and unscriptural as any Romanist or
ritualist could possibly employ; nay, they could not wish their
sentiments more explicitly asserted. His words are: f "We
fishes, after the name 'ix^ii of our Lord Jesus Christ, are born in
the water." The word 'i^flvj is an acrostic made of the first letter
of the following names of Jesus in Greek : 'iij^ovj Xptordj, ®€oi 'Ttoj,
2a*»jp, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour. And it means,
* "Ocrot a* rtfiffSuBt xai Ttiatcvugiv a7j>i9ij taiita ta i^' ijnuv SoSaaxouevot
xai Xiyoficva, ilvac, xai ^loiv ovtus SvvasOai. vTtiaxviMitai, ivxta9ai, te xai
aitilv vristivovtti Ttapd tov 9sov tiov rtpofniaptijuivav a^eatv, SiSaaxovtai,
flfiuv avvivxoitevav xai avvvtjattvovtuiv oAtoli. Kntita i/yovtai i^' ¦ru.at
ty9a iiSap iatai, xai tportov ava/ytvvtiaiiaf ov xai '//fiiis avtoi av£ysvvti9'^iii.tv,
avayivvilivtai,. — Apol. i. sec. 61.
t Sed nos pisciuli secundum 'ixS-iv nostrum Jesum, in aqua nascimur — /•'i
Baptismo, cap. i.

156 BAPTISM WASHES OUT ALL SIN.
a fish. From this name, a fish became as common a symbol among
the early Christians to indicate their fiiith as a crucifix is among
the adherents of Rome in our times. We are born in the water, was
a leading view of baptism, cherished by great and good men like
Augustme, Chrysostom, and Ambrose, This doctrine springing up
in the latter half of the second century, swept over Christendom,
and left scarcely a trace of dissent in its pathway of triumph.
Baptism washes out all Sin.
From the third century down to the Reformation, except in a
few isolated communities, baptism was the grand fountain of soul-
cleansing. It was believed to contain the whole forgiving power
of Father, Son and Spirit, And it was imagined that heaven
could never be entered without it.
On this account many put off baptism till death threatened
them, that their iniquities might be removed as the King of Ter
rors carried them into the land of spirits. And when an earth
quake vibrated, or a pestilence, or a deadly war threatened, the
clergy were besieged, and their utmost powers * were tasked to
administer baptism to frightened thousands, whose faith in the
liquid deity was unbounded ; and who were resolved to render no
service to Jesus till the sceptre of death seemed likely to strike
them. The Emperor Valens raised an army to drive back the insolent
Goths who had crossed the Danube, and invaded Thrace, which
he intended to lead in person. And as he reflected upon the
risks of battle, he concluded he ought not to hazard his life with
out the protection of " divine grace," and that he ought to secure
" the complete armor of God by means of the holy rite of bap
tism." And the intelligent Greek historian who records the trans
action, says : t "This was a wise and prudent reflection." Eudox-
ius baptized him, and with his soul washed by water, as be
foolishly imagined it to be, he supposed himself ready for battles
with their savage havoc and huge graves. A foolish faith in the
[lower of water to cleanse the polluted souls of men was universaL

» Neander's Hist, of the Christian Religion, ii. 820. Boston, 1870.
+ Tlieodoret's Eccl. Hist., lib iv. cap. 12, 13.

BAPTISM WASHES OUT ALL SIN, 157
And it was believed that it gave a far more complete purification
to hearts than it ever gave to hands or garments.
Many sick persons were baptized in their beds from the third
to the sixth century. This was called clinic baptism, from the
Greed word xxiv^, a bed or couch. It met with much oppposition,
but as even this sort of baptism was supposed to take away all
sin, it was freely resorted to in cases where the disease threatened to
prove fatal. Novatus, * of Rome, enjoyed the j^pplication of
water in this way (rcept,xv9iyta), when it was imagined that he was
at the point of death, and his future career as the founder of a new
sect of Puritans, opposed to some of the customs of the churches
in his day, brought his baptism into notoriety and disrepute. But
he believed that it gave him a full outfit for the " Shining Shore,"
at a time when he supposed that he was leaving the earth.
In A, D. 253, a council of sixty-six bishops sat in Carthage, with
Cyprian at its head. To this council Fidus, a rural bishop, pre
sented by letter two questions for solution ; one about Victor, a
presbyter, and the other a query, asking how soon after birth a
babe might be baptized; and suggesting that it should never
receive the sacred rite till after the eighth day, as it would not be
pleasant to give it the kiss of peace before it was eight days old.
Cyprian and the council say to him in reply, among other things,
" Therefore, most dear brother, this was our opinion in the coun
cil, that no one should be hindered by us from baptism and the
grace of God, who is merciful, kind and affectionate to all ; which
rule, as it holds for all, so we think it more especially to be ob
served in reference to infimts and persons newly born, to whom
our help and the dimne mercy are rather to be granted, because at
their first entrance into the world, by their weeping and wailing,
they do no other thing than implore compassion," Cyprian pro
ceeds to give his rustic brother a little information, by saying :
" Whereas you assert that an iafant, the first days after its birth,
is unclean, so that any of us abhors to kiss it, we reckon that this
ought to be no impediment to giving it celestial grace ; for it is
written, 'To the clean all things are clean,' , , . , Though an
infant is fresh from the womb, yet is it not such that any one
• Eccl. Hist, of Eusebius, lib. vi. cap. 43.

158 Cyprian's letter to fidus.
ehould be horrified to kiss it, in gimng grace, and in making (the
kiss of) peace,"
One of the reasons for the baptism of a child, before it is eight
days old, in this letter is, that Elisha stretched himself upon the
dead son of the Shunamite, in such a manner that his head, face,
limbs, and feet were applied to the head, face, limbs, and feet of
the child, showing a certain equality between a child and a man,
in features if not in stature, and this equality, Cyprian argues, is
intended to show that the soul of a child and of a man are of the
same stature, dimensions, and needs, that all souls are alike and
equal ; and then he proceeds to infer, that if the weightiest sin
ners are not kept from baptism and grace, " How much * less
reason is there to refuse an infant, who being newly born, has no
sin, except that as a descendant of Adam, after the flesh, he has
from his very birth contracted the contagion of the death an
ciently threatened, who comes for this reason the more easily to
receivetheremissionof dns, because the sins forgiven him are not his
own ; they were committed by others."
This doctrine about baptism inspired the same false hopes
every^vhere which it lighted in the hearts of Cyprian and his
fellow bishops at Carthage. It took away the iniquities of the
strong man burdened with guilt, and when the young were
brought to its saving water, it removed the stains and curse of
Adam's sin.
The words of Peter on the day of Pentecost, " Repent, and be
baptized every one of you for the remission of sins," tended largely
to nourish this heresy ; and, among the ancient fathers, they were
commonly understood to link forgiveness and baptism together.
In Matt. iii. 11, John the Baptist says: "I, indeed, baptize you
with water unto repentance" ("f uttdvouui). The word unto is properly
ivdo. John did not baptize these persons to procure repentance ;
he baptized them into a profession of repentance which they
claimed to possess. It is said in the same chapter that " Jerusalem
* Quanto magis prohiberi non debet infans, qui recens natus nihil peccavit,
nisi quod, secundum Adam carnaliter natus, contagium mortis antiquse prima
nativitate contraxit? qui ad remissam peccatorum accipiendam hoc ipso
facilius accedit, quod illi remittuntur non propria, sed aliena peccata.—
Oypr. Ep. 59, ad Fidum, p. 80. Coloniaj, 1617.

BAPTISM DOES NOT TAKE A\\^AY SIN. 159
and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, were baj)-
tized of him in Jordan, confc.'^.'iing their .tinft." Matt. iii. 5, 6. They
were penitent, and they were baptized, not for the purpose of ob
taining a change of heart, but into a profession of the sorrow for
sin which they already felt. Peter's words, translated " for the
remission of sins " ("'5 a^taiv dfiapfiui') are literally " into the re
mission of sins," a saying exactly like John's, and they mean
"into a profession of the forgiveness of sins already enjoyed
through penitential faith."
Christ gave the woman who washed his feet with her tears a
full pardon, without the slightest allusion to baptism. Luke vii.
47. He forgave the paralytic man let down through the roof of
the house into his presence without any reference to baptism, and
as he does not save through two instrumentalities, faith alone
grasps the Captain of our Salvation, and gives everlasting salva
tion to the soul.
The passage in John iii. 5, " Except a man be born of water and
of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," was un
derstood universally by the fathers of the third century, and their
successors for many ages, as teaching the magical efficacy of bap
tism in regenerating souls. If the words " kingdom of God "
mean the Church in this world, there is considerable unanimity in
receiving the doctrine that the birth of the Holy Spirit and the
baptismal birth are necessary to church membership. But if these
words mean heaven, then the birth of water cannot be baptism ;
for, doubtless, there are myriads in heaven who never received that
ordinance. The words, " Born of water and of the Spirit," de
scribe the new heart given by the Divine Comforter when a man
first repents of his sins, and the floods of pardoning grace which
immerse the man born of the Spirit, and, carrying away all his
sins, assure him of God's love. In this way only can any one
share in the blessings of God's kingdom, either here or hereafter,
MODERN ROMISH BAPTISM.
The middle ages made few changes in baptism. The Emperor
Charles the Great commanded the archbishops of France to inform
him what instructions they and their suffragans gave the priests

160 CATECHISM OP THE COUNCIL OP TRENT AND BAPTISM,
and people about baptism. He demanded the reason for ranking
an infant among the catechumens. He asked what a catechumen
was. He enquired what was meant by renouncing the devil with
his pomps and works ; why they exorcised an infant, and breathed
upon it ; why they gave it salt ; why they touched its nostrils ; why
they anointed its breast ; why they covered it with a veil and
clothed it in white; and why they gave it the body and blood of
the Lord. * From these questions it is evident that Romish bap
tism differed little in the time of Charlemagne from the same ordi
nance in the fifth century ; nor is it much changed now from the
manner of its observance in the days of the great son of Pepin,
Baptism according to the Catechism of the Coundl of Trent.
Part second, chapter second, question 11. "But it is to be ob
served that although simple water, without any addition, in case
of necessity, is the proper element for administering the sacrament,
yet from a tradition of the apostles always observed in the Catholic
Church, when baptism is conferred with solemn ceremonies, holy
chrism is also added, by which it is evident that the effect of bap
tism is more fully declared," 
Quest. 17  " For those who ought to be initiated by this
sacrament are either immersed in water, or water is poured upon
them, or they are baptized by sprinkling. But, whichever one of
these modes is observed, we must believe that baptism is properly
given ; for water, in baptism, is used to signify the cleansing of the
soul which it accomplishes. Wherefore, baptism is called by the
apostle ' a bath.' f But baptism is made no better when any one
is immersed in water, although we notice that this mode was long
observed in the earliest times in the Church, than by the pouring
out of water, which we perceive to be a frequent practice now, or
by aspersion." 
Quest. 23. After naming bishops, priests, and deacons as the
proper ministers of this sacrament, the catechism specifies a fourth
class who may baptize : " The last list of those who can baptize
when necessity compels them, without the solemn ceremonies, in*
• Du Pin, ii. p. 130 ; Dublin ed., 1724.
t Per lavacrum regenerationis. — Vulgate, Titus ill. 5,

CATECHISM OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT AND BAPTISM. 161
eludes all, even of the laity, of both sexes, whatever creed they mai,
p-ofess. For this office is permitted even to Jews, to infidels,
and to heretics, when necessity compels ; provided that they intend
to perform that which the Catholic Church effects in that office of
her ministry," 
Quest. 24. This article prescribes the order to govern those who
administer baptism. If a priest is present a deacon must not bap
tize ; if a deacon is present a layman must not ; if a man is present
a woman must not, unless she be a " midwife, accustomed to bap
tize, and the man inexperienced" in the method of saving the
dying by water.
Quest. 25, "As therefore every one, after he has been born, needs
a nurse, and an instructor, by whose assistance and labor he may
be educated and trained in knowledge and useful arts ; so also it
is necessary that they who begin to live a spiritual life at the bap
tismal font should be committed to the fidelity and prudence of
some one, through whom they may imbibe the precepts of the
Christian religion, and be instructed in every pious way," , , . ,
Quest. 30, " The law of baptism is thus prescribed by our Lord
to all men ; insomuch that unless they are regenerated to God
through the grace of baptism, whether their parents be Christian
or infidel, they are born to eternal misery and destruction." 
Quest. 41  "They are to be taught in the first place, that by
the admirable force of this sacrament dn is remitted and pardoned,
whether derived originally from our first parents, or committed by
ourselves, however great its enormity." 
Quest, 51. "Now truly by baptism we are united and joined
as members to Christ the head." 
Quest. 57. " But beside the other advantages which we secure
from baptism, the last as it were, and that to which all the rest
seem to be referred, is that it opens to each of us the gate of heaven
closed formerly against us by dn." 
Quest. 64. " The exorcism follows, which is administered by
holy and religious words and prayers, to expel the devil and to
break his power."
Quest. 68, . , .At the font, "the priest puts three distinct interro
gatories to the person to be baptized : Dost thou renounce Satan f
and all his works f and all his pomps f To each of which he, or
11

162 CANONS OP THE COUNCIL OP TRENT ON BAPTISM.
the sponsor iu his name, replies : I renounce. The priest theu
questions him on each article of the creed, and asks him if he be
lieves it ? To which the sponsor answers : I bdieve."
Quest. 69. " When the sacrament is now to be administered,
the priest asks the person about to be baptized, if he will be bap
tized?" and after receiving the usual answer, he is invariably
dipped, if the ceremony is performed in Milan, * or poured upon,
or sprinkled, if he is baptized elsewhere.
Quest. 70. " The baptism being now over, the priest anoints
the baptized on the crown of the head with chrism, that he may
understand that from that day, as a member, he is joined to Christ
the Head, and ingrafted on his body," 
Quest, 71. "Afterwards the priest clothes the baptized with a
white garment." 
Quest. 72. "A lighted candle is then put in his hand, which
shows that faith, burning with charity, which he recdved in bap
tism, should be nourished and increased by the pursuit of good
works." f Canons of the Coundl of Trent.
" If X any one shall say that baptism is optional, that it is not
necessary to salvation, let him be accursed,"
" If § any one shall say that the baptism given by heretics, in
the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with the intention
of doing what the Church does, is not true baptism, let him be
accursed," "If II any one shall say that the baptized are free from all the
precepts of holy Church, which are written or received by tradi-
* Stanley's Hist. Eastern Church, p. 117. N. Y., 1870.
\ Catecbis. Cone. Trident., pars ii. cap. 3, pp. 133, 161. Lipsise, 1865.
X Sii quis dixerit, bastismum liberum esse, hoc est, non necessarium ai
salutem ; anathema sit.
i Si quis dixerit, baptismum, qui etiam datur ab hsereticis, in nomin*.
Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti cum intentione faciendi quod facit ecclesis^
non esse verum baptismum ; anathema sit.
1 Si quis dixerit, baptizatos liberos esse ab omnibus sanctse ecclesise praecepti*,
quae vel scripta yel tradita sunt, ita ut ea observare non teneantur, nisi se su »
sponte illis submittere voluerint ; anathema sit. — Oan. 4, 5, 8, de Sacram .
sess. vii., Oonone et Decreta Goncilii Tridentini. Lipsiae, 1863.

CANONS OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT ON BAPTISM. 163
tion, so that they are not bound to observe them, unless they w^isli
to subject themselves to them of their own accord ; let him be
accursed." By this last canon all baptized persons are bound to obey the
entire precepts of the Church of Rome, whether they approve of
them or not. Willing or unwilling, if the Church has the power
they must yield, or suffer at the discretion of the clergy. By the
second decree all Protestant baptisms are good in the Catholic
Church, and every Protestant, baptized in any way, is a son of
the Bishop of Rome, and bound to obey the holy father, or bear the
consequences just as severely as if he and his fathers for twelve
hundred years had been in the Holy Church that gave birth to
St, Dominic and the inquisition.
It is universally believed among Protestants that large num
bers of children, not belonging to the Romish Church, in our
diief cities, are baptized by popish priests, to whom they are
stealthily conveyed by nurses and others. Hogan says about hia
residence in this city, when priest of St. Mary's: "I baptized
more children than any clergyman in Philadelphia ; among these
were hundreds of Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, and
Baptists, brought to me for that purpose by their Roman Catholia
nurses, without the knowledge of their Protestant mothers." * No
doubt but this is true. And even here, it is more than likely that
many a "father" since Hogan's day could have made the same
statement. This was the favor conferred upon the baby Israelite,
Mortara, some years ago by his nurse, for which he was wickedly
torn from his parents, and brought up in a convent in the religion
of Rome. If some Catholic Bishop, armed with such powers as
his brethren have often exercised, were to reclaim all the children
baptized in the Catholic Church in Philadelphia, perhaps half the
leading Protestants of this city might be compelled to suffer the
wrongs of Edgar Mortara ; or worse evils, if they proved rebel
lious. But as heretical baptism is orthodox, and as the baptized must
obey aU the precepts of Holy Church, with their own accord or
without it, the pope needs but the power to seize us all, and train
• "Auricular Confession," by William Hogan, p. 130. Boston, 1845.

164 CANONS OP THE COUNCIL OF TRENT ON BAPTISM,
us to obedience, or crush us by such fierce displays of tyranny as
have given his Church the most hideous record in the annals of
cruelty and sanctified murder. Well may the pope eulogize his
magiotl baptism in the words with which Tertullian begins his
tract on that ordinance : " Oh, fortunate sacrament of our
w«ls* '"* * De Baptismo, cap. i. p. 32. Lipsiae, 1889.

CONFIRMATION.
This sacrament had no existence, in any form, until the end of
the second or the beginning of the third century ; and then it
appears simply as a part of baptism, as the completion of that
solemn rite.
Tertullian says : * " From thence, having gone forth from the
bath (of baptism), we are anointed with a blessed unction according
to the primitive regulation." And, again : * " Thus the imction
comes carnally upon us, but it profits spiritually, as the act of bap
tism itself is carnal, because we are immersed in water ; the effect
is spiritual, because we are freed from sin; after this, there is impo
sition of hands, invoking the Holy Spirit by the benediction."
Here the imposition of hands and the unction were but ceremonies
belonging to baptism. In the life of St, Basil, it is recorded
that : t " Maximus, the bishop, baptized him and Eubulus, and
clothed them with the white garments, and, anointing them with
the holy chrism, gave them the communion," Here, the baptism
and confirmation are parts of a whole. And even children were
confirmed with the chrism and imposition of hands, as soon as they
were baptized, as Gennadius clearly asserts: J "If they be little
* Epinde egressi de lavacro perungimur benedicta unctione de pristina dis-
ciplina  sic et in nobis carnaliter currit unctio, sed spiritualitej
proiicit, quomodo et ipsius baptismi carnalis actus, quod in aqua mergimur,
spiritualis efifectus, quod delictis liberamur. Dehiuc manus imponitur, per
benedictionem advocans et invitans Spiritum Sanctum. — De Baptismo, cap.
7, 8, p. 37. Lipsiae, 1839.
t Baptizavit Maximus Episcopus Basilium et Eubulum, et vestivit albis,
atque ungens eos sancto chrismate, tradidit eis communionem. — Jmphiloch.,
Vit. Baail, cap. v.
X Si parvuli sint .... respondeant pro illis qui eos offerunt, juxta morem
165

166 CONFIRMATION.
children that are baptized, let those who bring them answer for
them according to the custom of baptizing ; and then, confirmed
by the imposition of hands and chrism, let them be admitted to
the mysteries of the eucharist." Here, again, confirmation imme
diately follows baptism.
This is the Custom of the Greek Church to-day.
Says Dean Stanley : * "The imposition of hands is still con
tinued at the baptism of children, as of adults. Confirmation with
them is simultaneous with the act of the baptismal immersion,"
Nor is its administration limited to bishops. Every priest f can con
firm those whom he baptizes in the Greek Church. This is the
way confirmation was practised when first introduced into the
Church, and for many hundreds of years after. The separation
of confirmation from baptism is supposed by Riddle J to have
commenced in the Western Church, in the beginning of the sev
enth century, but not to have been permanently completed till the
thirteenth. The ceremonies of ancient confirmation were the
anointing, the sign of the cross, imposition of hands, and prayer. §
Modern Romish Confirmation.
Says the Council of Trent : || "If any one shall affirm that the
confirmation of the baptized is a useless ceremony, and not rather
a true and proper sacrament .... let him be accursed,"
Statements of the Catechism of Trent about Confirmation.
Pars ii., caput iii., quest, 2, , . . " The person baptized, when
anointed with the sacred chrism by the bishop, the unction being
baptizandi, et sic manus impositione et chrismate communiti, eucharistia;
mysteriis admittantur. — Oennad. de Dogmat. Eccl., cap. Iii.
* " History of the Eastern Church," p. 118. New York ed., 1870.
t Hagenbach's "History of Doctrines," ii. p. 88, note.
X Riddle's "Christian Antiquities," pp. 536, 539. London ed., 1843.
§ Bingham's "Antiquities," book xii. chap. 3, sec. 1.
J Si quis dixerit, conflrmationem baptizatorum otiosam ceremoniam esse,
et non potius verum et proprium sacramentum .... anathema sit. —
Oan. i, de Oonfirm., Bess. vii. p. 45, Oanonea et Decreta Oonc. Trid. Lipsicr,
1S63.

CATECHISM OF TRENT ABOUT CONFIRMATION. 167
accompanied with tliese solemn words : / sign thee with tlie dgn of
the cross, and confirm thee tdth the chrism of salvation, in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, begins to be
settled in firmness by the strength of a new virtue, and thus to
become a perfect soldier of Christ (novae virtutis robore firmior,
atque adeo perfectus Christi miles esse incipit)."
Quest, 7, " This is called chrism, a word borrowed from the
Greek language, which is appropriated by common usage among
ecclesiastical writers to signify that ointment only, which is com
posed of oil and balsam, with the solemn consecration of the
bishop," 
Quest. 14. " Sponsors are also added, as we have already shown
to be the case, in baptism ; for if they who enter the fencing lists
have need of some one through whose skill and advice they may
be taught by what thrusts and passes they may destroy an enemy,
while they remain unhurt, how much more will the faithful re
quire a leader and monitor, when, covered and fortified by the
strongest armor, through the sacrament of confirmation, they de
scend into a spiritual contest, in which eternal salvation is the
proposed reward," 
Ques. 17. " It is most proper to delay this sacrament at least to
seven years." 
Quest. 19. " For those who have been made Christians by bap
tism, as if new-bom infants, have a certain tenderness and softness ;
and afterward, by the sacrament of chrism, they become stronger
against, all the assaults of the flesh, the world, and the devil, and
their minds are altogether confirmed in the faith, for confessing and
glorifying the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, from which strength
the name itself originated, as no one will doubt."
Quest. 23. * " They, therefore, who are confirmed by the Holy
chrism are anointed on the forehead ; for, by this sacrament, the
Holy Spirit pours himsdf upon the minds of the faithful, and in
creases strength and fortitude in them, that they may be able to
* Qui ^tur conflrmantur sacro chrismate, in fronte unguntur. Nam hoc
Sacramento Spiritus Sanctus in animos fldelium sese infundit,in eisque robur
et fortitudinem auget, ut in spirituali certamine viriliter pugnare, et nequis-
simis hostibus resistere queant. — Quest, ii., vii., xiv., xvii., xix., xxiii , xxv.
pp. 161, 162, 167, 169, 171, 172, Oatech. Oonc Trid. Lipsiae, 1865.

168 SUPPOSED SCRIPTURE AUTHORITY FOR CONFIRMATION.
fight manfully in the spiritual contest, and resist their most ?xn-
placable foes," 
From the title of the question in the Catechism, we are taught
that chrism is applied to the forehead in the form of a croafl.
Quest, 25, " Then the person who is anointed and confirmed
receives a gentle slap on the cheek from the bishop, that he may
remember that he ought to be prepared, as a brave wrestler, to
bear, with invincible courage, all adverse things for the name of
Christ, Lastly, moreover, the peace is given to him, that he may
know that he has attained the fullness of heavenly grace, and the
peace which swpasses all understanding."
This would be a wonderful unction, and an astonishing impo
sition of hands, if from both we received the Holy Spirit and the
peace of God that passes all understanding. It is, however, not
by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to
his mercy he saves us; being-justified by faith, we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Supposed Scripture Authority.
The Catholic Church * quotes Acts viii, 14-18, as j-roof that by
laying on of hands the Holy Spirit was bestowed ; and, truly, so
he was, but it was his miracle-working powers which were con
ferred. At the 18th verse, it is said : "When Simon saw that
through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was
given, he offered them money, saying. Give me also this power,
that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost,"
Now, Simon saw nothing of the peace, faith, praying power, and
spiritual enjoyments and privileges of these men ; he cared nothing
about such matters ; he wrought pretended miracles himself; he
saw that the Holy Spirit enabled these persons to perform wondere,
and he wanted to buy this astonishing agency. The imposition of
hands here simply gave the power of working miracles, and not
the blessings of any sacrament. Chrism and the imposition of
hands were employed in the times of the apostles, but never as
parts of the sacrament of confirmation. The papal sacrament of
that name had no existence for many centuries after Christ ; it is
A HUMAN INVENTION.

*Catech. C^nc. Trid., Quest, xiii. cap. iii. pars ii. p. 167. Lipsiae, 1865.

THE LORD'S SUPPER, THE EUCHARIST, THE MASS
These three terms designate one institution, and when thai
solemn observance is viewed as it is presented in the Scriptures,
the Protestant doctrine is undoubtedly the true one. In the
English Catholic version in ^Matt. xxvi, 26-30, it is said : " Whilst
they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke,
and gave to his disciples, and said. Take ye and eat ; this is my
body ; and, taking the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave to them,
saying : Drink ye all of this ; for this is my blood of the new testa
ment which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins. And
I say unto you, I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of
the vine until that day when I shall drink it vnth you new in the
kingdom of my Father, And a hymn being said, they went out
unto Mount Olivet," In Mark xiv, 22-26, it is said : " Whilst
they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessing, broke, and gave
to them, and said : Take ye, this is my body ; and having taken the
chalice, giving thanks, he gave it to them. And they all drank of
it. And he said to them : This is my blood of the new testa
ment, which shall be shed for many. Amen, I say to you, that I
will drink no more of the fruit of the mne until that day when I
shall di-ink it new in the kingdom of God. And when they had
said an hymn, they went forth to the Mount of Olives." And in
Luke xxii, 19, 20, it is said : "And taking bread, he gave thanks,
and broke, and gave to them, saying : This is my body which is
given for you. Do this for a commemoration of me. In like
manner, the chalice, also, after he had supped, saying : This is the
chalice, the new testament in my blood, which shall be shed for
you." And in 1 Cor. xi. 23-27, it is said : " The Lord Jesus, the
same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and, giving
169

170 THE lord's supper.
thanks, broke, and said : Take ye and eat ; this is my body which
shall be delivered for you : this do for the commemoration of me.
In like manner, also, the chalice, after he had supped, saying : This
chalice is the new testament in my blood ; this do ye as often as
you shall drink for the commemoration of me. For as often as
you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice, you shall show the
death of the Lord till he come." Such are the accounts given of
the Lord's Supper in the words of a Catholic version, Paul calls
the body of the Lord bread twice after consecration, showing that it
was bread. He says that the Lord's Supper " shows the death of the
Lord till he come," declaring emphatically that the Lord is not in
it, that he is away. The Saviour calls the cup: "This fruit
of the vine," in Matt, xxvi, 29, after consecration, and not blood :
showing that it was unchanged. And as for the saying, " This is
my body," it means simply that the broken bread was a picture of
his torn body, just as the words, " The Lord God is a sun and
shield," mean that the sun is a figure of the light which God
gives, and the shield a figure of the defence which he bestows. No
one, in his senses, while Christ uttered these words, would have
imagined that the bread was his body, or the cup his blood. His
body was entire at that moment ; not a drop of his blood was
spilled ; and, hence, the supper is a " showing forth the Lord's
death till he come " — a commemoration of the death of an absent
Saviour. The priests scorn the idea that there could be any figure in the
declaration : "This is my body ;" but when Paul says: "For as
often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice," they must
grant that it is not the chalice but its contents that are to be drunk.
If it is not a figurative expression, the priests of Rome should
swallow the cup as well as the contents. The words, " I am the
vine, I am the door," are literal if the expression is not figurative,
" This is my body," No community would suffer more than the
Catholic Church from a non-figurative interpretation of every
scripture word. In the Catholic New Testament, Matt, xvi, 22,
23, it is said : " And Peter taking him began to rebuke him, say
ing : Lord, be it far from thee, this shall not be unto thee ; who
turning said to Peter : GO BEHIND ME, SATAN, THOU
ART A SCANDAL UNTO ME. because thou savourest not

THE elements OF THE LORd's SUPPER, 171
the things that are of God, but the things that are of men." If
the words, "This is my body," must be taken literally, we would
mildly insist that Christ's address to Peter shall be taken literally
too when he said to him: "Go behind me, Satan, thou art a scandal
unto me." According to that interpretation, Peter is the chief of
devils ; and the Church of Rome, built on Simon, is founded on
Beelzebub himself. A literal interpretation of the words, " This
is my body," leads to sacred cannibalism ; and of the saying in
Matt. xvi. 22, 23, malies Peter the devil, and Lucifer the founda
tion of the Papal Church, A figurative view of both passages is
the true one.
The Lvrd's Supper after the First and inside the Sixth Century.
The name missa or mass was applied veiy early to the supper.
After a portion of the service at public worship was over, a deacon
arose and said : " Ite, missa est [ecclesia] — depart, the assembly is
dismissed." Immediately all the non-church members withdrew.
At public worship in early times there was a twofold missa, the
missa catecheumenorum, and the missa fidelium, the former describ
ing the united worship of the unbelieving, the catechumens, and
the faithful church members ; and the latter the observances of
the communicants when the others had withdrawn, * The word
mass for many centuries had no odor of popery about it.
The Elements.
After the united service of the whole people was over, and be
fore the beginning of the supper of the faithful, it was customary
for every one to make offerings according to his ability. These
gifts were placed upon the communion table by the minister. On
this occasion it was deemed peculiarly disgraceful to appear before
the Lord empty-handed. These donations were used to support
the clergy, to relieve the poor, and to furnish bread and wine for
the Lord's table. The bread was common, such as served for the
ordinary use of the people, f The wine was mixed with water
from very ancient times in all the churches. Some of the leading
* Stillingfleet'a Irenicum, p. 261. Phila., 1843. Du Pin, ii. 133. Dublin, 172 1.
t Cave's "Primitive Christianity," p. 167. Oxford, 1840.

172 PRAYERS CONNECTED WITH THE EUCHARIST,
fathers regarded this practice as resulting from an expres" com
mand of Christ. *
The Prayer and Consecration Ceremonies of the Supper,
The elements being placed on the table, a deacon brought water
to the bishop and his presbyters to wash their hands, signifying
the purity which men should have who approach God. Then the
deacon cried out, " Mutually embrace and kiss one another." This
holy kiss was very ancient, and was specially given at the supper
as a token of reconciliation, forgiveness, and goodwill. Then the
whole congregation with the minister began the COMMON
PRAYER, a very lengthy and appropriate supplication, for the
peace and welfare of the entire Church, for the tranquillity of the
world, for the prosperity of the age, for fruitful seasons, for kings,
emperors, and all in authority, for soldiers and armies, believers aud
unbelievers, friends and companions, for the sick and distressed, and
for all that stood in need of help. After the prayer the minister
said to the people : " The Lord be with you ;" and the people an?-
wered, "And with thy spirit," Then the minister proceeded to tho
prayer of consecration, consisting of expressions of fervent grati
tude to God for the death, resurrection and ascension of his Son,
for the shedding of his blood, and the celebration of it in the
supper. This usually ended with the Lord's Prayer, and a hearty
and universal acclamation of " amen " from all that were present.
After the prayer of consecration the minister cried out: "Holy
things to holy persons," the people answering, " There is one holy,
one Lord Jesus Christ," Then he exhorted them to share in the
holy mysteries, by singing, " Come taste and see that the Lord is
good." Then the bishop or presbyter broke the bread and gave
it to the deacon, who distributed it to the communicants, f During
the time of celebration they sung hymns and psalms. The whole
observance was concluded by prayer and thanksgiving, that God
had given them such great privileges.

• Riddle's "Christian Antiquities," p. 590. London, 1843.
t Cave's " Primitive Christianity," p. 170. Oxford, 1840

OBSERVANCES CONNECTED WITH THK EUCHARIST. 173
Posture at the Lord's Supper.
Riddle says : " It would appear from direct evidence still c.\-
taut, that for the most part, if not always, communicants received
the consecrated elements standing.'' * According to Cave the
apostles received it reclining on couches after the Jewish custom
of eating, but in tlie third century participants at the Lord's table
received the eucharist standing, f Eusebius J preserves a letter
of Dionysius of Alexandria addressed to Xystus, Bishop of Rome,
in which he speaks of an old communicant who doubted his bap
tism because it was received among heretics, and Dionysius tried
to quiet his conscience by reminding him that for a long time he
had "been in the habit of hearing the thanksgiving, and repeat
ing the amen, and standing at the table, and extending his hand to
receive the sacred elements." Dionysius was a very distinguished
bishop, and it is evident from this letter to the Bishop of Rome,
that he was tenacious of the customs of the Church everywhere,
and was afraid to make innovations. So that standing, and not
kneeling, the attitude of worship, was the posture in which the
eucharist was received in the early Church.
Tlie Supper was Recdved on an empty Stomach.
St, Augustine says that the disciples at the first supper were not
fasting, but now, for the honor of so great a sacrament, fasting
before partaking of it is the custom of the whole world. §
The Frequency of Observing the Supper.
According to Cave it was dispensed daily in the early churches
for some time ; this was the use in Carthage in the third century,
and iu Rome and Milan in the fourth. In some eastern churches
the supper was celebrated four times a week. From once a day
it declined to once a week, then to once a month, and then to thrice
d year, at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. ||

* Riddle's "Christian Antiquities," p. 597. London, 1843,
t Cave's " Primitive Christianity," p 171. Oxford, 1840.
X Eusebius' Eccl. History, book vii. chap. 9.
§ Ep. 118, ad Januar., cap. 6, ii. p. 213. Paris, 1614.
I Cave's Prim. Chris., pp. 165, 166. Oxford, 1840.

174 OBSERVANCES CONNECTED WITH THE EUCHARIST.
The Fragments of the Supper.
It was usual in early times to keep the remains of the eucharist
for t^ie innocent children of the church ; and on a particular day
they were brought there fasting, and partook of them. In some
instances, wine was sprinkled upon them. * At Constantinople,
in the time of Justinian, according to Evagrius, it was an old cus
tom to bring boys of a tender age from the schools to eat these
fragments.f Pieces of the Eucharist Carried Home.
Among the primitive disciples it was quite common for Chris
tians to take to their dwellings portions of the Lord's Supper.
These they used to strengthen their faith in times of persecution,
and to increase their love for each f other. Nor was it very un
common to carry it to sea, or about the body as a charm to ward
off dangers and evil spirits.
Minister's sent the Eucharist to each other.
This practice, at one time, was very common, and it was per
petuated as a token of peace and love between those who made
these fraternal but singular exchanges. Ireneus, as quoted by
Eusebius, tells Victor, Bishop of Rome, that his predecessors, Ani
cetus, Pius, Hyginus, Telesphorus and Xystus, had sent the eucha
rist to ministers of churches with which Victor was engaged in a
thoroughly popish quarrel, though popery was so little known iv
that day that Ireneus calls the men presbyters who governed thf
Church of Rome, over which Victor presided. §
No Adoration of the Eicharist in tlie Early Chwreh.
There was no elevation of the elements in any part of the Chris
tian world for seven hundred years after Christ. This occurred

• Bingham's Antiquities, book xv. chap. 7, sec. 4.
+ Evagrius' Eccl. Hist., book iv. cap. 36.
X Cave's Prim. Christianity, p. 163.
^ Eusebius' t<1cc1. Hist., book v. cap. 34.

ALTAR AND COMMITNICANTS IN THE ANCIENT OilURCII. 175
first among the Greeks; and it wa.s done, not for adoration, but to
represent our Saviour's elevation on the cross and his resurrection
from the dead. Among the Latins there was no elevation of the
elements before the eleventh century, and then it was for the .same
reason as led the Greeks to practise it. The first author, according
to Bingham, who gives adoration as the reason for the elevation
of the host is Gulielmus Durantus, * who wrote about 1386, The
adoration of the host had no existence before the twelfth century,
Tliere was no Altar in tlie Early Chu/rch.
The communion table was simply the table of the Lord. Cole
man is not mistaken when he says : f " It was unknown until the
third century." Du Pin says : J " Christians in the third century
did not give the name altar to the table upon which they cele
brated the eucharist." Nor did they dream of a sacrifice, though
the word was sometimes used, just as altar was, in and subsequent
to the third century, Isidore, of Seville, who died in a, d. 636,
according to Du Pin, gives us the conception of the eucharist as
a sacrifice common in his day. Speaking of it, he says : § " It ia
called a sacrifice because it is made sacred by a mystical prayer, in
remembrance of the pasdon of our Lord. He defineth a sacra
ment the sign of a holy thing, communicating holiness," Isidore
was one of the most influential bishops of his day.
The Communicants in the Ancient Church.
The eucharist was first given to the bishop,|| then to the presby
ters, then to the deacons, subdeacons, readers, singers, and ascetics,
the deaconesses, virgins, aud widows, then the children, and then
all the people in order. This is the custom described in the
Apostolical Constitutions, and probably it continued from the
middle of the third till the sixth century.

• Bingham's Antiquities, book xv. chap. 5, sec. 4,
t Ancient Christ. Exemplified, p. 244. Phil., 1853.
I Du Pin, vol. i. p. 589. Dublin, 1723.
§ Du Pin, vol. ii. p. 2. Dublin, 1724.
I Bingham, book xv. chap. 4, sec. 21.

176 COMMUNICANTS IN THE EARLY CHURCH.
After the united meeting of communicants and non-communi
cants was dismissed, and just as the supper is about to be cele
brated, a deacon solemnly warned all the catechumens (that is all
unbaptized persons, though preparing to unite with the church),
all persons under the censure of the church, and all unbelievers, to
retire from the sanctuary. * The eucharist was only for baptized
Christians in good standing.
The Dying recdve the Eucharid.
In the last struggles of the departing, as early as the third cen
tury, the Lord's Supper was carried to them ; and it was often
dropped into their mouths when they were unable to lift it up
themselves. Eusebius records a case of this kind : an old man
named Serapion, speechless, except at short intervals, had the
eucharist sent to him, and put in his mouth ; and soon after re
ceiving it he expired, f Such was the custom in those days.
The Dead had the Fhicharist placed in thdr Mouths.
In Africa th^ sometimes baptized the dead ; and it was not
uncommon in the same country, and in France, prior to A. D. 578,
to give the Lord's Supper to deceased persons. It was also prac
tised in the East as late as the seventh century. The third Coun
cil of Carthage, the Synod of Auxerre in France, and the Council
of TruUo in Constantinople, condemned these outrageous follies. {
Infants recdve the Eucharist.
In North Africa the communion of infants was fin-st introduced.
The Christians in that region supposed that the declarations in the
sixth chapter of St, John's Gospel referred to external participa
tion in the Lord's Supper ; that act, as they understood it, was a
mystical eating of the flesh, and drinking of the blood of the Son of
God, without which there could be no eternal life ; and regard
ing such communion as necessary to salvation, they gave it to
infants, § " It is beyond dispute," says Bingham, " that baptized
* Bingham, book xv. chap. iii. sec. 5.
t Eusebius' Eccl. Hist., book vi. cap. 44.
X Bingham, book xv. chap. iv. sec. 19, 20.
§ Neander, i. p. 333. Boston, 1870.

INFANT COMMUNICANTS. 177
infants were immeiliately admitted to the cuchari.sl." lie (^u()tc.^
Radulphus Ardens, ^\•llO livctl in the beginning of (he twelfth
century, as declaring it to be the custom to give little children the
eucharist in his day, immediately after baptism ; and ho refers to
a direction in the old Ordo Romanus, composed in the ninth cen
tury, that " Infants, after baptism, should not eat any food, nor
seek the breast without great necessity, till they had communi
cated in the sacrament of the body of Christ." In the twelfth
century this custom was superseded in France, but there is reason
for supposing that it lived longer in Germany and Switzerland. *
" The whole primitive Church, Greek and Latin, from Cyprian's
lime, gave the commimion to infants ;" in the West, the practice
l«gan to die in the twelfth century. In the East the custom f is
universal at this day. This usage was commended by the greatest
names in the early Church. Augustine of Hippo, who had only
one equal among all the fathers, commenting on the words: "Ex
cept ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye
have no life in you ;" and supposing these words to allude to the
eucharist, asks : J " Dare any one be so bold as to say that this
sentence does not belong to little children, or that they can have
life without partaking of this body and blood " (of the supper) *r
Pope Innocent, the contemporary of Augustine, undoubtedly ex
presses the same opinion in his Epistle to Augustine, and the
Council of Milevis, § Pope Gelasius, about A, d, 495, writes in
reference to the eucharist : " No one should venture to exclude any
child from this sacrament, without which no one can attain to eter-
ncd life." \\
But the infallible Council of Trent denounces and curses the
sayings and practices of all Christendom for ages, including popes
jf Rome, who could not err in matters of faith, and yet did com
mit centuries of consecrated blunders, if the fathers of Trent were

* Bingham, book xv. chap. iv. sec. 7.
t Stanley's Hist, of the Eastern Church, p. 119. N. T., 1870.
X An vero quisquam audebit etiam hoc dicere, quod ad parvulos hsec sen
tentia non pertineat, possunt que sine parti tione corporis hujus et sanguinis
In se habere vitam ? — Aug. de Peccator. Merit., lib. i. cap. 20.
§ Augustini Opera, Ep. 93, p. 100, vol ii. Paris, 1614.
I Hagenbach's " History of Doctrines," vol ¦ 367. N. Y. 1861.
12

178 CURIOUS OPINIONS ABOUT THE LORd's SUPPER,
not mistaken. Their decree is: "If any one shall say that tht
communion of the eucharist is necessary for children before they
arrive at years of discretion ; let him be accursed."*
Singular Conceits about the Supper itself among the Primitive
Christians.
In North Africa, when the eucharist ceased to be observed every
day, it was customary to carry home some of the bread without
the wine, t and enjoy daily communion in this way. This is the
first example of communion in one kind in the Christian Church,
and it began in the end of the third century. But the eucharist
was administered in both kinds in the churches without variation
till the twelfth century. And just to show how the supper could
be made defective in either element, children who were not able
to eat bread, received the eucharist in wine only, and in this way,
as was imagined, they were entitled to eternal life. { Sometimes
the bread was dipped in the wine, and the two united were given
to children, and to weak or dying persons, who could not other
wise have swallowed the bread, §
One ancient sect substituted water for wine in the eucharist, and
from this custom were sometimes called Aquarians, The Council
of Auxerre condemned some who offered honey and water instead
of wine ; others used milk for wine ; and others substituted grapes.
In the fourth century, there was a community who thought the
eucharist was not properly celebrated unless cheese was offered with
the bread. These people were called Artotyrites, that is, Bread-
Cheesians. || But these perversions of the ordinance were confined to
few persons, and died out in a comparatively short time.
There was another denomination, which held that no visible ele
ments could represent the divine mysteries ; that perfect knowledge
was their redemption ; and, as a result of their opinions, they le-

* Si quis dixerit, parvulis, antequam ad annos discretionis pervenerint,
necessariam esse eucharistix communionem ; anathema sit. — Oanonea et
Decreta, Oonc. Trid., sess. xxi., de Oommunione, can. iv. p. 110. Lipsiae, 1863.
t Neander, i. 333. Boston, 1870. J Id., vol. i. 333.
§ Cave's "Primitive Christianity," p. 170, Oxford, 1840.
I Bingham's Antiquities, book xv. chap. iii. sec. 7, 8.

NO PRIVATE EacUARISTS OR MASSES. 179
jected the eucharist in eveiy form. These ancient Quakers were
called Ascodrutae.*
There were no private eucharists or masses in the ancient
Church. Even Bellarmine candidly owns that there is no express
testimony to be found among the ancients that they ever offered
the sacrifice witliout the communion of one or more persons beside
the priest (nusquam expresse legitur a veteribus oblatum sacrifi-
cium sine oommunione alicujus vel aliquorum prater ipsum sacer-
dotem).t At the Synod of Paris, under Gregory IV., A. d. 829,
a decree was passed, stating that a culpable custom had crept in, in
many places, partly by n^ligence, and partly by covetousness ;
that some presbytera celebrate mass without any attendants ; the
decree then proceeds to order " every bishop to take care that no
presbyter in his diocese shall presume to celebrate mass by himself
alone " (provideat que unusquisque episcoporum, ne in sua paro-
chia quisquam presbyterorum missam solus celebrare praesumat). J
At this period, the practice had just " crept in," and it is emphati
cally condemned. Bingham is sustained by all Christian anti
quity in his statement : " The eucharist was not intended as a
sacrifice to be offered' by a single priest in a corner, without com
municants or assistants, or for the intention, or at the cost, of some
particular persons, paying for it; but for a communion to the
whole Church, as the primitive Church always used it : and there
is not an example to be found of the contrary praetice. §
The Opinions of the Primitive Church, after the First Century, on
the Nature of the Eucharist.
The early Christians fell into the Lutheran view of the Lord's
Supper soon after the last of the apostles entered upon his rest.
No man ever abhorred transubstantiation more than the mighty
reformer of Wittemberg. But while he avowed his abhorrence of
the doctrine that the eucharist was the body and blood of Christ
he taught distinctly that : || " The body and blood of Christ are

* Theodoret, de Fabulis Hseret., lib. i. cap. 10.
t Bellarmine, de Missa, lib. ii. cap. 9, p. 821.
X Cone. Paris, lib. i. cap. 48.
§ Bingham's Antiquities, book xv. chap. 4, sec. 4.
Augsburg Confession, Article x.

180 EARLY OPINIONS ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE SUPPER.
truly present in the sacrament, in the form of bread and wine, and
there distributed and received." He would say with other Pro
testants, that the bread and wine were symbols of the body and
blood of the Lord ; but he went beyond them in declaring that the
body and blood of Christ are truly present iu the sacrament. This
was substantially the opinion of the Church from the second till
the end of the ninth century. A Romanist now never speaks of
his mass as a figure, dgn, or likeness of Christ's body ; to him, it is
the very body born of the Virgin. The early Christians spoke of
the eucharist as the body and blood of the Lord, and yet freely
called it bread and wine, after consecration, and frequently desig
nated the elements ^^p'wres aud similitudes of the body and blood of
Christ : showing that they did not believe that the bread and wine
were the literal flesh and blood of the Saviour.
Tertullian repeatedly uses a sentence like this about the supper : *
" He made bread his body by saying : This is my body ; that is a
figure of my body."
Ignatius, speaking about the eucharist, says : t " Breaking one
bread, which is the medicine of immortality, a remedy against
death." He regarded the loaf as bread after it was broken and
consecrated. Clemens Alexandrinus, writing about the supper, says : J " For
be ye sure he did also drink wine, for he also was a man ; and he
blessed wine when he said: Take, drink; this is my blood, the
blood of the mne : for this expression : ' Shed for many for the re
mission of sins,' signifies, allegm^ically, a holy stream of gladness."
The consecrated cup is the blood of the mne, after the blessing has
fallen upon it, and it signifies, allegorically, a holy stream of glad
ness.

* Panem corpus suum fecit, Hoc est corpus meum dicendo, id est, flgura
corporis mei. — Oont. Marc, lib. iv. cap. 40.
J Eva dptov xXuivtsi of iativ ^dpfiaxov a9avaalas aaitiSoto; tov firj a:to9av(lv.
— Ignat. ep. ad Ephes.
X Eu yap iati, fiitexd^iv olvov xai avtos' xai yap auSpurtof xai arito;, xai
'¦iXoyijsiv yi tov olvov, eljti^v. Adfisti, Ttitte • tovto iattv ai/ia, atfia tr;; a/atiXov-
tov Xoyov, tov Ttipi tCoXxZiv ixxiofihov ii( dfiaiv a/Mptluv fifpod'wrjs aryiov
axxriyoptv xa^.— Clem. Alex. Opera, tom. i. Pasdg., lib. ii. cap. 2, p 166,
Oxon. 1715.

THE lord's supper A SYMBOL TO THE FATHERS. 181
Cyprian, reasoning with one who had used water in the eucha
rist instead of wine, argues : * " For since Christ sa^'S : I am the
true viue, the blood of Christ is not, therefore, water, but wiuc ;
nor can his blood ai)pear to be in the cup by which we have been
redeemed and made alive, -when the wine is absent from the chalice,
by which the blood of (^irist is represented."
Eusebius says : f " He gave to his disciples the symbols of divine
economy, commanding the image of his own body to be made."
Surely, the great Bishop of Csesarea had no faith in transubstan
tiation. In his interpretation of John vi., Eusebius says : J " We
are not to believe that Christ spoke of his present body, or enjoined
the drinking of his corporeal and sensuous blood, but the words
which he speaks are spirit and life ; so that his words themselves
are his flesh and blood."
Chrysostom says : § "As the bread before it is sanctified is
called bread, but after the divine grace has sanctified it by the
mediation of the priest, it is no longer called bread, but dignified
with the name of the body of the Lord, though the nature of
bread remain in it."
Ambrose says : || " Make this our oblation a chosen, rational,
acceptable oblation, because it is made for a figure of the body
and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Augustine states, ^ that " The Lord did not hesitate to say
' This is my body,' when he gave the sign of his body." " Christ

• Nam cum dicat Christus, Ego sum vitis vera, sanguis Christi non aqua
est utique, sed vinum. Nee potest videri sanguis ejus, quo redempti et vivi-
ficati sumus, esse in calice, quando vinum desit calici, quo Christi sanguis os-
tenditur. — Ep. 63, ad CacUium, Dominici Calicis.
"f Ta Gvfi^oXa tri^liS^ov olxovrtu.iai tui dvtorv TfapeStSrnt ^a^j^rats tiriv iixova
tov iSiov duuaros TtoLiinBai Ttapd xfXivonivoi. — Euseb. Oper., Demonst. Evang.
lib. viii. cap. i. Paris, 1628.
X Theo. Eccl., vol. iii. chap. 12.
§ Chrysos. Ep. ad Coes. Monach., tom. iii. p. 744. Bened. ed., 1721.
I Fac nobis hanc oblationem adscriptam, rationabilem, acceptabilem ;
quod fit in figuram corporis et sanguinis Domini nostri Jesu Christi. — Am
brose, ' om. iv., de Sacram., lib. iv. 5, p. 173. Colonise, 1616.
IT Non enim Dominus dubitavit dicre : Hoc est corpus meum, cum signum
daret corporis sui. — tom. viii., Oontra Adimantum, cap. ii. sec. iii. col. 124
Paris, 1680

182 THE lord's supper a SYMBOL TO THE FATHERS.
admitted Judai to that banquet, in which he commended and
delivered unto his disciples the figure of his body and blood." *
Jerome states that Christ " did not offer water, but wine as a
type of his blood," f
Pope Gelasius writes in A, D. 490 : J " Doubtless the sacraments
of the body and blood of Christ which we receive, are a divine
thing; and, therefore, by them we are made partakers of the
divine nature, and yet the substance and nature of bread and
wine do not cease to be in them ; and, indeed, the image and
similitude of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in the
mysterious action,"
Facundus, an African bishop, about A. D, 590, wrote : § " The
sacrament of adoption may be called adoption, as we call the
sacrament of his body and blood, which is in the consecrated bread
and cup, his body and blood, not because the bread is properly
his body, or the cup his blood, but because they contain the mys
tery of his body and blood."
Isidore, Bishop of Seville, writing about A,D, 630, says:||
" The bread, because it nourislies and strengthens our bodies, is
therefore called the body of Christ, and the wine, because it creates
blood in our flesh, is called the blood of Christ," This distin
guished bishop saw iu the sacramental elements only resemblances
of the Saviour's body and blood.

* Eum adhibuit ad convivium in quo corporis et sanguinis sui flguram
discipuD'S commendavit et tradidit. — Tom. iv., in Psalm, iii. p. 9. Paris, 1680.
•j- Hierom. Opera, ad Jovin.
X Certe sacramenta quae sumimus corporis et sanguinis Domini divinares est,
propter quod et per eadem Divinae eflacimur, consortes naturse, et tamen esse
ion desinit substantia vel natura panis et vini. Et certe imago et similitude
wrporis et sanguinis Christi in actione mysteriorum celebrantur. — Oelaa, de
Ouabus Katur., cont. Nestor, et Eutych., Bibl. Patr., tom. iv. par. i. 432.
Paris, 1589.
§ Potest sacramentum adoptionis adoptio nuncupari, sicut sacramentum
jcrporis et sanguinis ejus, quod est in pane et poculo consecrate, corpus ejiis
?t sanguinem dicimus : non quod proprie corpus ejus sit panis et poculum
sanguis, sed quod in se mysterium corporis sanguinisque contineant. — Fa-
cund., lib. ix. cap. 5.
|] Panis quia confirmat corpus, ideo Christi corpus nuucupatur ; vinum
autem, quia sanguinem operatur in carne, ideo ad sanguinem Christi icfc:-
^nr.—j'sidor Ilig-al., de Eccl. Offic, lib. i. cap. 18.

THE IDEA OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION JUST BORN. 183
THE TRANSITION PERIOD FROM CONSUBSTAJSfTIATlON TO
TRANSUBSTA NTI ATION.
Up till the early pai't of the uinth century, the Christian Church
had not been disturbed by controversies about the eucharist. A
few heretics occasionally attempted to make innovations even upon
it, but they were soon quieted, and the belief of centuries flowed
calmly on iu worshipping hearts,
Paschasius Radbert was the first man who promulgated the
doctrine of ti-ansubstantiation, tliough he used another name ; for
that term was not yet applied to the doctrine. He was a monk, a
native of Soissons, and a man of great acuteness of mind. He
wrote, in A. D. 831, a book " Concerning the Body and Blood of
our Saviour," in which he took the ground, that the wine of the
sacrament is " The very blood that ran out of the Saviour's side
upon the cross, and that for that reason water is mingled with the
eucharistical wuie ;" and that the bread of the Lord's Supper " is
the very flesh of our Saviour which was born of the Virgin." This
was the first formal and unmistakable aimouncement of transub
stantiation ever made by one man to another. Even Du Pin
substantially admits this by saying about Radbert's book : " It
was not usual in those times to say podtivdy that the body of
Christ in the eucharist was the same that was bom of theVirgin,
and to assert it so plainly," And he sustains this opinion by
quoting a declvration of the celebrated Father Mabillon, asserting
that " Before the book of Paschasius on the Body and Blood of
the Lord, all Catholics confessed that the true body and true blood
of Christ the Lord existed assuredly in the eucharist ; and like
wise, that in it the bread and wine were changed. But no one at
the time of Paschadus had heard that that body was the same
which was bom of the Virgin Mary." * This is just the point of
the whole controversy. The Lutherans, and the early Christians
for centuries taught, that the body and blood of Christ were
received in the elements, though neither believed that the bread
had ceased to be bread, or that the wine had lost its original prop
erties, Du Pin and Mabillon are Catholic witnesses that Rad
bert's doctrine was a novelty.
• Du Pin, vol. ii. p. 80. Dublin, 1724.

184 CHARLES THE BALD IGNORANT OF THE NEW DOCTRINE.
But this monstrous creation, when it was first taught, stirred up
the leading men of Europe to oppose it ; and those who resisted
it were a multitude. Two anonymous writers gave it a complete
exposure; and as the commotions excited by the controversy
threatened a schism in the Church, Charles the Bald expressed
his fears of such a rupture to Bertram, and with a view to quiet
the angry passions aroused by Radbert, he asked him to answer
these two questions in a treatise : " Are the body and blood of
Christ in the eucharist? If so, is it the body born of the Virgin?"
The very existence of such a trouble in the Catholic countries sub
ject to Charles, and the pressure on him to quiet his own mind
and the anxieties of his subjects show, still farther, that Radbert
was only an innovator. The first question he answers by proving
that the " Body and blood of Christ received in the church by the
mouth of the faithful are figures, if considered in the visible form
of the bread and wine. But if considered in their hidden quali
ties they are the body and blood of Christ." The second question
he answers by proving that the body and blood which the faithful
participate in in the eucharist are quite another thing, both in the
sign and the thing signified, from the body born of the Virgin and
seen on the cross. Bertram was a man of commanding influence
and intellect. * John Scotus, another man of the highest culture,
was consulted by Charles on the same subject, and at his request
wrote a work to show that " The sacraments of the altar are not
the real body and blood of our Saviour, but only a commemo
ration of them." t
Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mentz, about A. D. 825,
says : J " Lately indeed some persons, not thinking rightly concern
ing the sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord, have said
that that very body and blood of the Lord which was born from
the Virgin Mary is the same as that which is received fr'om the
altar. In opposition to which error, as far as lay in our power.
writing to the Abbot Egilus, we propounded what ought to be be
lieved." * Du Pin, ii. 82, 83. Dublin, 1724. \ Id. ii. p. 84.
X Elliott's "Delineation of Romanism," p 153. London, 1851.

OPPOSITION TO TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 186
Herigar, Abbot of Laub, in the territory of Licgc, wrote a
book against Radbert, *
Du Pin says that " among the authoi-s of the ninth century that
have cui-sorily treated of this matter, Amalatius, Floriis, and Druth-
marus speak of the eucharist like Bertram." f And Bingham
adds to the enemies of Radbert's theory, in addition to those al
ready named : Walafridiis, Strabo, Heribaldus, Lupus, Frudegardus,
Prudentius, Tricassin, Alfi'ieus, aud the Saxon homilies, Fulber-
tus Carnotensis, Luthericus Senonensis, Berno Augiensis," J and
others he says might be mentioned.
At first the doctrine of Radbert was repugnant to the cultivated
and the godly, but it was broached in a rude age, and the monks
favored it ; the materialistic character of European thought as
sisted it, and gradually it had a host of friends and was prepared
to frown down all opposition,
Berenger was born at Tours, near the beginning of the eleventh
ceuturj- ; he was endowed with a clear understanding; and blessed
with an able and pious teacher in Fulbert of Chartres. He was
at first the principal of the Cathedral School of Tours, and after
wards archdeacon of Angers. Berenger adopted the views of the
eucharist held with impimity and defended with vigor by John
Scotvis and Bertram two centuries before. But times were changed ;
his learning, piety, and eloquence gave him extensive influence,
and his opinions great success. This however only excited his
enemies to greater fury, and made them resolve to silence the good
archdeacon or slay him. Lanfranc, his old friend, took the side
of his enemies ; others proved equally conscientious or treacher
ous ; he was excommunicated by a Roman council, condemned by
all grades of dignitariefl,. and rescued from destruction by Gregory
VII. Through his protection he spent his last years in peaee.
Gregory called upon the Archbishop of Tours and the Bishop of
Angers, to defend him against his enemies ; and he granted him a
Bull, excommunicating those who should injure him in person or
estate or call him " Heretic," Those favors made some doubt

• Neander, iii. p. 501. Boston, 1869.
+ Du Pin, ii. 84. Dublin, 1724.
t Bingham's "Antiquities," book xv. chap. 5, sec. 4.

186 TRANSUBSTANTIATION FIRST APPLIED TO THE MASS,
Gregory's orthodoxy ; * and with reason. Gregory was a man of
unequalled intellect, and could quickly detect the absurdity of
transubstantiation. Besides, that doctrine though very popular
in the eleventh century, was not yet a dogma of the Church ; and it
was only two hundred years old. Berenger denying transubstan
tiation to his social friends, passed the evening of his days, " ad
mired for innumerable good qualities, and especially for humility
and almsgiving."
THE NAME TRANSUBSTANTIATION FIRST APPLIED TO THE MASS,
The eucharist had been known by several new names after the
days of Radbert. Transitio was one of these. Hildebert of Tours,
the famous city of Berenger, gave it its immortal name — transub-
stantiation.f The Wafer.
The eucharistic bread of the Romish Church consists of cakes of
meal and water, small, round and thin, in the shape of wafers.
This style appears to have been brought into general use after the
rise of the controversy with the Greek Church, in A, d, 1053.^
TRANSUBSTANTIATION IS INCORPORATED INTO THE CHURCH OF
ROME,
In A, D, 1215, Innocent III, was pope. He was a man of dis
tinguished talents. From childhood, he had suspended his com
mon sense when thinking about Radbert's doctrine. He knew
that it was in no creed, canon, or authorized standard of the
Church of which he was the head. He felt that it was absurd to
require men to receive a doctrine to which the Church had never
given that adoption so freely conceded to other dogmas not half so
momentous. He assembled a Council in Rome, in the Lateran
Church, A, D, 1215, consisting of 412 bishops, in whose hearing
he read seventy canons which he had drawn up, and in which
they seemed to acquiesce ; among these was the famous canon,
which, FOR THE FIRST TIME, gave transubstantiation a legal
* Du Pin ii. 196, 197. Dublin, 1724.
f Hagenbach's "History of Doctrines," vol. ii. p. 95. New York, 1863.
t Riddle's " Christian Antiquities," p. 589. London, 1843.

THE MASS A PROPITIATORY SACRIFICE, 187
place in the Catholic Church. The important part of the canon
is : * "But there is one univei-sal Church of the faithful, (mt of
which no one at all is saved; in which Jesus Christ himself is at
once priest and sacrifice; whose body and blood, in the sacrament
of the altar, are truly contained under the species of bread and
wine, which, thi'ough the divine power, are transubsbuitiatcd, the
bread into the lx)dy, and the wine into the blood ; that for the ful
filment of the mystery of unity, we may receive of his that win'cli
he received of ours,"
The Mass is dedared a p'opitiatory Sacrifice.
The Council of Trent, nearly 350 years later, took another step,
and declared the host an atoning sacrifice : f "And, since in the
divine sacrifice which is performed in the mass, the same Christ is
contained and offered in an unbloody manner, who, on the altar of
the cross, offered himself, mth blood, once for all ; the holy Synod
teaches that that sacrifice is, and becomes of itself, truly propitia
tory, so that if, with a true heart and right faith, with fear and
reverence, we approach to God, contrite and penitent, we may ob-

* Una vero est fidelium universalis ecclesia extra quam nullus omnino sal-
vatur. In qua idem ipse sacerdos et sacriflcium Jesus Christus ; ejus corpus
et sanguis in sacramento altaris sub speciebus panis et vini veraciter continen-
tur ; transubstantiatis, pane in corpus, vino in sanguinem, potestate divino, ut
ad perficiendum mysterium unitatis accepiamus ipsi de suo quod accepit de
nostro. — Oonc. xi. 143, Labb6 and Cossart. Paris, 1671-2.
t Et quoniam in divino hoc sacriflcio quod in missa peragitur, idem ille
Christus continetur et incruente immolatur, qui in ara crucis semel se ipsum
cruente obtulit ; docet sancta Synodus, sacriflcium istud vere propitiatorium
esse, per ipsumque fieri, ut, si cum vero corde et recta fide, cum motu et reve-
rentia, contriti ac pcenitentes ad Deum accedamus, misericordiam consequa-
mur, et gratiam inveniamus in auxilio opportune. Hujus quippe oblatione
placatus Dominus, gratiam, et donum poenitentise concedens, crimina et
peccata, etiam ingentia, dimittit. Una enim eademque est hostia, idemque
nunc offerens sacerdotum ministerio, qui se ipsum tunc in cruce obtulit, sola
offerendi ratione diversa ; cujus quidem oblationis cruentae, inquam, fructua
per hanc incruentam uberrime percipiuntur ; tantum abest, ut illi per hanc
quovis modo derogetur. Quare non solum pro fidelium vivorum peccatis,
poenis, satisfactionibus, et aliis necessitatibus, sed et pro defunctis in Christo,
nondum ad plenum purgatis, rite, juxta apostolorum traditionem, offertur.—
Do(i. de Sac Missa, chap. ii. sess. 22, Oan. et Deer., p. 118. Lipsice, 1863.

(88 CHRIST IN THE MASS, SOUL, BODY AND DIVINITY,
tain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. The Lord, for
sooth, being appeased by the offering of this, and granting grace
and the gift of repentance, remits crimes and sins, even great ones ;
for it is one and the same host, the same person now offering by
the mmistry of the priests, who then offered himself upon the cross,
only in a different manner of offering ; and by this unbloody sacri
fice, the fruits of that bloody one are abundantly received ; only far
be it that any dishonor should be done to that by this. Where
fore, according to the tradition of the apostles, offering is duly
made, not only for the sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessi
ties of the faithful who are alive, but also for the dead in Christ,
who are not yet wholly cleansed,"
Christ is in the Mass, Soul, Body, and Divinity.
The Synod of Trent says : * " If any one shall deny that in the
sacrament of the most holy eucharist, there is contained really,
truly, and substantially, the body and blood, together with the
.soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so whole Christ,
but shall say he is only in it in sign, or figure, or power, let him
be accursed." This curse falls harmlessly upon the whole Chris
tian world, including Roman popes, for more than eight cen
turies. There are no Bread and Wine in the Mass after Consecration.
The fathers at Trent declare that : f " If any shall say that in
the holy sacrament of the eucharist, there remains the substance of
Itread and wine, together with the body and blood of our Lord
* Si quis negaverit, in sanctissimse eucharistise sacramento contineri vere,
realiter, et substantialiter, corpus et sanguinem una cum anima et divinitate
Domini nnstri Jesu Christi, ac proinde totum Christum ; sed dixerit, tantum
niodo esse in eo, ut in signo, vel flgura, aut virtute ; anathema sit. — De Eit
charis. can. i. sess. 13, Oan. ei Deer. Gone Trid. Lipsiae, 1863.
\ Si quis dixerit, in sacrosancto eucharistise sacramento remanere substan-
tiam panis, et vini, una cum corpore et sanguine Domini nostri Jesu Christi ;
negaveritque mirabilem illam, et singularem conversionem totius substantise
panis in corpus, et totius substantise vini in sanguinem, manentibus dumtaxat
speciebus panis, et vini ; quam quidem conversionem Catholica Ecclesia ap-
tissinip transubstantionem appellat ; anathemasit. — DeEucharis., can. ii. sess
13, Oiir>. et Dea-et., p. 64. Lipsire, 1803.

THE EUCHARIST WORSHIPPED AS A DEITY. 189
Jesus Christ, and shall deny that woiidci'ful and remarkable con
version of the whole substance of the bread inio the body, and of
the whole substance of the wine into the blood, while only the aj>-
pearance of bread and wine remains, which comersion tln^ Catho
lic Church most appropriately names transuLstantiivtion , let him
be accursai." A whole Christ in every particle of the Mcuib.
The Tridentine Council says : * "If any one shall deny that
Christ entire is contained in the venerable sacrament of the eucha
rist, under each species and, when they are divided, under every
particle of each kind ; let him be accursed."
The Fhicharist Worshipped as God.
The Council of Trent asserts that : f " There is, therefore, no
reason to doubt but that all Christ's faithful people, in their vene
ration, should render this most holy sacrament the SAME WOR
SHIP which is due to the true God, according to the custom which
the Catholic Church has always received."
A Day Appointed to Commemorate and Worship the Body of
{Eucharist) Christ.
In A. D. 1264, Urban IV. set apart Corpus Christi (body of
Christ) day in honor of the deity, adopted into the Church A, D.
1215, by Innocent III. and the Fourth Council of the Lateran ; J
the wheaten god. According to Du Pin, § Urban's institution was
confirmed by the Council of Vienne, A, D, 1311, and Clement V.
This transubstantiated god is a novelty in the Church of Jesus.

* Si quia negaverit in venerabili sacramento eucharistise sub unaquaque
specie, et sub singulis cujusque specie! partibus, separatione facta, totum
Cliristum contineri ; anathema sit. — Id., can. iii. p. 64.
t Nullus itaque dubitandi locus relinquitur, quin omnes Christi fideles pro
more in Catholica ecclesia semper recepto latrise cultum, qui vero Deo debe.
tur, huic sanctissimo sacramento in veneratione exhibeant. — De EucJiar. , cap.
V. sess. xiii. p. 61, Oan. et Deer. Oonc. Trid. Lipsiae, 1863.
X Hagenbach's Hist, of Doctrines, vol. ii. p. 95. New York, 1862.
I Du Pin, vol. ii. p. 545. Dublin, 1724.

190 THE EUCHARIST CARRIED IN PROCESSION.
The Eucharist carried around in Procesdon for Worship.
The Council of Trent declares that * " The church of God has
very piously and religiously introduced the custom that in every
year, on some special feast day, this illustrious and venerable
sacrament should be celebrated with particular veneration and
solemnity, and that it should be carried about in procession, in a
reverent and honorable manner, through the highways and public
places." The following description of the annual procession of the host is
a specimen of what occurred for centuries in the old world : f
" The Corpus Christi procession begins to move out exactly at nine
in the morning ; it consists of forty communities of friars who have
converts in this town. They follow one another in two lines, ac
cording to established precedent. Next appears the long train of
relics belonging to the cathedral, in vases of gold and silver : a
tooth of St. Christopher, an agate cup belonging to Clement, the
successor of St. Peter, an arm of St, Bartholomew, a head of one
of the eleven thousand virgins, a part of St, Peter's body, and of
the bodies of St. Lawrence and St. Blaise, a thorn from the
Saviour's crown, a fragment of the true cross, and the bones of
several other saints. Then the prebendaries and canons, attended
by inferior ministers. The streets are profusely decorated and are
shaded with a thick awning ; they are covered with rushes, Un
der these circumstances, the appearance of the host in the streets is
exceedingly imposing. Encircled by jewels of the greatest bril
liancy, surrounded by lighted tapers, and enthroned on the massive
yet elegant temple of silver, no sooner has it moved to the door
of the church than the bells announce its presence with deafening
sound, the bands of military music mix their animating notes with
the solemn hymns of the singers, clouds of incense rise before the

• Pie et religiose admodum in Dei ecclesiam inductum fuisse hunc morem,
ut singulis annis peculiari quodam et festo die prsecelsum hoc et venerabile
sacramentum singulari veneratione ac solemnitate celebraretur, utque in pro-
cessionibus reverenter et honoriflce illud per vias et loca publica circumfer-
retur. — DeEuehar., cap. v. sess. xiii. p. 61 ; Oan. et Deer. Oonc. Trid., p. 61.
Lipsise, 1863.
Doblado'B Letters from Spain, pp. 268, 274.

A PRIEST MAY CIIANOE BREAD INTO THE REAL BODY. 191
moving shrine, and the ear is thrilled by the loud voice of com
mand and by the clash of the arms which the kneeling soldicrw
strike down to the ground. When the concealed bearers of the
shrine present it at the top of the long street, where tlie route com
mences, the multitudes which crowd both the pavement and the
windows fall prostrate in profound adoration, without venturing to
rise up till the object of their awe is out of sight,"
Procession of the Host to the Sick,
In Spain it was customary for a priest in taking the eucharist
to the dying to be carried in " a sedan chair and to be attended
by a party of soldiers and a bellman. The bellman, as they pass
along, gives tliree strokes, in allusion to the three persons of the
Trinity, and then ceases. * At this well known sound, whatever be
the state of the weather or the condition of the streets, every one
drops on his knees, and continues in this devout posture till the
object of his adoration is out of sight. If the procession should
pass a theatre or a festive gathering, the actors on the stage imme
diately drop on their knees, and so do the dancers in the ball-room,"
Incense and the Eicharist.
There is no trace of the use of incense at the Lord's Supper be
fore the end of the sixth century, f
A Minister Lidng in the Greatest Iniquity can make Jesus Christ
out of Flour and Water.
The Council of Trent says : J "If any one shall declare that a
minister, in mortal sin, cannot perform or confer a sacrament, pro
vided he shall observe all the essentials which appertain to the
performing or conferring a sacrameut ; let him be accursed," Truly
the thought is curious that right reverend Judas, even at the
• Limborch, p. 533.
t Riddle's " Christian Antiquities," p. 600. London, 1843.
t Se quia dixerit, ministrum, in peccato mortali existentem, modo omnia
essentialia, quse ad sacramentum conficiendum aut conferendum pertinent,
servaverit, non conCcere aut conferre sacramentum ; anathema sit. — De Sac
ra-meniis, can. xii., Oon. et Deer. Cone. Trid., p. 43. Lipsifp, 1863.

192 HALF COMMUNION DENOUNCED BY POPES,
time Satan entered him, and filled liiin with mortal sin, could re
generate a man by baptism or manufacture the Saviour out of
wheat and water ! And yet no priest out of the mortal sin of inex
cusable ignorance, and in the fear and love of Christ, would be
likely to continue long the deity-making business, or the office of
impartmg the other papal sacraments. So that the admission of
mortal sinners into the calling of dispensing the sacraments is
politic, and indespensably necessary,
HALF COMMUNION.
For the first twelve hundred years the faithful of both sexes
regularly and without question received the eucharist under the
forms of bread and wine.* Transubstantiation, teaching the peo
ple that the cup was the blood that flowed through the Saviour's
physical heart, inspired them and their priests with horror lest a
drop of it should fall on the ground, or hang on a layman's beard;
it was unquestionably the prime cause why the cup was taken
from the laity. It is of course still used in celebrating mass, and
regularly emptied by the priest, but tasted by no one else.
Two Popes denounce Half Omimunion.
Gelasius complains : f " That some received the bread, but ab
stained from the cup ; whom he condemns as guilty of supersti
tion, and orders that they should either receive in both kinds, oi
else be excluded from both, because one and the same mystery
cannot be dimded without grand sacrilege." Leo the Great de
nounces them with equal vehemence : | " They receive the body of
Christ," says he, " with unworthy mouth, but refuse to drink the
* Bingham, book xv. chap. v. sec. 1.
t Comperimus quod quidam sumpta tantummodo corporis sacri portione, a
calice sacri cruoris abstineant. Qui proculdubio, quia nescio qua supersti-
tione docentur obstringi aut Integra sacramenta percipiant, aut integris arce-
antur ; quia divisio unius ejusdemque mysterii sine grandi sacriligio non po
test provenire. — Oelaa., de Oonsecrat., Dist. ii. cap. 12.
X Ore indigno corpus Christi accipiunt, sanguinem autem redemptionia
nostrse haurire omnino declinant . . . .quorum deprehensa fuerit sacrilega simu-
latio, notati et prohibiti a sanctorum societate sacredotali auctrritate pellan-
tur. — Leo. Ser., 4, de Quadragesima.

COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE TAKES CUP FROM LAITY. 193
blood of our redemption, such men's sacrilegious dissimulation
being discovered, let them be marked, aud by the authority of the
priesthood cast out of the society of the faithful." Gelasius was a
respectable pontiff, but Leo the Great deserved his title : he was
one of the ablest churchmen, and most celebrated popes that ever
lived, and his condemnation of half communion in Catholic eyes
should strip it of all authority.
The Coundl of Constance decrees that the Laity shall not have the
Cup in the Eucharist.
In A. D. 1215, the synod of Constance prohibited the cup to
the laity in the following words :".,.. and in like manner, *
though this sacrament was received in the primitive Church by the
faithful under 60^ kinds, yet to escape any dangers and scandals,
the custom has reasonably been introduced, that it be received by
the officiating persons under both kinds, but by the laity only under
the kind of bread." . . . . Fourteen hundred years after the
eucharist was instituted, a body of bishops burn Christ's two great
servants, John Huss and Jerome of Prague; and destroy half
of his own glorious image in the Lord's Supper,
TRENT AND THE PROHIBITION OP THE CUP.
The Council of Constance could not mutilate the Lord's Supper
and make men satisfied with the sacrilegious change. After its
impious alterations of divine institutions, and diabolical burnings
were over, agitation about the forbidden cup shook Europe, and a
hundred years later it was just as active as ever. Soon after the
assembling of the Council of Trent, which met A. d. 1545, demands
came in by almost every mail for the cup, not from Protestants ;
they had it already; but from Catholics; from the Emperor
Charles V., Ferdinand, his brother, Charles IX., King of France,

* Et similiter, quod licet in primitiva ecclesia hujusmodi sacramentum re-
ciperetur a fidelibus sub utraque specie, tamen hfec consuetude ad evitan-
dum aliqua pericula et scandala est rationabiliter introducta, quod a confici
entibus sub utraque specie, et a laicis tantummodo sub specie panis suscipia
tur. — Oonc. xiii. 100-1, Labbe and Oossart. Paris, 1671-2.
13

194 THE WORDS WHICH CHANGE THE WAFER INTO CHRIST,
the Duke of Bavaria, and from a multitude in all classes of
society. The result is thus expressed: * "If any one shall say,
that by the command of God, or by the necessity of salvation, all
and each of the faithful m Christ should partake of each spocies
of the most holy sacrament of the eucharist ; let him be accursed, "
"Iff any one shall say that the holy Catholic Church was not
moved by just causes and reasons to communicate with laymen,
aud even clergymen not celebrating mass under the species of
bread only; or that in that course she has erred; let him be
accursed," Finally the council, perplexed by the threatening
attitude of the leading Catholic laymen of Europe, and yet fear
ing to injure the authority of general synods by repealing the
decree of the infallible Council of Constance, referred the whole
matter to the pope : J "To give the cup to any person, nation, or
kingdom, if fair reasons agreeable to Christian charity urged it ;
aud to fix the conditions upon which the concession should be
granted." The popes have never exercised this discretionary
power ; and the formal decrees of Trent have bound all Catholica
ever since they were issued.
The Words that change the Bread and Wine into the Body and
Blood of Jesus.
" By these words : § Do this in commemoration of me, Jesua
gave his apostles and their successors, the bishops and priests of
the Church, the power to change the bread and the wine into his
most holy body and blood. The priest blesses the bread and wine
as Christ did ; he speaks over them the same Avords of consecra-
* Si quis dixerit ex Dei prsecepto vel necessitate salutis omnes et eingulos
Christi fideles utramque speciem sanctissimi eucharistia; sacramenti sumere
debere ; anathema sit. — De Reformat., can. i. sess. xxi. p. 110, Can. et Deer.
Cone Trid. Lipsise, 1863.
] Si quis dixerit, sanctam ecclesiam Catholicam non justis eausis et rationi-
bus adductum fuisse, ut laicoa atque etiam clericos non conficientea sub panis
tantummodo specie communicaret, aut in eo errare ; anathema bit. — Id.,
can. ii.
X Concess. Calicis, sess. xxii., Can. et Deer. Cone. Trid., p 138. Lipsise,
1863. § Missiop. Book, p. 29. N. T. 1866.

THE MASS A NOVELTY, 196
tion which Christ spoke; and thus the bread and wine are
changed now on the altar, as they were at the last supper, into
the body and blood of Jesus Christ."
The Sacrifice of the Mass a Modern Invention.
You will search in vain through all the writings of Christians,
for the idea of transubstantiation, before the book of Paschasius
Radbert was written in the ninth century. At that time the doc
trine met with violent opposition from all quarters, and especially
from the first thinkers in the Christian Church. Gradually the
idea became popular, and in the twelfth century a name was born
for it, then in the thirteenth it was formally installed as a dogma
of the Church, We firmly and DEFIANTLY declare TRAN
SUBSTANTIATION A NOVELTY; and as the whole sys
tem of Romanism rests upon it, that system is founded not upon
the Rock of Ages, but the sands of earth, and it will surely perish
in the storms destined to overthrow every scheme of error.
The other Side.
The Catholic version of the Scriptures makes Jesus say: "Thou
wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thy holy
one to see corruption," Acts ii. 27. Now every wafer swallowed
by Catholics enters the physical system, and corrupts with the
decaying body, if not sooner. Every fragment of Christ's body
that ever entered the stomach of one of the faithful, has seen
corruption already in the bodies of all the dead, or will see it in
the mouldering remains of all the living.
Every miracle of Christ was an apparent miracle ; it could be
tested by the senses ; and the wonder had to be acknowledged by
friend and foe. MTien he turned the water into wine at the wed
ding, let us suppose that it had the taste of water still, and its
char appearance ; and that he and his mother assured the festive
company that their senses deceived them, that it was really wiue.
How many at the marriage would have believed Jesus ? Such a
statement would have blasted the Saviour's veracity forever among
these people. Or when he feeds the thousands with the five
loavep and two fishes, let us suppose that the miracle is of the

196 THE MASS IN THE LIGHT OF COMMON SENSE.
mass order, that there is no increase of the loaves and fishes of
which the people have any sensible evidence. He breaks them in
little pieces, giving a portion to each : when the hungry multi
tude swallow the little morsels, they cry out: "What folly to
give us these atoms ! " Says Jesus : " I have magnified them by
miracle into a sufficiency to satisfy you all." " You have ! " they
reply. " It looked small, it felt small, it tasted small ; and we
are ravenously hungry as if it had been small." " Ah," he re
plies, " but your senses deceive you, you cannot trust them." If
the Saviour had been capable of such a piece of imposition,
these thousands would have branded him as the most deceitful
and barefaced trickster that ever tried to take advantage of
human credulity. Every miracle of Jesus appeared a supernatural
occurrence to those who beheld it. The mass shows no change.
It appears bread, its friends say it is flesh and blood; it is cer
tainly a case of false appearances ; it is no miracle of Jesus. His
were all real, visible, undoubted.
A story is told of the celebrated Duke of Buckingham, that he
consented to receive the ministrations of a priest during an illness.
The duke, even in sickness, loved a joke, and as the father made
some effort to convert him, he feigned a sort of dreamy uncon
sciousness of his presence. He held a cork in his hand, which he
treated as if it were a splendid horse ; he spoke of its height, its
action, its beauty, and addressed it as an old equine acquaintance.
The priest tried to convince him that it was not a horse, that he
was certainly mistaken ; that if he would look at it he would
see it was not a horse but only a cork ; that if he would scent
it he would learn that it was a cork ; that if he would taste it
he would be satisfied that it was a cork ; that if he would feel
it he would perceive it was but a cork ; that if he would listen to
it for years he would never hear the snorts, neighing or breathing
of a horse. The duke professed his conviction that it was only a
cork. As conversation progressed, the eucharist was introduced,
aud the priest declared it to be Jesus Christ, soul, body, and
divinity. The duke expressed his astonishment at the statement
of the father ; intimated that he must be somewhat beside himself:
for if you touch it you will understand that it is not a human
body if you look at it you can only receive that conviction, if yoa

A MATERIAL BODY CANNOT BE IN TWO PLACES AT ONCE. 197
taste it you will discover nothing but water and flour; if you
scent it you will find no odor of flesh and blood. And he in
formed the father that a man must be out of his mind who
believed a thing so contrary to his senses.*
We receive all knowledge through our senses. If we cannot
believe each of them in its own limited sphere, when each is in
healthful exercise, we are not safe in believing anything. Our
taste, touch, soent, sight, testify that the priest's wafer is not
Christ's body and blood, but the flour and water of the cook. He
tells us that it is Christ's body, but he gives no evidence to esta-
tablish the truth of his statement, except such testimony as would
prove Christ to be a literal rock, lamb, corner-stone, sun, door,
vine, shepherd, or morning star, between which objects and Jesus,
in some features of his person or work, there is such a resemblance
as led him to be called by their names ; or such evidence as would
prove Peter, the foundation of the Romish Church, to be the
devil. Were the keen old satirist living who laughed so immoderately
at the follies of Egyptian idolatry, and who derisively compli
mented that people in the well-known words : f " O holy nations,
for whom these divinities grow in the gardens ! " with what culti
vated, heathen scorn, he would address his degenerate Roman
fellow citizens, and exclaim : " O happy pontiff ! O blessed
papal fold, whose god grows in every ear of wheat, whose di
vinity is made by a baker and a priest, and then swallowed ! "
The human body of Christ is in heaven ; and as no material
substance can be in two places at one time, or in a hundred thou
sand places at one time, the wafer-body of Christ is an imposition,
a plain, unmitigated counterfeit, the reception of which is not an
act of faith, but a deed which flings away the Bible and common
sense for an impious dogma which the Scriptures never taught, and
a soul exercising its intelligence could not believe.
?Seymour's " Evenings with the Romanists," p. 346. N. T., 1856.
t "O sanctas gentes 1 quibus hsec naacuntur in hortia numina." — Batira
XV. , Juvenal.

THE CONFESSIONil; OE,
THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE, EMBRACING CONTRIHON,
CONFESSION AND SATISFACTION.
As the mass is the great aggregate of Romish doctrine, the con
fessional is the chief executive of the papal system. By it the
decrees of the infallible Church are applied and carried out with
an unequalled measure of minuteness and rigor. The history of
the confessional is of the highest moment.
Se<^d Confessions in the Ear of a Priest, to secure his Absolution.
were entirely unknown in the early Churches,
Of course, there are confessions of sin made to Protestant minis
ters now, and such avowals were common in the experience of the
early clergy. But they were wholly voluntary when given, and
they were not general,
Chrysostom says : * "It is not necessary that thou shouldst
confess in the presence of witnesses ; let the inquiry after thy sins
be made in thy own thoughts ; let this judgment be without an_)
witnesses ; let God only see thee confessing," In another place he
says : f " Why art thou ashamed and blushing to confess thy sins ?
Dost thou discover them to a man, that he should reproach thee ?
Dost thou confess them to thy fellow-servant, that he should bring
thee upon the open stage ? Thou only showest thy wound to him
who is thy Lord, thy care-taker, thy physician, and thy friend.
* Chryaost., Horn, de Poenitent., t. v. t Id.,Hom.iv., de Lazaro, t. v.
108

THE FATHERS AND THE CONFESSIONAL. 199
And he says to thee : I do not compel thee to go into the public
theatre, and talte many witnesses; confess thy sins in private to me
alone, that I may heal thy wound, and deliver thee from thy
grief." Commenting on the words, " Let a man examine himself,
and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup," Chrysos
tom says : * " He does not bid one man examine another, but every
one himself, making the judgment private, and the trial without
witnesses." DaUl^f has collected nearly twenty passages from
the writings of this eloquent and orthodox father, showing that
auricular confession had no existence in his day.
Basil says : J "I do not make confession with my lips to appear
to the world, but inwardly in my heart, where no eye sees ; the
groanings of my heart are sufficient for confession, and the lamen
tations which are sent up to thee, my God, from the bottom of my
heart." Ambrose says : § " Tears wash away sin which men are ashamed
to confess with the voice ; weeping provides at once both for pardon
and bashftilness."
St, Augustine, expoimding the words : " I said I will declare
my own wickedness against myself unto the Lord, and so thou
forgavest the iniquity of my heart," says : || " His confession was
not yet come to his mouth, yet Grod heard the voice of his- heart ;
which implies that God accepts and pardons the penitent and con
trite heart, even before any formal declaration is made by vocal
confession either to God or man," In his confession he speaks
with contempt of telling his sins to human beings : ^ " What,
therefore, have I to do with men, that they should hear my con
fessions, as if they could heal all my diseases ? "
Laurentius of Novara, in the north of Italy, who flourished A, D.
• Chrysost. , Horn, xxviii. in 1 Cor.
t Daill^, de Confess. Auric, lib. iv. cap. 25.
X Basil, in Psalm xxxvii. 8.
I Lavant lacrymse delictum, quod pudor est voce confiteri. Et venise
fletus consilient et verecundise. — Amb., tom. iii., in Lue. xxii., lib. 10, p. 108.
Colonise, 1616.
\ August., Ser. ii., in Psal. xxxi.
T Quid mihi ergo est cum hominibus, ut audiant confessiones meaa, quasi
ipsi sanaturi sint omnes languores meos. — Aug. Confess., lib. x. cap. 8, vol.
L p. 6( Paris. 1014.

200 THEODOSIUS AND AMBROSE.
507, says: * "After baptism, God has appointed thee a remedy
within thyself; he hath put remission within thy own power, that
thou needest not to seek a priest when necessity requires ; but thou
thyself, now, as a skilful master always at hand, mayest correct
thy own error within thyself, and wash away thy sm by re
pentance." When Theodosius, in a fit of guilty rage, slew seven thousand
people in Thessalonica, A. d, 390, and afterwards came to Milan,
Ambrose refused to permit the emperor to approach the Lord's
table or even to enter the church. He wrote him the following
letter : t " Sin can be removed only by tears and repentance. No
angel or archangel can forgive sin ; and the Lord himself, who only
was able to say to us, ' I am with you,' when we sin, forgives the sins
of those only who come to him with repentance. Add not to the
sin already committed still another — that of presuming to partake
of the holy supper unworthily, which has redounded to the ruin
of many, I have no occasion to be obstinate with you, but I have
cause to fear for you, I dare not distribute the holy elements if
you mean to be present and receive them. Shall I venture to do
that which I should not presume to do if the blood of one inno
cent individual had been poured out where the blood of so many
innocent persons has been shed ? " For eight months tlie doors
of the sacred edifice, which were open to the lowliest slave and the
meanest beggar, were closed against the greatest ruler in the world.
At length, Ambrose, with difficulty, was persuaded to permit the
emperor to enter, not the church, but the porch, the place of the
public penitents ; and, stripped of the insignia of royalty, prostrate
on the pavement, beating his breast, tearing his hair, watering the
ground with his tears, the conqueror in many battles obtained
absolution, J
During these eight months Theodoret says : " The emperor shut
* Post baptisma remedium tuum in teipso statuit, remissionem in arbitrio
tuo posuit, ut non quseras sacerdotem, cum necessitas flagitaverit : sed ipse
jam, ac si scitus perspicuusque magister, errorem tuum intra te emendes, et
peccatum tuum poenitudine abluas. — Laurent., Hom. de Pmnit., Bibl. t. 2, p,
129. \ Neander, ii. 181, 182. Boston, 1868.
X Milraan's " History of Christianity," p. 412. New York, 1841.

PEx-fANCES IN THE EARLY CHURCH, 201
himself up in his palaces, mourned bitterly, and shed floods of
tears," He appealed to Ambrose, " By the mercy of our common
Lord, to unloose from him these bonds, and not to shut against him
the door which is opened by the Lord to all who truly repent ; "
and then, as a proof of his sincerity, Ambrose required him to
make a law to cancel all decrees in future made in haste and anger ;
and that when sentence of death or proscription is passed against
any one thirty days shall elapse before it is executed, at the expi
ration of which the matter is to be reconsidered and settled,*
During all this long period Theodosius never saw Ambrose, or any
priest, or entered any confessional. He performed the penance
customary in those days, and he was restored to church privi
leges. The learned Bingham says that: f "When the crimes of great
and heinous sinners were public, notorious, and scandalous, they
were required to go through a long course of penance publicly in
the church. As to private crimes, they laid no necessity upon the
consciences of men to make either public or private confession of
them to any beside God,"
PENANCES IN THE EARLY CHURCH.
About A. D. 390, in Rome there was a place appointed for the
reception of penitents, where they stood mourning during the public
service, from which they were excluded. They cast themselves
upon the ground with groans and lamentations ; the bishop who
conducts the ceremony prostrates himself and weeps ; the people
burst into tears and groan aloud ; then the bishop rises J from his
humble position and summons up the people, and after praying {or
the penitents he dismisses them. This custom, with slight changeti,
was universal. Different Classes of Penitents.
Some were only candidates, seeking to be admitted into the list
of ecclesiastical penitents : their place was at the church door,
•Theodoret's Eccl. Hist., lib. v. cap. 18.
t Bingham's Antiquities, book xv. chap. 8, ss. 5, 6.
j Sozomen's Eccl. Hist., lib. vii. cap. 16.

202 PENITENTS IN THE EARLY CHURCH.
when, clothed in sackcloth, and covered with filthiness and horroi,
they lay prostrate, begging the prayers of the faithful, as they en
tered the sacred edifice, and entreating to be numbered with those
to whom the church proposed, at some period, to extend forgive
ness. Speaking of these, Tertullian says : * " The exomologesis
is the discipline of a man's humbling and prostrating himself
, , , , It obliges a man to change his clothing and his food, to lie
in sackcloth and ashes, to defile his body by neglect of dress
and ornament, to afflict his soul with sorrow, , ... to groan
and weep and cry unto the Lord God, day and night, to prostrate
himself before the presbyters of the church, to kneel before the
friends of God, and beg of all the brethren that they would be
come petitioners for his pardon," Here was a very public confes
sion, but nothing like the confessional of the popes.
The second class of penitents was called Hearers ; they were
allowed to pass through the discipline appointed for testing those
who professed sorrow for some notorious offence. They were
placed in the narthex or lowest part of the church, and were al
lowed to hear the Scriptures read and the sermon, but had to retire
before the commencement of the common prayers.
The third class of penitents was designated Prostrators, These
persons knelt around the pulpit in humble reverence, while all the
people prayed for them, and the bishop gave them the imposition
of hands and his benediction.
The fourth class was known as Bystanders. They were al
lowed to remain throughout the entire service, including the ob
servance of the Lord's Supper, but they were not permitted to
present the ordinary gifts donated by the faithful on the Lord's
day, or to partake of the eucharist. There was a class of people
so execrably wicked that Tertullian says of them : f " There
• Itaque exomologesis prosternendi et humilificandi hominis disciplina
est .... De ipso quoque habitu atque victu mandat, sacco et cineri incu-
bare, corpus sordibus obscurare, animum moerorbius dejicere .... ingemis-
cere, lacrimari et mugire dies noctesque ad Dominum Deum tuum, presby
teris advolvi, et carls Dei adgeniculari, omnibus fratribus legationes depreca-
tionis suse injungere. — Tertul., de Paniien., cap. ix. p. 58. Lipsise, 1839.
t Reliquas autem libidinum furiasimpias et in corpora et in sexus ultra jura
naturse, non modo limine verum omni ecclesise tecto submovemus, quia non
sunt delicta, sed monBtTa.—Turtul., de Pudici., cap. iv. p. 140. Lipsise, 1839

PENANCE PERFORMED ONLY TWICE. 203
were some impious furies of lust so far transgressing all the laws of
nature, both with respect to bodies and sex, that they not only
expelled them from the dooi-s of the church, but from every cov
ered place belonging to it, as being monsters rather than common

Penance seldom permitted Twice in the early Churches.
Tertullian called one penance after baptism the second, regard-
mg the repentance of baptism as the first, and he was satisfied
that there should be no third penance. His words are : * " God
has placed in the vestibule of the church, a second repentance
which opens to those that knock : but now only once, because
now, a second time ; never more, because the last was vain and to
no purpose." Ambrose says : f " They are deservedly reproved
who think of doing penance often, because they grow wanton
against Christ ; for if they did penance truly, they would not think
it should be repeated ; because as there is but one baptism, so there
is but one penance, which, moreover, is performed publicly. For
we ought daily to be sorry for sin ; but that is for lesser sins, and
the other for greater,"
Augustine says : X " Wisely and usefully it was provided that
there should be a place for that humblest penance but once in the
church, lest the medicine becoming contemptible, should be- less
useful to the sick." Siricius, Pope of Rome in the fourth century,
says : " Forasmuch as they, who after penance, return like dogs to
their vomit, or swine to their wallowing in the mire, cannot have
the benefit of a second penance, we decree that they shall commu-
* CoUocavit in veatibulo poenitentiam secundam, quse pulsantibus pate-
faciat; sed jam semel, quia jam secundo ; sed amplius nunquam, quia prox-
Ime frustra. — Tertul, de Paniten., cap. vii. p. 57. Lipsise, 1839.
f Merito reprehenduntur, qui ssepius agendam poenitentiam putant, quia
luxuriantur in Christo : nam si vere agerent poenitentiam, iterandam esse
non putarent : quia sicut unum baptisma, ita una pcenitentia, quse tamen pub-
lice agitur. Nam quotidiani nos debet poenitere peccati ; sed hsec delictorum
leviorum, ilia graviorum. — Amb. de Panit., tom. iv. lib. ii. cap. x. p. 198.
Colonise, 1616.
X Caute salubriterque provisum, ut locus illius humillimse poenitentise seme!
in ecclesia concedatur, ne medicina vilis minus utilis esaet segrotis. — Ep. 54,
ad Maced., p. 92, tom. ii. Paris 1614.

204 THE PENITENTIARY CONFESSOR,
nicate with the faithful in prayer only, and be present at the cele
bration of the eucharist, but not partake of the feast at the Lord's
table," * Here there was no weekly or annual confession with its
penances ; once after baptism this grievous duty might be per
formed, but generally, for a length of time, that ended penances
and public confessions for life.
The Severity of Penance,
For some sins men were required to do penance during the
whole of their lives, and absolution was only granted them in
death. And should they recover, after having received it, they
were compelled to resume their old position of shame and sorrow.
The common course of penance consigned men for ten, fifteen, or
twenty years to its various humiliating stages,t So that to repeat
such a process would have required a considerable Hfe, as well as a
change in church regulations. The Penitentiary Confessor,
About A, D. 250, there were many who had fallen from the
faith through the fierce persecution of Decius. Among these,
there were persons of different grades of criminality. And as public
penance was the universal law of the churches for each notorious
offender, a minister was designated in all centres of Christian popu
lation to hear the crimes of apostates, that they might be able to
take their proper place among the sad ones at the church doors, or
inside the porch, or near the pulpit on their knees, according to
the grade of their sinfulness. One presbyter attended to this duty
for all Constantinople in A, d, 390 ; for the office survived the
scenes which called it into life, and contiuued to fix the grade of
public penitents. A noble lady who had visited the penitentiary
presbyter, was unfortunate in the church with a deacon ; the public
* De his, qui, acta poenitentia, tanquam canes et sues, ad vomitos pristinos
et ad volutabra redeunt, quia jam sufiugium non habent poenitendi, id duxi-
mus decernendum, ut sola inter ecclesiam fidelibus oratione jungantur ; sacris
mysteriorum celebritatibus, quamvis non mereantur, intersint ; a Dominicse
autem raensse convivio segregentur. — Siric, ep. i. ad Hemerium, cap. v.
^ Bingham's Antiquities, book xviii. chap. 4, sec. 2.

FORM OF ABSOLUTION IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 205
became indignant against tlie semi-confessional, and Nectarius, the
bishop, abolished the office.* This was the first instance of the
suppression of this odious institution ; but Sozomen tells us that
the example was followed by the bishops of every region. f
Absolution in the early Church for public Confesdng Penitents,
After the long, distressing penance was completed, the candidate
for restoration knelt down between the knees of the bishop ; or,
in his absence, between those of the presbyter, who, laying his
hand upon his head, solemnly blessed and absolved him. The
people received him with transports of joy, as one escaped from the
coHs of the old serpent, and he was restored to participation in the
Lord's Supper. J The Form of Absolution.
They were received into communion with imposition of hands,
and the prayer of the whole church for them. The following
prayer of absolution, from the Apostolical Constitutions, is pro
bably as old as the fourth century :
" O Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, thou shepherd
and lamb, that takest away the sins of the world, that forgavest
the debt to the two debtors, and grantedst remission of sins to the
sinfiil woman, and gavest to the sick of the palsy- both a cure and
a pardon of sins, remit, blot out, and pardon our sins, both volun
tary and involuntary, whatever we have done wittingly or unwit
tingly, by transgression and disobedience, which thy spirit knows
better than we ourselves. And whereinsoever thy servants have
erred fi"om thy commandments, in word or deed, as men carrying
flesh about them, and living in the world, or seduced by the
instigation of Satau, or whatever curse or peculiar anathema they
tire fallen under, I pray and beseech thine ineffable goodness to ab
solve them with thy word, and remit their curse and anathema,
according to thy mercy. O Lord and master, hear my prayer for
thy servants ; thou that forgettest injuries, overlook all their
failings, pardon their offences, both voluntary and involuntary
? Socrates, lib. v. cap. 19. f Sozomen, lib. vii. cap. 16.
t Cave's "Primitive Christianity," p. 347. Oxford, 1840

206 THE CONFESSIONAL IN THE MIDDLE AGES,
and deliver them from eternal pimishment. For thou art he that
hast commanded us, saying : Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth
shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven : because thou art one God, the God that
canst have mercy and forgive sins ; and to thee, with the eternal
Father, and the quickening Spirit, belongs glory, now and for
ever, world without end. Amen." * A form of absolution like
this existed for centuries in all parts of the Christian world. Car
dinal Bona and Illyricus published an old Latin Missal about two
centuries ago, with this absolution : f " He that forgave the sinful
woman all her sins, for which she shed tears, and opened the gates
of paradise to the thief upon a single confession, make you partakers
of his redemption, and absolve you from all the bond of your sins,
and heal those infirm members by the medicine of his mercy, and
restore them to the body of his holy Church by his grace, and keep
them whole and sound forever."
It is absolutely certain that the form of absolution : " I absolve
you (absolvo te)," was not known in the practice of Christians till
the commencement of the thirteenth century. It was, down to
that period, a prayer to God for remission and absolution, Thomas
Aquinas, about the year 1250, was one of the first who wrote in
defence of the form : " I absolve thee," In his day, the expression
excited opposition, and was an undoubted novelty,^
THE CONFESSIONAL IN THE MIDDLE AGES,
Isidore of Seville, speaking of this practice in the early part
of the seventh century says : " There are two kinds of confes
sion (exomologesis), the one of praise, the other of sins ; and both
the one and the other are chiefly made to God."§ Hincmar, a lead ¦
* Const., lib. viii. cap. 9 et39.
f Qui mulieri peccatrici omnia peccata dimisit lacrymanti, et lalroni ad
unam confessionem claustra aperuit paradisi, ipse vos redemptionis suse par
ti cipes ab omni vinculo peccatorum absolvat, et membra aliquatenus debili-
tata medicina misericordise aanata, corpori aanctse ecclesise redeunte gratia
restituat, atque in perpetuum custodiat. — Bona Rer. Liturg., in Appendiet,
p. 763
X Bingham, Appendix, Letter 2.
? Du Pin, vol. ii. p. 2. Dublin, 1724.

CONFESSION OF SIN IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 207
ing French bishop of the ninth century .says : " Our light and
daily sins, according to the exhortation of St. James, are daily to
be confessed to those that are our equals : and such sins, we may
believe, will be cleansed by their daily prayers, and our own acts
of piety, if with a charitable mind, we truly say in the Lord's
prayer : Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that tres
pass against us." *
The second Council of Chalons, in A, d. 813, in its thirty -third
canon declares : f " Some say that we ought to confess our sins to
God alone ; others affirm that they ought to be confessed to priests :
both are done with great benefit in the holy church ; so that we
confess our sins to God, who does forgive them ; and according to
the apostle's institution, we confess them to each other and pray
for each other that we may be saved. So that the confession made
to God purges from sin ; and that which is made to the priest
informs us how we ougM to be purged from them." • • ¦ Here it is
boldly asserted that God only forgives sins, that he pardons them
through no priest, and that the priest only shows the way to
Christ, the cleansing fountain.
Lanfranc, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in A, D. 1070,
in a tract on the secrecy of confession, says : J " The confes
sion of public sins ought to be made to the priests, by whose minis
try the Church binds and looses that of which it takes public cog
nizance ; but that one may confess private sins to all the ecclesi
astics, and even to laymen ; since we read that there have been
holy fathers, who were the guides of souls, though they were not
in holy orders." Here there is no distinction between mortal
and venial sins ; the sins considered are public iniquities, and secrd
sins, however atrocious; and according to the greatest prelate
except Gregory VIL, in the eleventh century, and according to i
more learned bishop than Gregory, all private sins may be con
fessed to a layman.
Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, in the early part of the twelfth osntury,
expresses in his 186th letter, the opinion then beginning to becom?
general : " That confession of common and small fe,uits, may bf
• Hincmar, Ep. ad Hildeb., t. ii. n. 40, p. 688.
t Du Pin, vol. ii. p. 106. Dublin, 1724
tld.,p. 202.

208 THE CONFESSIONAL ESTABLISHED A. D. 1215,
made to any one, but that great offences are to be confessed only
to those who have the power of binding and loosing." This is
substantially the papal doctrine to-day.
Up to A, D, 1215, the confession of sin was an optional thing in
the Church of Rome, No canon or bull compelled it ; it had been
increasing in popularity for two centuries ; it was highly recom
mended, but still it had no sovereign sanction, no authority to
RULE THE ROMAN CHURCH, and in A. d. 1215, for the
first time in papal history,
AURICULAR CONFESSION WAS ESTABLISHED BY ROMISH LAW.
Innocent III. was lord of the Christian Church at this time.
Ambitious to establish a number of superstitions, he summoned
the fourth Council of the Lateran, A, D. 1215, whose twenty-first
)anon reads : * " Every one of the faithful of both sexes, after he
shall have reached years of discretion, shall, by himself alone,
faithftilly confess all his sins, at least once a year, to his own priest,
and strive to perform according to his ability the penance imposed
upon him, reverently partaking of the sacrament of the eucharist,
at least at Easter ; unless, perhaps, by the advice of his priest, for
some reasonable cause, he should judge that for a time he should
abstain from partaking of it ; otherwise, let the living be hindered
from entering the church, and let the dead be deprived of Christian
burial. On this account this salutory statute shall be frequently
published in the churches that no one may pretend as an excuse, the
blindness of ignorance. But if any one shall wish to confess his sins
to a foreign priest, for proper reasons, he must first ask and obtain
* Omnis utriusque sexus fldelis, postquam ad annos discretionis pervene-
rit, omnia sua solus peccata confiteatur fideliter saltem semel in anno proprio
sacerdoti, et injunctam sibi poenitentiam studeat pro viribus adimplere, sus-
cipiens reverenter ad minus in Pascha eucharistise sacramentum, nisi forte
de consilio proprii sacerdotis ob aliquam rationabilem causam ad tempus ab
ejus perceptions duxerit abstinendum ; alioquin et vivens ab ingressu eccle
sise arceatur, et moriens Christiana careat sepultura Unde hoc salutare sta
tutum frequenter in ecclesiis publicetur, ne quispiam ignorantise csecitate
velamen excusationis assumat. Si quis autem alieno sacerdoti voluerit justa
de causa sua confiteri peccata, licentiam prius postulit et obtineat a proprio
sacerdote, quum aliter ille ipsum non possit solvere vel liga.Te.— Oanonea ei
Decreta Concilii Tridentini, p. 257. Lipsise, 1868.

THE MODERN CONFESSIONAL, 209
a license fi-om his own priest, since otherwise he would not be able
to bind or loose him,"
Calvin, though a somewhat stern man, commenting on thi.M
famous decree, says : " The bai-barism of the diction is sufficient
to deprive the law of all credit. For the good fathers enjoin that :
' Every person of both sexes shall, once in each year, make a
particular confession of all sins to the proper priest ; ' but some
wits facetiously object, that this precept binds none but herma
phrodites, and relates to no one who is either a male or a female."
He farther in the same connection asserts the indisputable fact
that: "It is certain from-the testimony of their own histories that
there was no fixed law, or constitution, respecting confession till
the time of Innocent III., that its friends were accustomed to cite
nothing older in favor of the practice than the Council of the
Lateran," * This decree subjected those who refused it obedience
to the worst form of excommunication ; which in that age meant
a horrible death and the confiscation of all property. It was the
darkest age of the last two thousand years in culture and morals,
and fitly gave birth to transubstantiation, the confessional and the
inquisition. The confessional had its church birth not an hour
earlier than A. D. 1215.
THE MODERN CONFESSIONAL.
The confessional as it exists to-day is chiefly the work of the
fiithers of Trent, and those who lived in the age immediately
after. That synod issued the followdng canons on penance :
" If any one shall deny t that three acts are required for the
whole and perfect remission of the sins of a penitent, as the sub
stance of the sacrament of penance, that is to say contrition, con
fession and satisfaction, which are called the three parts of
• Institutes, lib. iii. cap. 4.
t Si qnis negaverit ad integram et perfectam peccatorum remissionem re-
quiri tres actus in poenitente, quasi materiam sacramenti poenitentise, vide
licet contritionem, confessionem et satisfactionem, quse tres poenitentise
partes dicuntur ; aut dixerit, duas tantum esse poenitentise partes, terrores in-
cussos scilicet conscientioe agnito peccato, et fidem conceptam ex evangelio
vel absolutione, qua credit quis sibi per Christum remissa peccata; ana
thema sit. 14

210 CONFESSION NECESSARY TO SALVATION.
penance ; or shall say that there are only two parts of penance,
the terrors struck in the conscience when the sin is avowed, and
the faith conceived from the gospel or absolution, by which any
one believes that through Christ his sins are remitted ; let him be
accursed." " If any one shall deny * that sacramental confession was either
instituted by divine authority, or that it is necessary to salvation ;
or shall say that the secret mode of confessing to a priest alone,
which the Catholic Church has always observed from the begin
ning, and still observes, is foreign to the institution and appoint
ment of Christ, and is a human invention ; let him be accursed."
" If any one shall say f that in the sacrament of penance it is not
necessary by divine command, for the remission of sins, to confess
all and every mortal dn, of wliich recollection may be had, with
due and diligent premeditation, even secrd offences, and those
which are against the last two precepts of the decalogue, and the
circumstances which change the species of sin; but that this con
fession is useful only, for instructing and consoling the penitent,
and was formerly observed only for imposing canonical satisfaction,
or shall say that those who desire to confess all their sins, wish
to leave nothing for the divine mercy to pardon ; or finally that
it is not lawful to confess venial sins ; let him be accursed."
Butler's Catechism says : J " The chief mortal sins are seven :
pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth,"
* Si quis negaverit, confessionem sacramentalem vel institutam, vel ad sa
lutem necessariam esse jure divino; aut dixerit, modum secrete confldenti
soli sacerdoti, quem ecclesia catholica ab initio semper obaervavit et observat,
alienum esse ab institutione et mandate Christi, et inventum esse humanum ;
anathema sit. — I. and II. Canons de Poenitent., sess. xiv. Oonc. Trident.
\ Si quis dixerit, in sacramento poenitentise ad remissionem peccatorum
necessarium non esse jure divino, confiteri omnia et singula peccata mor-
talia, quorum memoria cum debita et diligenti prsemeditatione habeatur, etiam
occulta, et quse sunt contra duo ultima decalogi prsecepta, et circumstaLtias,
quae peccati speciem mutant ; sed eam confessionem tantum esse utilem ad
erudiendum et consolandum poenitentem, et olim observatam fuisse tantum
ad satisfactionem canonicam imponendam ; aut dixerit, eos, qui omnia pec
cata confiteri student, nihil relinquere velle divinse misericordise ignoscen
dum ; aut demum, non licere confiteri peccata venialia ; anathema sit.— Can.
vii. sess. xiv., Oonc. Trident.
X Butler's Catechism, p. 27. Philad'a. ed.

CANONS ON THE CONFESSIONAL. 211
"If any one shall say * that sacramental absolution, by a priest, is
not a judicial act, but a mere ministry to pronounce and declare
that sins are remitted to the person making confession, provided
that he only believes that he is absolved, even though the priest
should not absolve seriously but iu joke ; or shall say that the
confession of a penitent is not required that the priest may absolve
him ; let him be accursed."
" If any one shall say f that the whole penalty together with the
guilt is always remitted by God, and that the satisfaction of peni
tents is no other thing than the faith by which they apprehend that
Christ has made satisfaction for them ; let him be accursed."
" If any one shall say J that priests, who are in mortal sin, have
not the power of binding and loosing, or that priests are not
the only ministers of absolution  let him be accursed."
" The holy Synod (of Trent) § teaches that the form of the sacra
ment of penance, in which its force especially lies, is placed in the
words : I absolve thee, etc." And this absolution is not in words
merely, for the Catechism of the Council of Trent says : || " But
the ministers of Grod truly as it were absolve." And the same
Catechism gives the priest authority for this or any other act in
the confessional, by declaring that he represents Christ in it; and
therefore is invested with divine attributes and powers. The
words are : " Moreover, in the priest who sits a legitimate judge

* Si quis dixerit, absolutionem sacramentalem sacerdotis non esse actum
judicialem, sed nudem ministerium pronunciandi et declarandi remissa esse
peccata confitenti, modo tantum credat se esse absolutum, aut sacerdos non
serio, sed joco absolvat ; aut dixerit non requiri confessionem poenitentis, ut
sacerdos ipsum abaolvere possit ; anathema sit. ^
t Si quis dixerit, totam pcenam simul cum culpa remitti semper a Deo,
satisfactionemque poenitentium non esse aliam quam fidem, qua apprehendunt
Christum pro eis satisfecisse ; anathema sit.
X Si quia dixerit, saceradotes, qui in peccato mortali sunt, potestatem ligandi
et solvendi non habere ; aut non solos sacerdotes esse ministros absolutionis
 anathema sit. — Canona ix., x., xii. sess. xiv. ConcTrident., p. 83-4,
Oanonea et Decreta. Lipsise, 1863.
§ Docet prseterea sancta synodus, sacramenti poenitentise formam, in qua
prsecipue ipsius vis sita eat, in illis ministri verbis positam esse : ego te absolvo,
etc. — De Pcenit., cap. iii. sess. xiv. Oonc. Trident.
\ Sed vere tanquam Dei ministri absolvunt. — Queat. xvi. cap. v. parslL
Oatech. Trident. Lipsias, 1865.

212 CATECHISM OP TRENT ON THE CONFESSIONAL,
over him, he should venerate the person and power of Christ the
Lord ; for in administering the sacrament of penance, as in the
other sacraments, the priest discharges the office of Christ," *
The Catechism of Trent teaches that, f " Priest and penitent
should be most careful that their conversation in the confessional
be held in secrd ; and hence, no one can, on any account, confess
by messenger or letter, as in that way nothing can be treated
secretly." The Catechism of the Council of Trent says that, J " Confession
should be enjoined on a child from the time when he has the power
of discerning between good and evil." And it declares that, § "Above
all, the faithful should be most careful to cleanse their souls from
sin by frequent confession."
It declares that, || " Theologians give the name of satisfaction
to express that compensation by which a man makes some repara
tion to God for the sins he has committed,"
Such are papal teachings in modern times about the confessional.
Without contrition, confession and penance, there can be no per
fect remission of sins. Confession of sin to a priest is necessary to
salvation. All and every mortal sin, even the most secret and in
famous, must be confessed to a priest, or there can be no pardon
from God. The priest is the judge of the soul, and in the confes
sional, sitting instead of Jesus Christ, he can keep the sins of any

* In sacerdote autem, qui in eum legitimus judex sedet, Christi Domini
personam et potestatem veneratur. Sacerdos enim, quemadmodum in aliis,
ita in poenitentise sacramento administrando Christi munus exsequitur. —
Quest, xvii. cap. v. pars ii. Oatech. Trident. Lipsise, 1865.
f Illud vero turn confitenti, tum sacerdoti maxime laborandum est, ut eorum
sermo in confessione secreto habeatur. Quare fit, ut nemini omnino, neque
per nunciam, neque per literas, quoniam ea ratione nihil j am occulte agi potest,
peccata confiteri liceat. — Id., Quest. Iii. cap. v. pars ii.
t Ab eo tempore confessionem puero indictam esse quum inter bonum et
malum discernendi vim habet. — Id., Quest, xliv. cap. v. pars ii. CatecJi. Oonc.
Trid. Lipsise, 1865.
§ Sed nulla res fidelibus adeo curce esse debet, quam ut frequeuti pecca
torum confessione animam studeant expiare. — Id., Queat. liii. cap. v. pars ii.
j Satisfactionis nomen divinarum rerum doctores ad declarandam eam com-
pensationem usurparunt, quum homo pro peccatis commissis Deo aliquid
persolvit. -Id., Queat. lix. cap. v. pars ii.

POSTURE OF THE PENITENT IN THE CONFESSIONAL. 213
man bound upon him, or loose them, according to his discretion.
God never remits the sins of a man through faith only, says the
twelfth canon of the Council of Trent on penance. That council,
instead of being governed by the Spirit of God, was led by the spirit
of contradiction to Christ — that is, by Antichrist. For God's word
faithfully translated, in the Catholic Vulgate, says : " He that be-
lieveth on me hath dernal life ; " John vi. 47 : (Qui credit in me,
habet vitam seternam). " For God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten Son, that every one who believes on him
might not perish, but might have eternal life ; " John iii. 16 : (Sic
enim Deus dilexit mundum, ut Filium suum uuigenitum daret :
ut omnis, qui credit in eum, non pereat, sed habeat vitam seter
nam.) " But the just lives by faith; " Rom. i. 17 : (.lustus autem ex
fide vivit). The spirit that framed this canon is the spirit of
ANTICHRIST in its full growth. They who believe on Jesus,
without confession, absolution, or penance, are saved for eternity,
notwithstanding the curses of councils, personal infirmities, or the
warfare of the Prince of Darkness.
Sacerdotal Secrecy.
Du Pin reports a part of the twenty-first canon of the fourth
Coimcil of the Lateran, A, d, 1215, which declares that, * " Those
who shall disclose any sin, which has been revealed to them in
confession, shall be condemned, not only to be deposed, but also
to be confined during life in a monastery, there to do penance
for it,"
Posture of the Penitent in Confesdon, and the Opening Address.
" Kneeling down at the side of your ghostly father, make the
sign of the cross, saying : ' In the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.' "
Then the penitent asks the priest's blessing in these words:
" Pray, father, give me your blessing, for I have sinned," After
this the penitent repeats the Confiteor : f " I confess to Almighty
God, to blessed Mary, ever Virgin, to blessed Michael, the arch-
* Du Pin, ii. p. 451. DubUn, 1724.
t Garden of the Soul, p. 212.

214 QUESTIONS OF THE CONFESSOR.
angel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy Apostles Peter and
Paul, and to you, father, that I have sinned exceedingly, in
thought, word and deed, through my fault, through my fault,
through my most grievous fault." According to Hogan, the
penitent, on her knees, has her lips nearly close to the cheek of
the priest, * The Questions of the Confessional.
Many of these are too horrible to transcribe, and they shall not
appear in this work. Those who wish to see the beastly vileness
of the filthiest institution on the face of the earth, can consult
Bailly, Peter Dens, and Saint Alphonsus Liguori,
Michelet, the celebrated French author, speaks of the manuals
placed in the hands of the young priest to guide his questions in
the confessional, as " Addressed f to a world of festering filth,
which the religious wars left behind them. You will find in
them such crimes as could never be committed except by the
horrid soldiery of the Duke of Alva, or those bands without coun
try, law, or God, which Wallenstein raised, true wandering Sodom
ites, which the old ones would have held in horror. And this young
priest, who, according to you, believes that the world is still that
frightful world, comes to the confessional with all that villainous
knowledge ; his imagination furnished with monstrous cases ; you
place him in contact with a child who has not left her mother,
who knows nothing, who has nothing to tell, whose greatest
crime consists in not having learned her catechism, or in having
wounded a butterfly, I shudder at the questions he is about to
put to her ; at all that he is about to teach her in his consdentioua
brutality ! "
Delicate Questions put in every Catholic Prayer Book in Gu
Vulgar Tongue: upon which every Wcrnian is to Examine her
self before appearing at the Confesdonal.
On the sixth commandment: "Thou shalt not commit adul
tery." * Hogan's "Auricular Confeasion and Popiah Nunneries," p. 33. Boaton,
1845. t Michelet on Auricular Confession, etc., p. 136. Philadelphia, 1845.

QUESTIONS OF THE CONFESSOR, 215
" Have you been guilty of any acts of impurity ? Under this
head all sins against purity must be carefully examined, as well
as whatever tends to their commission or indulgence. Have you
been guilty of filthy talking? of reading immodest boolts? of
indecency of dress ? of looking at unchaste objects ? of taking
any dangerous or improper liberties ?
" N, B, As the sins against this and the ninth commandment,
(Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife) are most grievous, and
at the same time most various, the prudent counsel of your direc
tor (priest) will assist you, if necessary, in a more particular exam
ination." — Garden of the Soul, page 199,
The Mission Book in the English language, a work of great
popularity in the Catholic Church, suggests the followLug ques
tions under the sixth and ninth commandments :
"Have you dwelt wilfully and with complaisance, upon im
pure thoughts or imaginations ? Have you in fiict consented to
them in your mind ? How often ?"
"Have you made use of impure language or allusions; or
listened to it willingly and with complaisance ? Was it sometimes
before persons of another sex ? Have you sung immodest songs,
or listened to them ? How often ?"
" Have you been guilty of improper and dangerous freedoms
with any of the other sex? How far have you carried this
sinfiil conduct? Was the companion of your guilt a single
person? How often? A relation? How often? A married
person ? How often ? "
" Have you written improper letters, or received them ? How
often? Have you gazed immodestly upon yourself or others;
] upon pictures or statues, or any object which could excite desires ?
How often ? Have you indulged in habits of secret sin ? How
long? How often?"
" Have you, by the freedom of your manners, or your immodest
dress, been the cause of temptation to others? Was this also
your intention ? Have you read impure books, or newspapers ?
How often ? Have you lent them to others ? Have you exposed
ycurself voluntarily to the occasions of sin by means of dances,
shows, theatres, etc,, by intemperance, by reading romances and
plays, by walking out at night, by frequenting society, or by

216 ALL QUESTIONS BY CONFESSOR MUST BE ANSWERED,
remaining alone with persons of a different sex ? Have you been
guilty of seduction ? How often ? Have your sins against these
two commandments been sometimes of an unnatural kind?
How often ?" * A parent is required to examine his or her con
science, with a view to the confessional, on this matter : " Have
you exposed the innocence of your children to danger by letting
them sleep together without distinction, or by taking them to
your own bed, or keeping them in the same room, when already
old enough to be scandalized? How often?" f A wife, at the
confessional, must be ready to answer these questions : " Have you
been respectful and obedient to your husband in everything rea
sonable? Have you refused him his marriage rights? How
often ? Have you not persuaded him to offend God against the
dictates of nature and of conscience ? How often ? " J
Every question put by the priest must be answered on peril
of damnation ; he sits instead of Christ, you are confessing to
God, the voice of the priest is Immanuel's ; it is the Almighty that
addresses the trembling penitent. And for this reason the priest
hears everything, EVERYTHING, however shocking, shameful,
frivolous, frightful ; everything in thoughts, feelings, words, looks,
and deeds. And Michelet is right in describing a husband whose
wife frequents the confessional as in a humiliating position ; " It
is," says he, " a humiliating thing to be seen, followed into the most
intimate intimacy by an invisible witness, who regulates you, and
assigns to you, your part ; to meet in the street a man who knows
better than yourself your most secret acts of weakness, who hum
bly salutes you and turns aside and laughs." §
These questions just quoted are found in some shape in the
prayer books everywhere in use in the Catholic Church ; they are
in the language of the people ; they are modest, compared to the
frightful questions compiled by theologians for the use of priests,
and covered by the Latin tongue ; and yet what blushes, shame,
horror, and outrages upon delicacy these questions involve ! That
the modesty of women should be placed on the rack in the con
fessional by a bachelor priest, full of curiosity as well as sanctity,

• Miasion Book, pp. 311-12. N. Y. 1866. f H, p. 316. J Id., p. 818.
§ Michelet on Auric. Confession, p. 141. Philada., 1845.

DEAF CONFESSORS. 217
and torn, lacerated, and disjointed, under the awfiil sanctions of
the Almighty, is indeed a dreadful thought.
Gavin * tells us that in his time, in Spain, they had a class of
priests who were known as Deaf Confessors. These men were
not really deaf, but they acted as if they were. They lent an ear
txj penitents of every grade ; they asked no questions about the
secrets of any heart ; and after each penitent had made his own
statement to the confessor, he received a certificate which relieved
him from the penalties of the church for a year. Is it any wonder
that the Deaf Confessors were visited by throngs; that immense
numbers of women should send for them or come to them, aud
that day and night they should be compelled to ply their calluig
with unresting activity ? Would it not be a positive advantage to
the world, and especially to religion, if every confessor was smit
ten with temporary but real deafness the moment he entered his
wretched den of torture ?
The confessional is the most odious system of espionage ever
iavented by cunning despots. It is the most flagitious outrage
upon the rights of husbands and wives, parents and children, the
Binning and the sinned against, that ever shocked modesty or
ground trembling hearts under its fatal heel. It is strongly
believed to be the greatest incitement to vice that a holy God ever
permitted; frightful examples of which are on record. f It turns
priests into odious receptacles for the accumulated stench and
nastiness of all the foul corruptions of thousands, making them
sons of the MAN OF SIN, ready bearers of the iniquities of
whole communities.
This plague claims to start from the Scriptures, James is quoted
as authority for it : " Confess therefore your sins one to another ;
and pray one for another that you may be saved," v. 16, (Vulgate :
Confitemini ergo alterutrum peccata vestra ; et orate pro invicem
ut salvemini). But this Scripture is quite as good authority for
priests confessing to laymen or women, as it is for either party
confessing to them. It is not : Confess your sins to the priest and
he will absolve you. And if James had known anything of
priestly confession, he would never have used the exhortation, " Con-
• " Master Key to Popery," p. 50. Cin., 1833.
\ I.lorente's "History of the Inquisition," p.130. Philada., 1843.

218 THE CONFESSIONAL A MODERN INNOVATION,
fess therefore your sins one to another." The other authority from
Scripture is in Matt, xviii. 18 : " Whatsoever ye shall bind on
earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on
earth shall be loosed in heaven," The same promise is given in
Matt, xvi, 19, and John xx, 23, It is argued that as the apostles
received power to free men from their sins, or bind their sins upon
them, the confessional was instituted by that authority. But the
inference is not quite just, Ananias and Sapphira made no con
fession of sin to Peter ; nor did any mortal bear witness against
them to him, Peter could bind and loose because the Holy Spirit
rested so powerfully upon him that he could see the acts of those
who were away from his bodily sight. He needed no confession
box ; and besides, the pope is not Peter, his bishops are not apostles.
After the calling of Paul there were no more apostles ; and they
could have no successors, after the generation which knew Jesus
had passed away. Acts i. 21-2. No man lives who walked with
Christ and his apostles during his whole ministry, who saw him
alive from the dead, so as to be a witness of his resurrection ;
and as Peter in this passage declares that such men are needed,
there can be no successors to the apostles, or to their powers of
binding and loosing ; nor did they need the confessional to enable
them to discharge their duties, and exercise their privileges.
The confessional has neither EXISTENCE NOR SANC
TION FROM THE SCRIPTURES ; it was WHOLLY UN
KNOWN in all ancient churches ; it had no LEGAL LIFE in
the Catholic Church before the year TWELVE HUNDRED
AND FIFTEEN; it is m itself a withering curse, a cruel
tyranny, without one redeeming quality ; and as a MODERN
INNOVATION, AND AN INSTRUMENT OF OPPRES
SION it should be banished from the world.

EXTREME UNCTION.
The only two Scriptures quoted by the Catholic Church to sus
tain the practice of extreme unction, simply prove that in the
Saviour's day his servants miraculously raised the sick by the use
of oil. In Mark vi, 13, we find these words : "And they [the
disciples] cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that
were sick, and healed them," The persons anointed are not said
to be dying ; the act is not called the Last Unction, and the trans
action was a miracle, the design of which was to restore health,
not to fit men for death. In James v, 14, 15, we read :
"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders
of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him
with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith
shall save [save from his disease] the sick, and the Lord shall
raise him up ; and if he have committed sins, they shall be for
given him," Here the unction is not to fit the man for dying ; it
is the human part of a miracle of restoration, Christ commonly
used some natural agency and the astonishing power of God in
performing his miracles. He could have made the wine out of
nothing at Cana, but he required six stone vessels to be filled with
water ; he could have created all the bread and fishes needed to feed
the hungry thousands, but he sought the five loaves and two
fishes, aud gave them a miraculous enlargement. And so the
anointinr^ in James is but the natural basis of a supernatural cure.
It is not a work performed on the dying, but a process applied to
the sick to give them perfect health. Nor is it the unction which
effects the healing, but the prayer of faith : "And the prayer of
faith sh(^ save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." "And
if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him," through
the prayer of faith. These are the only Scriptures brought for-
219

220 THE UNCTION OF HEALTH,
ward to sustain extreme unction, and they simply prove that the
Saviour, in the age of miracles, cured, not the dying, but the sick,
by having them anointed with oil, and by having his wonder
working servants offer up believing prayers for them. As the age
of miracles passed away, so did this custom. If the practice
should exist now, it could only apply to the removal of diseases.
The sick Christian, instead of calling in a physician, should send
for the elders of the church, to anoint and pray for him, that he
might become well.
The Greek Church retains the Form of Anointing recommended by
James.
When a member of that communion is dangerously ill, the
elders, that is, a body of priests,* not a single priest, are called in,
who anoint the patient with oil, and pray for his recovery. This
is exactly the object of James's unction.
An unction was recommended in the sixth century, and foi
several ages immediately after, for the sick, with a view to hindei
the use of amulets, charms,t and incantations for the recovery of
health ; a practice prevalent among converts, and rendered popular
among others by their experience. This unction was applied to
all cases of sickness, as well to those threatened with death ; and
the oil was used by laymen on themselves and their families.
Bede alludes to this oil when he says : f " It is clear from the
apostles themselves, that this holy custom was delivered to the
Church, that the possessed, or any other diseased persons, may be
anointed with oil consecrated by the pontifical benediction,"
Jonas, Bishop of Orleans, from A. d. 821 to 843, in his " Insti
tutione Laicorum," censures many for preferring the advice of
soothsayers, or female fortune-tellers, about their diseased friends,
to sending for the priests, and having themselves or relatives
anointed with consecrated oil, according to the apostolical tra
dition," §
The Council of Chalons, A. D, 813, regretting the contempt with
which the unction of health was treated in their forty-eighth canon,||
* Stanley's " History of the Eastern Church," p. 118. New York, 1870.
t Neander, iii. p. 448. Boston, 1869. X Bede, 0pp., t. v. coll. 133.
^ Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. xiv. p. 166. J Du Pin, ii. 107. Dublin, 1724.

THE UNCTION OF DEATH. 221
" Recommend the anointmg of the sick, which ought to be per
formed by priests, with an oil consecrated by the bishop ; adding
that a remedy so fit to cure the infirmities of the soul and the body,
ought not to be neglected." The canon was intended to show the
advantages of this unction for health and pardon. The infor
mation it gives, that priests ought to apply it, would sound
strange from a Catholic Coimcil to a Romish community now.
The Council of Paris, A. d. 850, in their eighth Constitution,
say that : * " The priests should instruct the people in the saving
nature of the Sacrament of Unction (not extreme), of which the
apostle James speaks, and make them sensible that they can hope
to receive the wished-for effects of that mystery ; the remission of
sins, and health, only where they desire it with a sound and full
faith ; that because it often happens that sick persons know not the
force of that sacrament, or think their distempers inconsiderable,
or forget to desire it, the priest of the place ought to put them in
mind of receiving it, and he ought to invite the priests of his neigh
borhood to be present at its administration. Only those fitted to
receive the other sacraments of the Church should have this unc
tion," This Council knew nothing of the unction for death ; it
was THE ANOINTING FOR HEALTH AND PARDON.
The churches knew nothing of the anointing for death for at least
nine hundred years after Christ.
Hagenbach says : f " The apostolical injunction respecting the
sick (James v. 14), gave rise to a new sacrament, which came into
general use from the ninth century, and could be administered only
in the dying hour." This is extreme unction, or, properly, the
Sacrament of Death, Possibly, in the tenth century, there were
a few who had heard of the Sacrament of Death ; but the opinion
of Riddle is more precisely given, and nearer the truth : J " The
ceremony of extreme unction, as now used by the Church of
Rome, cannot be traced to an earlier date than the end of the
twelfth century ; after this century, it was universally adopted in
the Western Church,"
* Du Pin, ii. 12. Dublin, 1724.
t Hagenbach's "History of Doctrines," ii. p. 112. New York, 1869.
X Riddle's " Christian Antiquities," pp. 752, 753. London, 1843,

222 EXTREME UNCTION APPROVED BY THE CHURCH,
It is formally adopted by the Catholic Church in the Council of
Florence, A, D, 1439.
The decree is short and descriptive. It is :* " The fifth sacra
ment is extreme unction, whose matter is olive oil blessed by the
bishop. This sacrament ought not to be administered unless to
the infirm whose death is feared. The places to be anointed are :
the eyes on account of sight, the ears on account of hearing, the
nostrils on account of smelling, the mouth on account of tasting
aud speaking, the hands on account of touching, the feet on account
of walking, the reins on account of their being the seat of plea
sure," The form of this sacrament is this : " By this anointing
and his own great mercy, may God indulge thee whatever sins
thou hast committed through sight, etc,, and in like manner by the
other members. The minister of this sacrament is the priest. The
effect truly is the healing of the mind, and as far as is fit, of the
body also," This is the first time in which the new unction was
enrolled among the laws and sacraments of the Catholic Church,
by the supreme legislature of that community.
The Catechism of Trent, after describing the oil in the last
unction, as applied to the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth and hands,
proceeds to say : f "As in bodily infirmity although the entire
body be affected, the cure is applied to that part only which is the
* Quintum sacramentum eat extrema unctio. Cujua materia est oleum
olivse per episcopum benedictum. Hoc sacramentum nisi infirmo, de cujus
morte timetur, dari not debet. Qui in his locis ungendus est: in oculis
propter visum, in auribus propter auditum, in naribua propter odoratum, in
ore propter gustum vel locutionem, in manibus propter tactum, in pedibus
propter gressum, in renibus propter delectationem ibidem vigentem. Forma
hujus sacramenti est hsec : per istam unctionem et suam piissimam miseri
cordiam, quicquid peccasti per visum, etc. . . . et similiter in aliis
membris. Minister hujus sacramenti est sacerdos. Effectus vero est mentis
sanatio, et, in quantum autem expedit, ipsius etiam corporis. — Deereium
Oonc. Florent. pro Inst. Armen. Oonc. Labb., tom. xiii. p. 538, Paris 1672.
t Ac quoniam in corporis morbis. quamvis universum corpus male affec
tum sit, tamen illi tantum parti curatio adhibetur, a qua, tanquam a fonte et
origine, morbus manat : idcirco non totum corpus, sed ea membra, in quibus
potissimum sentiendi vis eminet, renes etiam, veluti voluptatis et libidinia
sedes, unguntur ; tum pedes, qui nobis ingressus et ad locum movendura
principium emA.— Queat. 10, cap. 6. par. ii., Oatechismus Oonc. Trid. Lipri»,
1865.

THE PARTS ANOINTED. 223
source and origin of the disease ; so is this unction applied, not to
the entire body, but to those members which are preeminently the
organs of sense ; and also to the loins which are, as it were, the
seat of pleasure and of sensuality, and to the ffeot, by which we are
enabled to move from one place to another."
Hogan says : " Send an American ( Protestant) missionary to
a Catholic covmtry, aud without aid from home he will starve ; he
has no servants whom he can persuade to give him ten or twelve
dollars for saying mass, no dying person who will send for him
and pay him well for taking out of his pockets a set of oil stocks
for the purpose of greasing him over, commencing on the forehead,
then proceeding to the tip of the nose, the eyelids, the lips, the
breast, the loins, aud the soles of the feet,"* Hogan has breast
for hands, which, in all probability, is a mistake. But the loins are
anointed. The oil is regularly blessed once a year by the bishop, so that
the priests have it always holy and ready for use.
The Council of Trent says : f "If any one shall say that the
sacred anointing of sick persons does not confer grace, nor remit dns,
nor raise up the dck, but that now it has ceased, as if the grace of
cures existed only in former times ; let him be accursed,"
The Catechism of Archbishop Spaulding says :J "Extreme unc
tion is a sacrament that gives grace to die well. It is given when
we are in danger of death by sickness."
Extreme unction is not observed to restore health, by miraculous
answers to prayers. It is only given to the dying, and it is applied
to impart grace to them that they may die well ; and to remove
all traces of remaining sin.
The manner of applying Extreme Unction.
" The priest provides seven balls of cotton to wipe the parts to
be anointed ; and a taper to light him during the ceremony. As
* Hogan's "Auricular Confession and Nunneries," p. 132. Boston, 1845.
f Si quis dixerit, sacram inflrmorum unctionem non conferre gratiam, nee
remittere peccata, nee alleviare infirmos, sed jam cessasse, quasi olim tantum
fuerit gratia curationum ; anathema sit. — Canones et Decreta Cone. Trid.,
sess. xiv. can. 2, de Sacrament. Extr. Unc, p. 85. Lipsise, 1863.
t Spaulding's Catechism, p. 44. Philadelphia,

224 EXTREME UNCTION AN INNOVATION,
he enters the chamber of death he must wear a surplice and the
purple stole ; he gives the sick person the cross to kiss, he sprinkles
him, the apartment, and the assistants with holy water in the form
of a cross ; confession and absolution if possible must precede the
unction. The priest dips his right thumb in the ' Oils of the
Infirm,' and anoints each part in the form of a cross, pronouncing
words appropriate to the part receiving the unction ; for the eyes,
for example, he says : ' May God by this holy anointing, and by
his most pious mercy, pardon you the sins you have committed
through the eyes I ' At the conclusion of the anointing the priest
repeats some prayers, after which he delivers an exhortation to the
sick, and retires." *
Such is extreme unction, one of the leading sacraments of the
Church of Rome ; it has no place in the Scriptures ; no location
among the fathers ; it was never heard of until from nine to twelve
hundred years after Christ, It is a MODERN INNOVATION.
• " Religious Ceremonies and Customs," by Goodrich, p. 371-2. Hartford,
1834.

THE SACRAMENT OE ORDERS.
The officers of a New Testament Church are bishops and dea
cons. No other class is ever named as discharging permanent
duties in the apostolic communities. * The names presbyter and
bishop designated the same position, f the one describing the ven
erable gravity of the man, the other the oversight which his epis
copal duties imposed.
The deacon was charged with the care of the poor, and the dis
tribution of the elements at the Lord's Table. J It was no part
of his diaconal duties to preach, though Stephen and Philip pro
claimed the word of life. When the first glow of gospel love
warmed the hearts of men, though persons were specially set apart
for the duties of the ministry, preaching in some way appears to
have been a general work, for we find Acts viii. 1, 4, that by per
secution the members of the church at Jerusalem " were all scat
tered abroad ; " and " they that were scattered abroad, went every
where preaching the word." At a very early day, after inspired
men left the churches, deacons become inferior ecclesiastics ; and
bishops were made superior to elders.
Mdropolitans.
At first all bishops were on an equality no matter where their
field of labor was located. Perhaps in the beginning of the third
century, in some places, one bishop began to claim some measure
of superiority over another. At the commencement of the fourth
century the order of metropolitans was generally recognized.

• Philippians i. 1 ; 1 Tim. iii. f 1 Peter v. 1, 2 ; Acts xx. 17, 28,
X Acts vi. 1-5.
15 225

226 METROPOLITANS AlTD PATRLARCHS.
Duties of these Officers.
They ordained the bishops over whom they exercised jurisdic
tion; they decided controversies among their episcopal sub
jects; they summoned provincial synods; they published eccle
siastical laws made by councils or by the emperors in their own
provinces, and enforced their observance; and they took charge
of sees made vacant by leath in their jurisdiction until they re
ceived new bishops. The name is derived from the seats of
these lords of bishops. The capital of a province was the resi
dence of an ecclesiastical prince. Hence he was called a metro
politan. The Council of Chalcedon has two canons appointing
those cities to be honored as the residences of metropolitans,
which enjoyed the same distinction in the civil government of
the empire, * There are a few exceptions to this rule. The
principal one was in Africa, where the senior bishop was primate
no matter where he lived. Patriarchs.
It is supposed that this order first showed itself in the churches
about A, D. 381. Socrates, speaking of the Synod of Constantinople,
held in A, D, 381, says : f " Then too patriarchs were constituted,
and the provinces distributed, so that no bishop might exercise any
jurisdiction over churches out of his own diocese : for this had been
often indiscriminately done before, on account of the persecutions,"
He then recounts the divisions of the empire into patriarchates,
and gives the names of the princely bishops.
The patriarch ordained all his metropolitans ; he summoned
them and all provincial bishops under them to councils over
which he presided ; he received appeals from metropolitans and
provincial synods ; and originally had no ecclesiastical superior.
Under God in his church empire, he was sovereign. At first
there were thirteen or fourteen patriarchs. By many changes and
efforts, in the course of time the number was reduced to five: the
patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and
Jerusalem.

• Oonc, Ohalced., can. 12 et 17. f Socrates lib. v. cap.8.

6BADES OP THE CLERGY. 227
Inferior Clergy.
In the time of Paul, the presbyter was the bishop. In two
hundred and fifty years from his day he was the assistant of the
bishop. Presbyters might preach, baptize, consecrate the Lord's
Supper, and in the bishop's absence give absolution to penitents,
after the episcopal office was elevated by men above the presby-
terial. Deacons.
In the early churches the deacon was " a minister of widows
and tables," * a levite, that is one in the lowest grade of the min
istry. According to the Council of Carthage, " a deacon was or
dained, not to the priesthood, but to an inferior service." f
The Archdeacon.
St. Jerome says : + " The deacons choose one from themselves
whom they know to be industrious, and him they call arch
deacon." It was the duty of this minister to attend the bishop
at the communion table, to assist him in connection with the reve
nues of the church, to render help in preaching, and to exercise
some supervision over the inferior ministers.
Dea/:onesses.
As a general rule the deaconess must be from forty to sixty
years of age before receiving the appointment, a widow, having
had but one husband ; or an unmarried sister. They are employed,
says Bingham, " To assist the minister at the baptising of women."§
They were also obliged to visit the poor, the sick and the martyrs.
Sub-Deacons.
This office existed in the third century ; its duties were to fit
the sacred vessels for the altar and hand them to the deacon in
time of divine service ; to attend the doors of the church during
• Mensarum et viduaram ministri. — Hieron. Ep. 85, a4 Etagr., tom. ii. p.
259. Colonise, 1616.
f DiacouuB non ad sacerdoti um, sed ad ministerium consecratur. — Oone,
Oarth. It. c. 4.
X Diaconi eligant de se, quem industrium noverint, et archidiaconun
vocent. — Ep. 85, ad Evagr., tom. ii. p. 259. Colonise, 1616.
g Bingham, book ii. chap. %2, sec. 8.

228 CHURCH OFFICERS,
the communion ; and to journey to foreign churches as the bishop s
messengers. Acolyte.
This office existed in the third century. The acolyte at his
ordination received a candlestick, with a taper in it, to instruct him
that it was his duty to light the candles of the church ; and an
empty vessel to furnish wine for the Lord's Supper, It is sup
posed that it was their duty to attend the bishop wherever he
went, and that from this service their name was obtained.
Fjxordsts.
In the first half of the third century this office was in frill
exercise in the churches. The exorcist cast out devils.
The Ledor or Reader,
This was a distinct office in the third century. It was the dutj
of the lector to read the Scriptures, not at the altar, but in the
reading-desk in the body of the church. The lector has entered
upon his duties at eight years of age, but by a decree of Justinian,
no one under eighteen was to be ordained in future.
The Ostiarii, or Doorkeepers,
The doorkeeper belonged to an order of the clergy in the third
century. He was appointed by the bishop ; and solemnly installed
by receiving the keys from him with this charge : " Behave thy
self as one that must give an account to God of the things locked
under these keys." The Psalmistce, or Singers,
This inferior order of the clergy arose about the fourth centuury.
Their office was to regulate and encourage church music,
Copiata:.
These were an order of inferior clergy, who in ancient times
took charge of funerals and provided for the proper burial of the
dead. It is understood that in many places the Jews still have
«uch an order.

CARDINALS. 229
The Parabolani.
These persons were devoted to the care of the sick, and were
reckoned by some as a part of the clergy in the early Church.
There were several other minor offices in the primitive Church.
Showing with considerable distinctness that it might lack piety,
and be shorn of usefulness, but that it was rich in the abundance
of its sacred situations.
Centuries rolled on revealing few changes among the clergy.
The principal one was the rise of
The Order of Cardinals,
The title of Cardinal was given at an early day to the seven
suffi-agan bishops of the pope in the immediate vicinity of Rome ;
to the twenty-eight presbyters or chief ministers of the Roman
parishes ; and to a certain number of deacons who had charge of
some churches and chapels of devotion. These three classes were
called cardinati or cardinals, to indicate that they were the first
in rank ; and that they had the chief direction of all ecclesiastics,
and of all church affairs in Rome, This title conferred no great
honor in the beginning, though it looked to that object from the
start ; but in a. d. 1059, Nicolas II. * restricted the right of
electing a pontiff to the seven bishops and twenty-eight priests
just named ; and Alexander III,, to quiet dissatisfaction at Rome,
enlarged the college of cardinal electors by admitting into it the
seven palatine judges, the arch-presbyters of the Lateran Church,
and those of the churches of St, Peter and St, Maria Maggoire ;
and the abbots of St. Paul and St, Lawrence without the walls ;
and the cardinal deacons or regionarii.
The pope, says Mosheim, is chosen at this day " by f six bishops
in the vicinage of Rome, fifty presbyters of Roman churches, and
fourteen overseers or deacons of Roman hospitals or deaconries."
These electors are all called cardinals. When a pontiff is to be
chosen they are looked up in a single apartment, having only one
door, which they are not allowed to leave until a successor to Peter
* Mosheim, part. ii. chap. ii. sections 6, 7.
t Mosheim, 16 cen. sec. iii. part i. chap. i. sec. 1.

230 THE COUNCIL OP TRENT AND THE CLBBG1.
is elected. Food is handed in to the members of the conclave,
through a window. One of the galleries of the Vatican, with the
requisite number of little cells to furnish one for each cardinal, is
generally the room in which the conclave is confined. The car
dinals are the princes of the papal kingdom, the counsellors of the
pope, the presidents and managers of all ecclesiastical boards in
Rome ; under the pope they are the masters of the Catholic Church,
From the cardinals the pope is elected. Though not so in name,
they are a new order of the clergy born in the eleventh centuty,
and overshadowing all the dignitaries of the Catholic Church,
except the Supreme Pontiff.
The modern Clergy of the Catholic Church.
The Council of Trent says : * " As the ministry of so holy a
priesthood is a divine arrangement, it was meet in order that it
may be exercised with greater dignity and veneration, that in the
admirable economy of the church there should be several distinct
orders of ministers, intended by their office to serve the priesthood,
and so disposed as that, beginning with the clerical tonsure, they
may ascend gradually from the lower to the higher orders. For
the Holy Scriptures make distinct mention not only of priests but
of deacons, and they teach us in impressive language the things
which have special reference to their ordination ; and from the
beginning of the Church the names and peculiar duties of the
following orders are knowm to have been in use : namely, sub-
deacons, acolytes, exorcists, readers, and- doorkeepers. Although
they are not all of equal rank ; for sub-deacons are placed among
« Quum autem divina res sit tam sancti sacerdotii ministerium, conaentaneum
fuit, quo dignius et majori cum veneratione exerceri posset, ut in ecclesise
ordinatissima dispositione plures et diversi essent miniatrorum ordines, qui
sacerdotio ex officio deaervirent, ita distributi, ut qui jam clericali tonsura in-
signiti essent per minores ad majores adscenderent Nam non solum de
sacerdotibus, sed et de diaconis aacrse literse apertam mentionem faciunt, et
quse maxime in illorum ordinatione attendenda, sunt gravissimis verbis decent,
et ab ipso ecclesise initio sequentium ordinum nomina atque uniuscujusque
eorum propria ministeria, subdiaconi scilicet, acolythi, exorcistse, lectoris et
ostiarii in usu fuisse cognoscuntur, quamvis non pari gradu ; nam subdiacon-
atus ad majores ordines a Patribus, et sacris conciliis refertur, in quibus el
de aliis inferioribus frequeutisaime legimus. — Cap. ii. de Sacr. Ord., aess
xxiii. '^onc Trid.

THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVEN IN ORDINATION. 231
the greater orders by the fiithers and holy councils, in which we
read very frequently of other inferior orders," The council heads
this chapter " Of the seven orders " that are of the ministry.
The next chapter of the decree is entitled, " Orders are a Sacra
ment." It reads,* " Since it is evident from the testimony of Scirip-
ture, from apostolic tradition, and from the unanimous consent of
the fathers, that by holy ordination, conferred by words and ex
ternal signs, grace is given, no one ought to doubt that orders
constitute one of the seven Sacraments of holy Church. For the
apostle says, ' I admonish you that you stir up the grace of God,
which is in thee by the imposition of my hands. For God hath
not given us the spirit of fear ; but of strength, and of love, and
of sobriety,' "
The Council says : f "If any one shall affirm that by sacred
ordination the Holy Spirit is not given, and, therefore, that in
vain the bishops say : Receive the Holy Spirit ; or that by it a
character is not impressed, or that he who was once a priest may
become a layman again ; let him be accursed."
It cannot be denied that in thousands of instances the Holy
Spirit has not been given in ordination. Nothing can be more
preposterous than the supposition that any character or quality of
mind or heart is given by ordination to the candidate. The act
only gives him the external authority of the Church to undertake
certain duties. The imposition of apostolical hands conferred the
Holy Spirit, No human hands bestow that Spirit now except
those pierced on the tree of Calvary.

* Quum scripturse testimonio, apostolica traditione et Patrum unanimi con
sensu perspicuum sit, per sacram ordinationem, quse verbis et signis exteriori-
bua perflcitur, gratiam conferri, dubitare nemo debet, ordinem esse vere et
proprie unum ex septem sanctse ecclesise sacramentis. Inquit enim Apostolus :
Admoneo te, ut resuscites gratiam Dei, quse est in te, per impositionem
manuum mearum. Non enim dedit nobis Deus spiritum timoris, sed virtutis,
et dilectionis et sobrietatis. — Cap. iii. de Sacr. Ord., sess. xxiii. pp. 129, 130,
Oanonea et Decreta Concilii Tridentini. Lipsise, 1863.
f Si quis dixerit, per sacram ordinationem non dari Spiritum Sanctum, ac
proinde frustra episcopos dicere : Accipe Spiritum Sanctum ; aut per eam
non Imprimi characterem ; vel eum, qui sacerdos aemel fuit, Jaicum rursus
f eri posse ; anathema ait. — Can. iv., de Sacr. Ord., aesa. xxiii

232 THE TON8UBE.
The Priests and Ministers of Rome must have the Tonsure.
The Catechism of Trent says that, * " In the tonsure the hair of
the head is cut in the form of a crown, which ought constantly to
be preserved, and as any one advances in orders, his crown ought
to be drawn more widely. The Church teaches that this practice
is received from apostolic tradition  this custom, they say,
was introduced at first by the prince of all the apostles in honor
of the crown of thorns, which was pressed upon the head of our
Saviour." The tonsure is indispensable to any ecclesiastical position. Every
minister and priest must wear it.
The tonsure was first practised by the monks in the fourth cen
tury ; from them it passed over to the ministers of the Church,
In the fifth century it was a badge of the clerical office. In
A, D. 633, the fourth Council of Toledo enjoined all the clergy to
shave the whole crown of their heads, leaving but a small tuft of
their hair, in the form of a round circle, or a crown.t
In England and Scotland, the tonsure led to bitter controver
sies between the ancient British and Pictish Christians, and the
Anglo- Saxon converts of Augustine, the Roman, and his fellow
monks. The Scottish priests permitted the hair to grow on the back of
the head, and shaved the front from ear to ear, in the form of a
crescent, which the Romanists derisively called, " The tonsure of
Simon Magus," This difficulty, and the trouble about Easter,
broke up religious intercourse between the ancient churches of
Britain and the papal Church of Augustine, and drove a number
of noble ministers out of England, in the seventh century, who
* Tondentur vero capilli ad coronse speciem et similitudinem, quam per
petuo conservare oportet, et ut quisque in altiori deinceps ordinis gradu col-
locatur, sic ejus orbis forma latior circumscribi debet ; quod quidem ex
apostolorum traditione acceptum esse, docet ecclesia  Primum
autem omnium ferunt apostolorum principem eam consuetudinem induxisse
ad memoriam coronse quse ex spinis contexta Salvatoris nostri capiti fuit
jmposita. — Quest, xiv. cap. vii. pars ii. p. 265, Oatichis. Oone. Trid
Lipsise, 1865.
t Du Pin, vol ii. p, 6. Dublin, 1724,

THE RING, CROZIER, MITRE, TIARA, AND KEYK. 233
would not yield to the pope even in trivial matters. Among
whom was the saintly Coleman, *
Indgnia of the IJpiscopal and Papal Offices.
The bishop's ring denoted the nuptial union which bound him
to his flock; and was a prominent mark of the dignity of a
prelate. The crosier or staff, usually bent at the top, like the crook of
an ancient shepherd, was an indispensable token of episcopal
authority. At the death of a bishop, in the eleventh century, his
staff and crosier were forthwith transmitted to the sovereign, the
bestowment of which by the monarch upon any clergyman, gave
him the bishopric of the deceased. This custom stirredj up the
fiercest warfare ever waged by the popes between Henry IV,,
Emperor of Germany, and Gregory VIL, Pope of Rome.
A femous pastoral staff was preserved in Ireland for many cen
turies. It was called, " The Staff of Jesus." St. Patrick was
said to have received it indirectly from Christ ; and with it, to
have driven all venomous reptiles from his adopted country.
Giraldus Cambrensis, a clergyman with the English when they
conquered a large part of Ireland in the twelfth century, describes
it, and states that his countrymen removed it from Armagh to
Dublin ; f where it remained till the Reformation, during which
it was burned.
The mitre in the West is a hat divided in two at the crown ,
each part tapering at the top to a narrow point or tongue ; it is
supposed that it was intended to represent the cloven tongues in
the likeness of which the Spirit of God rested on the apostles on
the day of Pentecost, Mitres were often made of very costly
materials; gold and precious stones lending their worth and
beauty. The mitre is known to have been in use from the ninth
century ; how much earlier it is difficult to determine.
The tiara, or papal mitre, was, originally, a tall, round hat ; but
it was encircled by one crown by Boniface VIIL, in A. d, 1295 :
•Bede's "Eccleaiaatical History," lib. iii. cap. xxvi.
t "Topography of Ireland ' ' by Giraldus Cambren sis. Distinct, iii . cap. xxxiv.

234 SACERDOTAL GARMENTS.
a second was placed around it by Benedict XIL, A, D, 1335, and
still another by John XXIII., in A. d. 1411. It is a triple
crown, literally. This is the symbol of royalty and priestly dignity
worn by the popes.
The keys are another token of the pope's dominion over heaven
and the souls of men here. " The keys " refer to the power which
Christ gave to Peter, and, as Catholics imagine, to the pope,
Peter's successor, when he is said to have given Petejr the keys of
the kingdom of heaven.
Some of the offidal Garments of the Clergy.
In the celebration of mass, the priest is clothed to represent
Christ in his suffering. The Amice represents the cloth or rag
with which the Jews muffied our Saviour's face when,- at evety
blow, they bid him prophesy who it was that struck him ; the
Alb represents the white garment with which Herod clothed him ;
the Girdle, Maniple and Stole, represent the cords and bands with
which he was bound in the different stages of his Passion ; the
Chasuble, or outer vestment, represents the purple garment with
which he was draped in mockery as a king, the cross on the back
of which represents the one which the Saviour bore on his
shoulders,* Gavin says : " The Ambito (evidently the Spanish
for Amice) is like a Holland handkerchief, and is put around the
priest's neck ; the Alba is a long surplice, with narrow sleeves,
ornamented with fine lace ; the Stole is a long list of silk, with a
cross in the middle, and one at each end ; the Maniple is a short
list of the same silk, with as many crosses, and is tied on the
priest's left arm ; the CasuUa (Chasuble ?) is a sort of dress made of
three yards of silk, thirty-six inches wide at the back, but narrower
in front," t
The Pope and Cardinals in thdr Robes of Office,
Some years ago, a spectator in St, Peter's at Rome, on a great
feast day, saw " The pope in a golden chair, carried on the shoulders

* "Garden of the Soul," p. 60.
t "Master Key," pp. 117, 118. Cine, 1833.

THE MAN OF SIN. 235
of twelve cardinals, advancing slowly up the grand nave. He was
arrayed in a large, folding robe of white satin, embroidered with
gold ; he had on his head the triple crown. Bishops and cardinals,
clothed in crimson, with attendant train-bearers, preceded and fol
lowed him. There were mitres and crucifixes, resplendent with
gems, borne along. This scene, in such a iturch, seemed to mock
even the splendid sunlight  The cardinals removed their
red caps  Cardinals, in long, red robes, with prodigious
tails, or trails, which were carried by their servants, came up and
kissed his hand, or the hem of his robe, or the cross on his slipper,
¦ bowed three times, as is said, to him, as to the Father, on his
right, as to the Son, in front, and on his left, as to the Holy
Ghost," * How loudly this description recalls the saying of St,
Paid, 2 Thess, ii, 4 (Catholic version) : " Who opposeth and is
lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped ; so
that he dtteth in the temple of God, showing himsdf as if he were
God," Or, does it not remind us of John's vision ? " And the
woman was clothed round about with purple and scarlet, and gilt
with gold, and predous stones, and pearls, having a golden cup in
her hand, fioll of the abomination and filthiness of her fornication."
Catholic version. Apocalypse xvii. 4.
• " Bchoes of Europe," p. 460. Philada,, I960,

MARRIAGE.
The most sacred of human institutions occupied an appropriate
place in the arrangements of the early Christians, It is not im
probable that marriage was, m some measure, an arrangement of
the Church ; or, at any rate, that it was entered upon after consul
tation with its officers. Tertullian says : * " How may we be able
to describe the happiness of that marriage which the Church recom
mends, and the oblation confirms, and the benediction seals; the
adgfcls report it, and the Father ratifies it ?" From this statement,
it is evident that the Church, in some way, aided in arranging
marriages, and solemnly blessed them with religious services. And
more testimony of the same description, in abundance, is scattered
over the primitive fathers.
The Council of Laodicea, A, d. 365, forbids all church members
to enter into communion with heretics, by giving their sons or
daughters in marriage to them, or receiving their sons and daughters
in marriage, t
The marriage of first cousins was prohibited by the Coimcil of
Epone, and condemned in other synods, J
The widow who married before her husband had been dead a
full year was to be regarded as one worthy of infamy,§
Justinian || first recognized the kindred of sponsors, and forbade
any man to marry a woman for whom he had been surety in bap-
* Unde sufflciamus ad ennarandam felicitatem ejus matrimonii, quod ec
clesia conciliat et confirmat oblatio et obsignat benedictio, angeli renuntiant,
Pater rato habet. — Ad. Uxor., lib. ii. cap. 9, p. 77. Lipsise, 1839.
t Cone Laodic, can. x., Du Pin, i. 613. Dublin, 1723.
X Cono. Epaunen., can. xxx., Du Pin, i. 690. Dublin, 1723.
I Cod. Theod., lib. iii. tit. 8, de Secundis Nuptiis, leg, 1.
I Cod. Just., I'b, V. tit. 4, de Nuptiis, leg. 26.
236

MARRIAGE AMONG THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. 237
tism ; the Council of Trullo prohibited the sponsor from marrying
the infant for whom he was godfather,* or its mother.
The second Council of Aries forbade penitents to marry while
they were under tlie censure of the Church.f And as this con
dition lasted, fi'equently, for yeai-s, the decision was one of great
severity. The Council of Epone prohibited marriage between a man and
liis deceased wife's sister, in A. D. 51 7, J And the Council of Neo-
C8esarea,§ iu its second canon, ordered a woman who had been the
wife of two brothers, to be excommunicated till the end of her life.
Such a union was regarded with unaccountable but intense horror
in the early churches.
Second marriages were sometimes condemned among the laity in
Ihe primitive Church, and commonly only tolerated ; but third
marriages were inexcusable, St, Basil says : || " The custom of his
church was to excommunicate, for five years, those who married
the third time ; that, in other places, they were only put under
penance for two or three years."
The ring had a place in marriage before Christ's day, and was
used among his disciples in espousals in the second century. In
the ninth century, iu betrothal, the man presented to the lady the
espousal gifts ; and among these he put a ring on her finger ; at a
convenient time afterwards, they were solemnly married in the
church, receiving from the priest the benediction and the celestial
veil ; and, on retiring from the sacred edifice, they wore crowns or
garlands upon their heads, kept in it for that purpose, Tf
When the man betrothed his future wife, the contract was con
firmed by a " solemn kiss " which he gave her. This custom was
the result of a law enacted by the Great Constantine. When it
was given, the heirs of either party, if one of them died before
marriage, received half of the espousal gifts ; when it was neglected
the donations, in case of death before the nuptial ceremony, were
restored. Probably all the gifts were seldom returned.^

* Cone. Trullo, can. liii. t Cone. Arlet. il. can. xxi.
X Cone. Epaunen., can. xxx. § Du Pin, i. p. 597. Dublin, 1728.
I Du Pin, i. p. 238. Dublin, 1723.
IT Bingham, book xxii. chap. 3, sec. 5, 6 ; chap. iv. sec. 4.

238 CANONS OP TRENT ON MARRIAGE,
In a marriage between Christians in the fourth centuiy, each tooK
the other by the right hand, " The young couple joined their
right hands together, and both their hands to the hand of God,"
and entreating his approval, the minister invoked his blessing and
pronounced them husband and wife. *
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT AND MARRIAGE.
Canon I. — "If any one shall say that marriage is not truly and
properly one of the seven sacraments of the evangelical law, but
that it was invented by men in the Church, and does not confer
grace ; let him be accursed."
Canon III. — " If any man shall say that only those degrees of
consanguinity and affinity expressed in Leviticus can hinder men
from contracting matrimony or dissolve it when contracted ; and
that the Church cannot dispense with some of these degrees, or ap
point that others may hinder or dissolve it ; let them be accursed."
Here is a modest canon ! It curses a man for denying that the
Church can change the laws of God revealed in Leviticus.
Canon X. — " If any one shall say that marriage is preferable to
virginity or celibacy, and that it is not bdter and happier to re
main in virginity or celibacy than to be bound in wedlock ; let him
be accursed." A good many, doubtless, are quite satisfied that it
is not happier or bdter to dwell in the shades and darkness of a
single life, than to rejoice in the light of wedded love ; and would
say with the Almighty : " That it is not good that the man should
be alone," even though his " Holiness " of Rome should curse
them for it.
Canon XI. — " If any one shall say that the prohibition of the
solemnization of marriage at certain seasons of the year is a tyran
nical superstition, proceeding from the superstition of the heathen,
or shall condemn the benedictions or other ceremonies which the
Church uses in it ; let him be accursed,"
Canon XII. — "If any one shall say that matrimonial causes do
not belong to ecdedastical judges ; let him be accursed."
In every part of our country the marriage laws are under the
control of secwfer judges; and we all realize that this is right, and

• Bingham, book xxV. chap. Hi. sees. 5, 6 ; chap. Iv. sec. 4

THE POOR MAY NOT MARRY FIRST COUSINS. 239
we say it on fitting occasions; for which this zealous curse truvelc
from Trent by way of Rome, o 7er the ages and the Atlantic^
and pours the vials of its execrations upon us.
The Council of Trent generally placed a decree on record, and
then followed it by canons on the same subject ; the decree oe
matrimony has ten chapters, two quotations from which we give :
" They who shall try to contract matrimony otherwise than in the
presence of the parish priest, or of some other priest by his permis
sion, or by the license of the ordinary and in the presence of two
or three witnesses (shall fail), and the holy synod renders them
utterly incapable of thus contracting it ; and decrees such contracts
void and null; as it makes them void and annuls them by the
present decree." According to this papal statute, and according to
the understanding of it in the Catholic Church, all marriages con
tracted before a magistrate or a "heretical preacher" are pro
hibited. And it has often happened that such nuptial ceremonies
have been nullified by a second marriage immediately after by a
Catholic priest. " If any one shall prasume knowingly to contract
marriage within the prohibited degrees, he shall be separated and
deprived of the hope of obtaining a dispensation," In this chap
ter provision is made for granting dispensations in some cases, but
it is firmly declared that, * "In the second degree no dispensation
shall ever be granted unless between great princes, and for a pub
lic cause." A couple of poor young cousins (the second degree)
might be tenderly attached to each other; and might have a nobler
love than ever burned in the breast of an Alexander, a Csesar,
a Charlemagne, or a Napoleon. And as the God of Christians is
no respecter of persons, as before him kings and the brethren of
Lazarus, in regard to earthly dignity and importance, are on a
perfect equality, he looks with disdain upon this aristocratic, time
serving, and unchristian toleration, which would let the king keep
his wife-cousin, but would ruthlessly tear her from the bosom of
a mere mechanic or other honest son of toil. If it is a sin to
marry a first or a second cousin, no mortal should give a dispen
sation to commit a transgression against God ; the great Ruler him-

• In secundo gradu nunquam dispensetur nisi inter magnos principea,
ob publicam causam. — Cap. v.

240 CATECHISM OP TRENT ON MARRIAGE,
self assuredly would neither gratify a sovereign of men or a prince
of fallen angels, for any cause, public or private, important or in
significant, with any such indulgence. If a license is to be conferred
on any one to marry his first cousin, confine it to no crowned
owner of a nation's womanly charms, whose love would be wel
comed in almost every cottage, mansion, and palace in his own
land, and in a dozen other states and kingdoms. Let the dispen
sation reach the sons of obscurity, whose sources of enjoyment are
so few. Denied of everything but sunlight, liberty, and grinding
toil ; if it is not a sin, let them have the light of LOVE ; which,
next to religion, is the brightest sun, whose dazzling rays have
scattered floods of hope over human hearts and homes; even
should that light come from the cherished affection of a first
cousin. The tenth chapter * of this decree prohibits marriage from the
Advent to the Epiphany, and from Ash Wednesday till the octave
of Easter, The Catechism of the Coundl of Trent on Marriage.
Quotation from question two, chapter eight, and part the
second : " It is called matrimony because the female ought chiefly
to marry that she may become a mother ; or because to a mothei
it belongs to conceive, bring forth, and educate her offspring,"
From the third question : " Those who are united in the fourth
degree of kindred, a boy before his fourteenth year and a girl be
fore her twelfth, ages which have been appointed by the laws, can
not be fit to enter upon the just engagements (of marriage),"t
The Mission Book on Marriage Preparations.
" Parents who love their children vrill never allow them (those
who are engaged) to associate freely together, out of their presence,
and least of all when they are already promised to each other.
All secret interviews, lonely walks, and every familiarity, contraty
to Christian decorum, ought to be prohibited." f

• Can. 1., Iii., z., xi., xii., de Sacr. Matr. ; and cap. i., v., x., de Reform.
Matr., sess. xxi v. Cone. Trid.
t Queat. ii. et ill., cap. viii. pars ii., Catech. Trid. Lipsise, 1865.
X Mission Book, p. 335. N. T., 1866.

IMPEDIMENTS TO JfARRIAGE, 241
" Never let it be forgotten that marriage is a sacrament, and
must be received in a state of grace . , , to avoid committing a
sacrilege, and also to deserve more fiilly the blessing of God upon
their union, tlie parties affianced ought to pmify their hearts by a
good confession, and on the very morning of their marriage re
ceive the holy communion. It is sometimes advisable to make
even a general confession, or at least a review of several years,
either to remedy the errors of a past sensual life, or in order to
enter with more thorough and perfect dispositions into a state so
new and responsible." *
Impediments to Marriage which annul it when contracted,
" Marriage is forbidden between third cousins or any nearer de
gree of kindred : and this impediment exists when the relation
ship arises from an illegitimate birth."
" It is forbidden to marry the third coudn or any nearer rela
tion of one's former husband or wife."
" Spiritual affinity is a species of relationship contracted by
means of the sacraments of baptism and confirmation. For this
reason, parents cannot marry with the sponsors of thdr child or
with any person who baptized it; nor can sponsors marry with
their god-children. So, if one baptizes the child of another, even
although it were a case of necessity, he cannot afterwards marry
either with the child or its parent."
"differences OF RELIGION MAKE A MARRIAGE NULL AND
VOID BETWEEN A BAPTIZED PERSON AND ONE WHO HAS
NEVER BEEN BAPTIZED,"
" All persons who have made solemn vows of chastity, by en-
. tering into some religious order, are incapable of contracting mar-
; riage; and so are all orders of the clergy, beginning with sub-
' deacons and upwards,"
" Marriages contracted without the presence of the parish priest
and of two witnesses, are made null and void " by the Council of
Trent, In the United States, however, where the decree of the
Council has not yet been published, those marriages, all hough sin-
fril, are valid. (" The Council has been published in St, Louis,
* Mission Book, p. 335. N. Y., 1866.
16

242 MIXED MABRIAGES PROHIBITED.
New Orleans and Detroit, In these dioceses, therefore, clandes
tine marriages are invalid," that is, without the presence of a
priest.) " It is a most wicked and detestable thing that Catholics
should ever so far forget all dictates of faith and pidy, as to be
coupled like heathen before a civil magistrate, and EVEN SOME
TIMES BEFORE A HERETIC PREACHER, IN CON
TEMPT OF THE CHURCH OF GOD AND OF THE
SANCTITY OF THIS SACRAMENT,"
" The bond of a previous marriage is an impediment which
death only can remove  For certain just causes, especially
for adultety, they may live separately, but they are still married,
and cannot marry again. If, after such a separation, or after a
divorce granted by the law of the land, either party should marry
another person, it would be no true marriage before God, but an
adultery," Prohibitory Impediments which involve Guilt in a Marriage, but do
not Annul it.
« MIXED MARRIAGES ARE FORBIDDEN, VIZ,, THE
UNION OF CATHOLICS WITH HERETICS AND PER
SONS EXCOMMUNICATED BY THE CHURCH 
When some grave reason exists, and the danger of perversion is
removed, a dispensation may be obtained which will make such a
marriage LAWFUL. No VALID dispensation, however, can
be given, unless upon dishonorable conditions."
ON WHAT TERMS A PROTESTANT MAY MAERY A CATHOLIO
WITH THE APPROBATION OF THE CHURCH.
" First, it must be mutually agreed that the Catholic husband or
wife shall enjoy a perfect liberty in the exercise of the Catholic
religion; secondly. That ALL THE CHILDREN SHALL
BE EDUCATED IN THE CATHOLIC FAITH; thirdly.
Besides this, the Catholic party must promise to seek the conver
sion of the other by prayer, a good example, and OTHER PRU
DENT MEANS, When a dispensation has been obtained upon
these conditions, the marriage may take place without sin (not,
however, without disgrace) ; but still it must not be supposed that
si-'-h UNNATURAL UNIONS are approved of by the Church.

THE CATHOLIC MARRIAGE CEREMONY, 243
She only permits them reluctantly and MOURNFULLY, She
forbids them to be celebrated within church-walls, or to receive
the solenm benediction of tlie priest." *
The ordinary form of uniting in marriage in the Catholic
Church requires the young couple to approach the altar, when
the priest, habited in a surplice and white stole, and assisted by
the clerk, who carries the book and a vessel of holy water,
meets them ; he then asks them the usual questions, and receiving
an affirmative reply, he orders them to join their right hands,
over which he throws one end of his stole, saying : " I join you
together in matrimony, in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen," He then sprinkles holy
water upon them both ; after which he blesses the nuptial ring
in these words : " Bless, 0 Lord, this ring which we bless in thy
name, that she, who wears it, may preserve entire fidelity to her hus
band, may continue in peace and in obedience to thy holy will, and
live always in the exercise of mutual charity, through Christ our
Lord. Amen." The priest sprinkles the ring with holy water in
the form of a cross, and hands it to tht bridegroom, who puts it
on the ring-finger of the bride, while the priest says : " In the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."
The married couple kneel, while a nuptial blessing is pronounced.
There is a particular mass for marriage, with an epistle and
gospel of its own. f Such is the sacrament of marriage in the
Church of Rome.
• MiBsion Book, 328-334 N. Y., 1866. fid., 836-7. N. T., 1868,

THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY.
The most cruel feature of the whole papal system is the enforced
telibacy of the priests. Heaven never gave a greater earthly boon
to an anxious toiling man, laboring with his mind, or working
with his hands, than an affectionate wife. And no man needs the
tympathies and encouragements of a faithful companion more
than the minister of Jesus. To rob him of the one whom Provi
dence fitted to make his home pleasant and his life happy and
useful, is a high-handed crime against the wronged, for which a
retributive Providence inflicts its own punishment,
A man with a loving wife and dutiful children has his sympa
thies drawn out, his affections cultivated, and his heart enlarged.
His domestic relations only give him additional fitness for general
usefiilness. The man, without some such training of the heart,
feeling that, while he has the respect of many, no one has any special
interest in him, is shut up within himself, and is naturally careless
about the joys and sorrows, of the world. The tendency of celi
bacy is to kill sympathy, to crucify love, and to bind its victims
in chains of selfishness that shall restrain every outburst of affec
tion and every generous emotion,
Christ never instituted Cdibacy.
He ordained marriage in the sinless bowers of Eden, The
first blushes of wedded love painted the cheeks of Adam's bride,
before one stain of sin polluted man, or anything he touched.
The Saviour's first miracle honored some humble wedding, and
gave his approbation in the most emphatic manner to marriage.
According to Paul, no class of men or ministers are deprived of
wedded rights. " Have we not power," he says, " to carry about a
2U

THE CLERGY MARRIED IN THE SECOND CENTURY. ij45
woman, a sister, as well a.s the rest of the apostles, and the brethren
of the Lord and Cephas ? " (Catholic vereion, 1 Cor. ix. 5.) The
word translated "power," in the original is authority ; the word
rendered "woman" means wife as well. Cephas or Peter was cer
tainly married ; and the apostle's meaning unquestionably^ is :
We have Christ's license to take a wife, who is a sister in the
Lord, as the other apostles, and the brethren of the Lord have
done; and Peter. Eusebius quotes Clement of Alexandria as
saying that " Peter and Philip had children ; and Paul did not
demur in a certain place to mention his own wife, whom he did
not take about with him, in order the better to expedite his minis
try ; and that blessed Peter, seeing his own wife led away to
execution, was delighted on account of her calling and return to
her countty (heaven)." *
In the Catholic version, 1 Tim. iii. 2, 4, Paul says: "It
behoveth a bishop to be blameless ; the husband of one wife, sober,
prudent, of good behaviour, chaste, given to hospitality, a teacher
, , . . one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in
subjection, with all chastity (gravity, atiivotrji)." If Paul is
right, a bishop ought to be a husband; and ought to rule his
house well, keeping his children orderly. In the Catholic version,
Heb. xiii. 4, Paul again says: "Marriage, honorable in all."
Then, if Paul was not mistaken, it would be respectable in a nun,
a monk, a priest, a bishop, or even a pope ; and he who contradicts
Paul tries to make the spirit of God a liar, who spoke through
him. Apostles, it is said in the Holy Book, may lead about a wife;
a bishop ought to be the husband of one wife, and marriage is
honorable in aU.
The Clergy married in the Second Century.
Turtullian, arguing against second marriages, says to a widow :
" That you may then marry in the Lord, according to the law and
the apostle, if you are still concerned for this, have you such
assurance as to demand that (second) marriage, which it is not law
ful for them to enter upon from whom you demand it, that is from
the bishop who is but once married, and from the presbyters and

Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., lib. iii. 80,

246 BEGINNING OF CELIBACY.
deacons m the same state, and from the widows whose society you
refuse?" * At this period marriage was the privilege of all the
clergy — bishops, priests and deacons; but only one union was
permitted. Cdibacy in the Third Century.
Moshiem f gives a faithful record of the laws of marriage and
of the growing conviction of the sanctity of a single life, when he
says, about the third century : " Marriage was allowed to all the
clergy from the highest rank to the lowest; yet those were
accounted more holy and excellent who lived in celibacy ; for it
was the general impression that those who lived in wedlock were
much more exposed to the assaults of eml spirits than others." Surely
women have improved since then, or common sense has. Good
men in the ministry to increase their usefulness, in view of the
prejudices becoming current among the people, often doomed
themselves to a single life. And many of the clergy, as well as a
large number of the people, caught the plague of celibacy just
beginning to affect Christians at this time. Still marriage was
common throughout the ministry.
There was in this century a great troubler of Cyprian, a presby
ter of Carthage, a man full of all wickedness, according to his
bishop. Cyprian wrote a letter about him to Cornelius, Bishop of
Rome ; and in it among other weighty charges brought against
him, he says : " He was the cause of his wife's proving abortive,
by kicking and ill-using her," J Cjrprian brings no charge against
Novatus for having a wife and living with her, but for his brutal
treatment of her. The Beginning of the Fourth Century,
Two little councils gave the stigma, by statute, to the marriage
of the clergy at this period. One of these, it is supposed, was
* Ut igitur in Deo nubas secundum legem et apostolum (si tamen vel hoc
curas) quails es, id matrimonium poatulans, quod eis, a quibus postulas, non
licet habere, ab episcopo monogamo, a presbyteris et diaconis ejusdem sacra
menti, E viduis, quarum sectam in te recusasti ? — Tertull., cap. ii. de Mono-
aamia, p. 126. Lipsise, 1839.
t Mosheim, 3d cen., partii. chap. ii. sec. 6.
t Du Pin, vol. i. 123.

CELIBACY AND THE COUNCIL OF NICE, 247
held at Elvira, in Spain, about A. d. 305 ; its numbers were small,
its intelligence, with the exception of Hosius, if he was in it, low,
and its canons worthless. The thirty-third canon of this illustri
ous body of supposed Spaniai'ds, " prescribed celibacy to priests
and deacons," and its sixty-fifth declai-es that, " If a clergyman
knows that his wife commits adultery and sends her not away, he
is unworthy of the communion of the Church even at the point of
death," * The latter canon shows that clergymen had wives at
that time.
Another insignificant, and almost unknown convention, was
called the Council of Neocsesarea, It is supposed to have been
held about A. d. 314, Its first canon says : " If a priest mar
ries, after he has been ordained, he ought to be degraded," Its
eighth canon declares that, " If a clergyman's wife commit adultery,
he ought to divorce her upon pain of being deprived of his min
istry," t It is worthy of remark that neither of these councils
ordered married bishops, priests, or other ministers to forsake
wives whom they had already wedded.
CELIBACY AND THE COUNCIL OF NICE.
This was the first regular council of the Christian Church that
ever was held ; the martyrdoms which preceded it, the heroic
sufferings of some of its members for Christ, and the presence and
patronage of the first Christian Emperor, made it the most authori
tative assembly of ecclesiastics ever held since the Saviour's
death. Into that body celibacy, frill of rottenness and death, but
sprinkled over with a delicious odor of remarkable sanctity, was
dragged ; and an effort was made to impose its useless and in&-
mous obligations upon the clergy. Paphnutius, an Egyptian
bishop, was its most eloquent enemy. In times of persecution his
right eye had been dug out with a sword, and the socket seared
with a red hot iron ; his left leg was powerless, for he had been
hamstrung by the same cruel hands ; he had been brought up in
a monastety from childhood, and as all knew, he intended for him
self a celibate life in the future ; and when the decree came up
for discussion, requiring bishops, presbyters, or deacons to give up
• Du Pin, i. 593-4. Dublin, 1723. f Id., i- B97.

248 CELIBACY AND THE COUNCIL OP NICE,
their wives whom they had married when laymen, * " The divine
Paphnutius, standing in the midst of a crowd of bishops cried
with a loud voice, saying : ' Do not make the yoke of the priest
hood grievous, for it is said marriage is honorable, and the bed
undefiled. Take heed lest by an excess of severity ye rather hurt
the Church ; for it is said all men cannot endure the denial of all
the affections. No one, I think, will be preserved in chastity
when each man is deprived of his own wife, I regard the inter
course of each one with his lawful wife as virtuous chastity ; and
that she cannot be separated whom God has joined, and whom the
man once married when a reader, a singer, or a layman.' The
great Paphnutius uttered these sentiments though ignorant of mar
riage, because from childhood he was brought up in a monastery.
Wherefore the whole assembly of the bishops, persuaded by the
counsel of the man, were silent about this question, leaving it to
the judgment of those so disposed, by mutual consent to leave
their wives." Gelasius, Bishop of Csesarea, in Palestine, from whose
" History of the Nicene Council " this is an extract, flourished
about A. D. 476, and wrote about one hundred and fifty years after
the council was held. Sozomen, who compiled his histoty, as is
commonly thought, about A. D. 443, says : "Some thought that
a law ought to be passed enacting that bishops and presbyters,
deacons and sub-deacons, should hold no intercourse with the wife
whom they had married before they entered the priesthood ; but
Paphnutius, the confessor, testified against this proposition ; he
* 'Ava^ta; iv luecji tov o:j;Xou tiov irliaxoTtav o 9eIos Ha^vovi'to;, ficydX'i^ fg
^ovfi ipoijaf, Tjyav' fi/i] j3ap'i)vetB tov fvyov tuv hpaitivav' tC/iio; yap, ^tjaiv, o
ydfioi iv Ttasi, xai sj xoiti] a[uaivtoi. fv^ tfj V7tep^oX,ij tiji axpiPitas tijv
ixxX^slav fidxxov jipoa^Tud^riti' ov yap, ^r/ei, ttavta; SvvasBai, ^ipsiv t^f drta-
6cia; t^v axtjaw. ovSeIs, uj oifiai,, ^TMX^iieetat iv ty ffM^poffvi/jj, tri( exdeto\
yafietij; toil d*8p6; atspoviievov. Bu^pos-iivtjv 6f xdxirjv xai ttjs vonifiov ya/ttt^s
ixdatov trjv avviXivaw Xtyui' ft^ firjv aTto^ciymaSat tamtrjv tjv o 9tbs ff tvSf, xai
TV aTta^ dvayvuttttji, ¦^dxtTji ^ Tuiixb^ uiv i^ydyeto. xai tavta sXsyev 6 fiiya^ Ha^-
vovtia^ a^Etpo; iav ydfiov, dta to vTjTttodsv iv doxijtTjpiOi^ avtpi^EOBai avtov.
Sio rteiaBeis o rtd; tav iytiixottav eixxoyo; toj tov drSpoj eviiPavXitj,, a^ediyiiai
Hepi tov ^Tjttifiato^ tovtov, tyj yv^fiifj xataX^'^avt^s "^^v ^ovXo^ivc^v xata tfvju^
¦paviav ajiixfoOai tiji iSlas yafistiji. — Gelas., Hist. Nicene Council, lib. ii. cap
82 Cone. ii. 246, 248. Labbe and Cossart. Paris, 1671-2.

CELIBACY AND THE COUNCIL OF NICE. 249
said that marriage was honorable and chaste, and advised the synoc
not to fi-ame a law which it would be difficult to observe, and
which might serve as an occasion of incontinence to them and
their wives. . . . The synod refrained from enacting the proposed
law, leaving the matter to the decision of individual judgnent." *
Socrates, who wrote his admirable history about the same time,
says : " When it was proposed to deliberate on this matter, Paph
nutius, having arisen in the midst of the assembly of bishops,
earnestly entreated them not to impose so heavy a yoke upon the
ministers of religion ; asserting that marriage is honorable among
all, and the nuptial bed undefiled ; so that they ought not to injure
the Church by too severe restrictions. For all men, said he, can
not bear the practice of rigid continence ; neither, perhaps, would
the chastity of each of their wives be preserved. He described
the intercourse of a man with his lawful wife as chastity 
The whole assembly of the clergy assented to the reasoning of
Paphnutius, wherefore they silenced all further debate on this
point, leaving it to those who were husbands to exercise their own
discretion in reference to their wives." f
The Catholic Du Pin writes about this transaction : " The other
story concerns Paphnutius, a bishop in Egypt, who resisted the
canon which was proposed in the Council (of Nice) for obliging
bishops, priests, and deacons to observe celibacy. This good man
said, ' Though I have lived all my life in celibacy, yet I do not
think that this yoke ought to be imposed on the clergy.' Some
question the truth of this story ; I bdieve they do it rather fen-
fear led this story might prejudice the present disdpline (papal
celibacy) than for any solid proof they have for it." X
There is no more ground for doubt about the decision of the
Council of Nice in favor of the proposition of Paphnutius than
there is for calling in question the existence of the council itself.
Stanley says, " Paphnutius has been rewarded by the gratitude of
the whole Eastern Church (Christian communities), which dill, ac
cording to the rule which he proposed, allows, and now almost en-

• Sozomen, lib. i. cap. xxiii.
\ Socrates, Eccl. Hist., lib. 1. cap. ii.
i Du Pin, vol. i. p. 600. Dublin, 1728,

250 CELIBACY IN THE FOURTH CENTURY.
joins, marriage on all its clergy before ordination, without permitting
it afterwards." *
This discussion at Nice and the decision of the Synod give a
death-blow to all the traditionary falsehoods collected and conse
crated by the Church of Rome to prove that clergymen who had
wives renounced them when they assumed the office of minister,
following the supposed example even of the apostles. The ancient
Church, before the Council of Nice, never required such a sacrifice,
and the Eastern Church never demanded it afterwards. The
apostles never set such an example, nor hinted at the propriety of
perpetrating such a folly.
While Du Pin asserts of the fourth century that, " Celibacy was
obligatory on bishops, priests, and deacons, in the West," he ad
mits that, " This law was not established in the East." f And he
might have added that the obligation was repudiated by some of
the first minds in the West, and rejected by large numbers of the
clergy. OOier Testimonies about Cdibacy in the Fourth Century.
The Council of Gangra, an unimportant ecclesiastical conven
tion, held in the latter part of the fourth century, condemned the
errors of Eustathius ; and among the heresies it denounced was his
rejection " of both the benediction and the communion of a pres
byter who continued to live with a wife, whom he may have law
fully married, before entering into holy orders." J Celibacy had
not reached the height, in the churches, which it had obtained in
the creed of Eustathius,
Socrates tells us that, § " There have been among them (the
clergy) many bishops who have had children by their lawful wives
during their episcopate,"
The council which deposed Paul of Samosata put another in his
place called Domnus, " The son of Demetrianus, of blessed memory,
who before this presided with much honor over the same church,
* "History of the Eastern Church," p. 265. New York, 1870.
t Du Pin, i. 629. Dublin, 1723.
X Socrates, Eccl. Hist., lib. ii. cap. xliii.
§ Eccl. Hist., lib. v. cap. xxii.

CELIBACY IN THE FIFTH CENTURY. 251
a man fiilly endowed with all the excellent qualities of a bishop." *
Here a bishop's son succeeds his father by the choice of a whole
council. Spyridion, Bishop of Trimithon, in Cyprus, flourished about
A. D, 324. Sozomen speaks of the wonderful works which he
wrought by divine assistance, and of his remarkable virtues, and
he says that " he was married and had children," f One of his
daughters received a deposit from a friend, and for greater security
she buried it. She died soon after, and the treasure committed
to Irene was demanded from her father ; he could not find it ; and
he was in despair. He went to his daughter's grave and obtained
the information he needed from her spirit, and he discovered the
treasure and restored it.
The Coimcil of Toledo, A, D, 400, by its first canon forbids
priests or deacons to reach higher offices in the Church than those
they already enjoy should they continue to live with their wives.
This was only a trifling penalty. Any good deacon or priest
would sacrifice promotion for a happy home. Its seventh canon
gives clergymen, whose " wives do not behave well," authority to
bind them and shut them up in their houses, and it forbids them
to eat with them tiU they had done penance ; the eighteenth de
clares that we ought not to communicate with the widow of a
bishop, J or of a priest, or of a deacon, if she marries again. It is
plain to the most unreasoning that at this time in Spain the mar
riage of all ranks of the clergy was a recognized feet.
Cdibacy in the Fifth Century.
Synesius, Bishop in Cyrene, when appointed to the episcopal
office refiised to separate from his wife. " God," said he, " and
the law, and the holy hand of Theophilus bestowed on me my
wife. I declare therefore, solemnly, and call you to witness, that
I will not be plucked from her, nor live with her in secret like an
adulterer. But I hope and pray that we may have many and
virtuous children." § Synesius was duly installed, and, highly
respected notwithstanding his wife,
• Eusebius, lib. vii. cap. xxx. \ Sozomen, lib. i. cap. xi.
X Du Pin, i. 627. DubUn, 1723.
g Milman's " History of Christianity," p. 453. N. Y., 1841.

252 CELIBACY IN THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH CENTURIES.
The Council of Carthage, held about A. D. 418, in canon
twenty-one forbids clergymen's sons to marry heretical or heathen
wives.* Surely at this time the sons of ministers were a recog
nized and somewhat numerous class in the African churches.
It was ordered by a council held in Ireland, A. D. 456, in its
sixth canon, that the wives of ecclesiastics from the doorkeeper to
the priest should never go around otherwise than veiled.f Show
ing that at this period the ministers of the infant Church of Ire
land were allowed to marry. The Sixth Century.
Celibacy in the West made some progress in this age. Yet we
have the testimony of venerable Bede that Gregoty the Great,
Pope of Rome, who died A. D. 605, was the great grandson of an
other pope. Says he : " Gregory was by nation a Roman, son of
Gordian, deducing his race from ancestors that were not only
noble, but religious. And Felix, once bishop of the same aposto
lical see, a man of great honor in Christ, and in his Church, was
his great grandfiither," J Felix was Bishop of Rome early in
the sixth century, and must have been married, notwithstanding
the matrimonial prohibitions of Pope Siricius, A. D, 385.
In the Seventh Century.
The Council of Trullo, held in the tower of the emperor's pal
ace called Trullus, in its thirteenth canon prohibits " THE SEP
ARATION OF PRESBYTERS, DEACONS, OR SUB-
DEACONS FROM THEIR WIVES, OR BINDING
THEM TO CHASTITY BEFORE THEY ARE OR
DAINED." § This council was held A. D. 692.
The forty-eighth canon of this council ordered the wives of
those who where made bishops to be put away from them into a
monastery, at a distance from their husbands.

• Du Pin, i. 638. Dublin, 1723.
f Neander, iii. 63, note. Boston, 1869.
X Bede's Eccl. Hist., lib. ii. cap. i.
§ Du Pin, ii. 24. Dublin, 1724.

GREGORY VII. AND CELIBACY. 263
Cdibacy in the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Centuries.
Tn the ninth century tho wives of priests wore openly acknow
ledged, and were known as priestesses ; and their husbands were
charged with marrying ofl" their daughters, with churches for
dowries. Later still, tliere were four married bishops in Brittany
in France; those of Quimper, Vannes, Rennes, and Nantes.
The Bishop of D61e made free with the property of the Church
to set up his daughters in wedded splendor. The priest's wife
took her place near her husband, and not far from the altar ; and
the wife of the bishop claimed precedency over a countess.
Throughout the whole of Normandy the priests married wives,
and became fathers of sons and daughters, to whom they frequently
left their churches.* And while there was a sort of conviction
that it was more pious in a clergyman not to marry, yet no one
r^arded his matrimonial relations as a crime. Among the lower
orders of the priesthood marriage was most prevalent.
Gregory VII, and Celibacy,
This pontiff, on his accession to the papal throne, found priests
in every direction, either with faithful wives or base mistresses,
surrounded by children rendering them dependent upon the
wealthy, or upon the Church to secure a comfortable settlement
for their families ; and as his ruling idea was to make the Church
queen of the rich, of the great, and of all governments, he at
once resolved to break up the fiimilies of priests ; and by this step
to make the ministers of the Church independent of the patron
age of the wealthy and powerful. He assembled a synod at
Rome, A, D, 1074, and forthwith decrees were issued ordering an
immediate separation between priests and women. These laws
were recommended by the most ferocious threatenings ; and at
first some " yielded, pretending that it was right, for the sake of
gain and vain boasting, but many added adultery to incontinence.
Moreover, few regarded continency" f that is, nearly all the clergy
were living with wives, or were the associates of immoral women.

• Michelet's " History of France," vol. 1. pp. 193-4. N. Y. 1868.
\ Matthew Paris, at a. d. 1074.

254 GREGORY VII. AND CELIBACY.
The most intense excitement spread throughout France, Ger
many, and Italy. The decree of Gregory came as if such a law
was " entirdy new and unheard of," * a wicked and unprovoked
invasion of the dearest earthly rights of innocent persons.
Frenzied indignation burst forth in tens of thousands of breasts.
Ministers of the Church felt that their wives and children were
to be driven from them by the ruthless hands of papal but
unsanctified tjTunny; they saw a fierce sword suspended over
everything dear to them on earth; they must either relinquish
their churches or dismiss their wives and children. There were
thousands of sacerdotal families, in each one of which a moral
and kind priest was the husband and father; no voice with
authority, beyond the canon of some petty council or the letter of
some intermeddling pope, to whose intrusive declarations no atten
tion was paid, had ever condemned the relations of these loving
husbands and wives, parents and children ; but the hour of wrath
had come, and these dear ones must be torn apart and scattered.
If the priest retains his living, his conscience, his cheerless home,
and the reproachfiil looks and words of his banished loved ones,
will persecute him till his dying day. If he gives up his priest
hood, and follows his companion and their children, want and
ecclesiastical curses will pursue him to the grave, or to the limits
of the earth, Gregory knew no pity ; and he was equally igno
rant of Christianity. He revelled in destroying the peace of
hosts to serve his empty and wicked ambition, as the lion rejoices
in the dying throes of its prey.
These men, in their desperation looked with contempt upon
Gregory's papal pretensions, and denounced him as guilty of
grievous erroi . They declared that he contradicted the Saviour,
who said that all men could not live continently ; and Paul, who
commands those who could not live continently to marty. They
affirmed that Gregory's decree compelled them to offer violence to
the dictates of nature, and required them to live like angels, and
that if the pope persisted in his cruel course they would abandon
their churches rather than their marriage, and then he might pro-
• Mstthew of Westminster, at a. d. 1075.

GREGORY VII. AND CELIBACY. 256
cure angels to guard their flocks as he was not satisfied with men.*
" We prefer," said they, " abandoning our bishoprics, our abbeys,
and our cures ; let him keep his benefices." f
The Archbishop of Mentz held a synod at Erfurt to persuade
his priests to give up their wives ; his efforts filled them with
anger, and they threatened to depose or kill him. Such was their
wrathful and rebellious obstinacy, that he found it convenient to
defer the obnoxious measure for a time. The enactment excited
the same hatred outside of Germany as in it ; in Lombardy, Flan
ders, England, and France. At Cambray this bitterness burned
so fiercely that a man who said that married priests should not
celebrate mass or perform any divine office, and that no man
ought to aid them in such duties, was cast into the flames and
consumed. {
But Gregory had unlimited resources in his own vast mind ', he
had an iron will ; he occupied a position invested, in that age,
with enormous powers. He had undoubtedly made his calcula
tions beforehand, and he kept by his purpose with the tenacity and
unchangeableness of a demon.
He placed the lewd monk and licentious priest, and these were
a most numerous and odious class, with the married vicar ; he
denounced the marriage of a priest as illegal and unchaste from
the beginning ; and he spoke of it as a pretended marriage ; and
then he appealed to all moral people in Europe who hated clerical
debauchery, to assist him in cleansing the polluted Church.
The enemies of vice everywhere assisted Gregory in his com
bined work, a labor at once eminently holy and atrociously
wicked. He wrote letters to all princes and bishops, warmly appealing to
them for aid in the removal of adulteries from the Church. A
labor which even the abandoned could scarcely discourage, for all
felt that ecclesiastics and churches should be holy.
Then Gregory gave the laity authority to bum § the tithes due
to married priests, which, of course were paid in products of tha
* Du Pin, vol. ii. p. 212. Dublin, 1724.
t Michelet's "Hist, of France," vol. i. p. 195. N. Y., 1869.
X Du Pin, vol. ii. p. 213, Dublin, 1724.
§ Mstthew of Westminster, at A. d, 1075.

256 GREGORY Vn, AND CELIBACY,
soil. And as clergymen in that age, married and single, were far
fi'om popular; and as laymen were quite as selfish then as at
present ; and as they were perfectly competent to say that they
had burned a quantity of tithes which were at home in their gar
ners, the flock of every married priest were peculiarly interested
in plundering and destroying him.
Besides Gregory commanded the laity not to hear mass from
married priests. And as religion in those days was a list of sense
less ceremonies which the people despised, they took advantage of
Gregory's hatred to the wedded priests, to show their contempt for
religion generally. They polluted the sacraments, and held dis
cussions about them ; they baptized children, using the wax of the
ears instead of holy chrism ; they trampled upon the " body of the
Lord consecrated by married priests, and poured out his blood "
upon the ground, * Gregory nearly raised a general rebellion
against the Christian religion in some regions. The people were
Gregory's principal instruments in destroying clerical matrimony.
By contempt for their services, by keeping back their tithes, by
the severest cruelties the priests were compelled to send away their
wives. But it was nearly a century before this iniquity suc-
ceeded,t a crime of which the the old monk, Matthew of West
minster, properly says : " Some priests who had taken wives
Hildebrand removed from their holy office, by A NEW EXAM
PLE, and as it seemed to many, an inconsiderate pr^udice, in con
tradiction to the opinions of the andent fathers." J Gregory's efforts
were in the highest degree flattering. He triumphed over broken
hearted fathers, weeping mothers, and homeless children ; he
gained a victory over purity and morality ; for truly did these
priests tell him that by his compulsory celibacy he was " opening
a wide doerr for all impurity of manners." §
Thus Gregory, for the first time in the Catholic Church, gave
general force to crotchets about celibacy held by some for ages ;
and the character of a Church law to one of the most infamous and
dpmoralizing customs that ever polluted human minds, withered

* Matthew Paris, at a. d. 1074.
t Kohlrausch's " Hist, of Germany," p, 147. N. Y., 1870. J At A. U. l075.
S Neander. iv. 95. Boston, 1869.

CELIBACY IN THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. 267
the hearts of men, or sowed the seeds of immorality in earthly
families. Cdibacy in the Council of Treiil.
But though the pontiff was successful, somehow marriage had
charms for priests as well as other men ; and in the discussions of
the Council of Trent we find wedlock among priests in full blast
in Bavaria, with many apologists in high positions.
The embassador of Bavaria made a lengthy and able speech in
the council, in denunciation of clerical celibacy ; and good Catholic
though he was,* he uttered the most sweeping charges against the
morality of the clergy. He represents the ungodly lives of the
priests as sending whole parishes into heresy ; he declares the clergy
infamous for sensuality ; he asserts that not more than three or four
in a hundred lived without a female companion, between whom
and themselves there was occasionally the bond of a secret or an
open marriage ; and he affirms that the Catholics of Germany prefer
a chaste marriage to an immoral single life. He then demanded
the marriage of the priests, without which, he said, it was impos
sible in that age to reform the clergy. In his discourse he alleged
that single life was not commanded by God.f The same view of
clerical celibacy was taken by the Emperor Ferdinand, and
Charles IX, of France. And among the clergy of the greatest
prominence, the { Archbishop of Prague, and the Bishop of Five
Churches, defended the marriage of the priests. The German
clergy presented a very able paper to the council, stating that the
Scriptures permit wives to priests; that some of the apostles were
married ; and that Christ hinted at no separation after he called
them ; that in the primitive churches in the East and West mar
riages were free until the time of Pope Calistus ; that single life
is more to be desired in the clergy, but the frailty of human nature
should be considered ; that if ever there were cause to permit
matrimony to the clergy, it was in that age, that among § fifty
priests there was scarcely one who was not notoriously immoral ;
that laymen were disgusted by the beastly behavior of the clergy,
and that patrons of churches bestow their benefices upon mar-
• Sarpi's "History of the Council of Trent," p. 527. London, 1629.
t Id., p. 705. X Id., p. 747. § Id , p. 742.
17

268 CELIBACY IN THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.
ried men alone. It farther declared that it seemed a great absurdity
not to admit married priests and to tolerate unchaste ones, and if
these two classes were removed the churches would be without min
isters. Stronger arguments were never used by the most eloquent
Protestants against this impious tyranny of Rome than were pre
sented repeatedly in the Council of Trent.
But the advocates of priestly celibacy were skilfiil, and fully
conscious of the vast advantages the system gave the pontiffs, not
withstanding its immoral tendencies, they said, with Cardinal
Rodolpho Pio di Carpi, * " That priests having house, wife, and
children, will not depend on the pope, but their prince, and their
love for their children will cast the Church in the shade ; that the
authority of the Apostolic See will be confined to Rome, Before
single life was instituted, the See of Rome received no profit from
other nations and cities. Now the see is the patron of many
benefices of which the marriage of priests would deprive it." Celi
bacy was defended in the council by arguments drawn from cus
tom ; from the inability of the popes to release a priest from the
vow of chastity ; from extravagant assertions that no church ever
allowed priests to marry ; and from the falsehood that celibacy was
an apostolical tradition. Iniquity triumphed ; and impurity, under
the name of celibacy, was more firmly established than ever.
The Needless Cruelty of Cdibacy.
It is well known that the Greek clergy are married, and always
have been. Stanley says : " It is a startling sight to the traveller,
after long wanderings in the south of Europe, to find himself in
the mountains of Greece or Asia Minor, once more under the
roof of a married pastor, and to see the table of the parish priest
furnished, as it might be in Protestant England or Switzerland,
by the hands of an acknowledged wife. The bishops, indeed,
beuig selected from the monasteries, are single. But the parochial
clergy, that is the whole body of the clergy as such, though they
cannot marry after their ordination, must be always married before
they enter on their office." f
* Sarpi, p. 742.
t " History ei' the Eastern Church," p. 130. N. Y., 1870.

THE MARONITES. 269
The Council of Florence, which adjourned A. d. 1442, had as a
part of its business a proposal to unite the Greek and Latin
Churches. The Greek Emperor was present, and a number of his
prelates. The points of difference were amply discussed, and a
basis of union accepted. But in that proposed union there is not
one word about the celibacy of the Greek clergy. In the pro
jected changes there was nothing to touch their wives, or stigma
tize their matrimonial relations, * And if Greek priests could
enter the Catholic Church, and fill the same positions without
separation from their wives, why compel German priests to drive
away their wives ? The Maronites.
This people occupy the mountains of Lebanon and Anti-Leba
non ; they have been united to the Pope of Rome, rather than to
his Church, since the Latins invaded Palestine, They joined the
pontiff on condition that they should change none of their ancient
rites, customs and opinions. And at this day there is hardly any
thing Latin among them, except their veneration for the pope.
But at Rome they are good CathoKcs, and have been held as
among the most &ithful adherents of Romanism for centuries.
And yet all their CLERGY ARE MARRIED, f In thinking
of the Maronite married priests, let us look at the ninth canon of
the twenty-fourth session of the Council of Trent :
"If any man shall say that clergymen appointed in holy
orders, or regulars who have solemnly professed chastity, can
contract marriage, and that the contract is valid, no matter what
vow or ecclesiastical law opposes, and that the opposite is no other
thing than the condemnation of matrimony ; and that all could
marry, who do not realize that they have the gift of chastity,
although they may have vowed to lead a single life; let him be
accursed ; since God does not deny that gift to those seeking it,
nor suffer that we should be tempted beyond that which we are
able (to bear), "t
• Du Pin, vol. iii. p. 85. Dublin, 1724.
t Percival, "On the Roman Schism ;" Introduction, p. 83. London, 1886.
t Canones et Decreta Cone. Trid p. IfJ. Lipsise, 1868.

260 THE MARONITES.
Here a curse is pronounced upon all who say that priests or
monks can contract matrimony, and yet the Church of Rome
says to her own Maronite priests, you can contract marriage, and
while I curse all other priests, I will bless you. Surely this is
the height of inconsistency, and of cruelty. The celibacy of the
clergy is no divine dodrine in the view of the Papal Church ; she
could take thousands of Greek priests without it and commit no
sin : she can keep all the married Maronite priests without sem
blance of iniquity ; celibacy, then, with her, is really, as Du Pin
says, " A matter purely of disdpline, which may change according
to the times," * which has sprung up from the married ministty
of the early churches slowly, until, in the eleventh century,
Gregory VIL gave marriage a fatal wound among the clergy,
and the Council of Trent completed his work. But as celibacy is
a mere matter of discipline, it is a piece of needless and atrocious
cruelty to separate priests and their wives, or to prohibit a unicn
for which God has made preparation in all hearts.
* Du Pin, i. p. 601. Dublin, 1723.

CATHOLIC JUSTIFICATION.
The Council of Trent says : " If any man shall declare that
men are justified without the righteousness of Christ, through
which he has obtained merit for us, or that through that righteous
ness itsdf they are formally justified ; let him be accursed." * " If
any man shall say that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence
in the dimne mercy, forgimng dns for Christus sake; or that this conr-
fidence is the mily thing by which we are justified ; let him be ao-
cursed." f
The Council of Trent boastfully declared that it was " Law
fully assembled in the Holy Spirit," at the beginning of evety
important decree ; meaning that its decisions were all prompted by
him who moved holy men of old to write the Scriptures. Ex
amine these two canons in the light of the Spirit's revelations.
The first curses those who say that men are formally justified
through Christus righteousness ; the second curses those who say
that confidence in the divine mercy forgiving sins for Christ's sake
is the only thing by which we are justified, Paul comes under
this curse, for he says (Catholic version, Rom. iii. 28) : " For we
account a man to be justified by faith without the works of the law."
And if inspired Paul arrived at such a conclusion, we may safely
sit down beside him and let the Council of Trent, lawfully assem
bled in the Holy Spirit, curse him and us.

* Bi quis dixerit, homines aine Christi justitia, per quam nobis meruit, jua-
tiflcari, aut per eam ipsam formaliter justos esse ; anathema sit. — Can. x. d«
Justifleat, sess. vi. Oonc Trid., p. 36, Canones et Decreta Oonc. Trid. Lipsise,
1863. t Si quis dixerit, fidem justiflcantem nihil aliud esse, quam flduciam di
vinse misericordise peccata remittentis propter Christum, vel eam flduciam
solam esse, qua justificamur ; anathema ait. — id., can. xii. 261

262 CATHOLIC JUSTIFICATION.
" O how unlike the complex works of man,
Heaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan.
No meretricious graces to beguile,
No clustering ornaments to clog the pile :
From ostentation, as from weakness free,
It stands like the caerulean arch we see,
Majestic in its own simplicity.
Inscribed upon its portals from afar,
Conspicuous as the brightness of a star,
Legible only in the light they give.
Stand the soul quickening words, BELIEVE AND LIVE." COWPEB.
The decree on justification has sixteen chapters and thirty- three
canons ; it is very elaborate, and contains some truth and much
pernicious error. Take it altogether, it is one of the most self-con
tradictory, gospel-denying, and detestable efforts which one could
well imagine.

PURGATORY.
By purgatoty is understood the place where the souls of good
men are purified by fire after death. In the vety early Church,
Christians had no conception of any such place ; they knew noth
ing of any human abode where men could be cleansed from impu
rities but this world, Whately well observes : " Long after the
time of the sacred writers, a groundless notion gradually crept into
the Church in days of ignorant superstition, concerning an inter
mediate state of purification of souls by suffering, from which they
might be delivered by the prayers of survivors," *
At an early day it became customaty to pray for the dead ; this
practice was common at the end of the second, and throughout all
subsequent centuries till the Reformation, But these prayers
never hint that the departed are in a place of purification by
suffering. They were offered up for all the Church triumphant,
including the Virgin Maty ; they were often thanksgivings for
their deliverance out of the sorrows of this life ; they were appeals
to God for his mercy on account of the imperfections with which
they left the world ; they used these prayers as an expression of
their conviction that the departed were in the enjoyment of an endless
life ; they were presented to God that he might have a special care
over the faithful disembodied, and give them a glorious resurrec
tion in the appointed time. Most of the early Christians believed
that martyrs alone entered heaven immediately after death ; that
the rest of the saints were in another place of " refreshment and
joy," where they anticipated more perfect bliss. And their
prayers, doubtless, sought rich blessings upon them in this inter
mediate state. The conviction was common that there would be
two resurrections, at different periods, and saints on earth plead
• Archbp. Whately's " Future State," p. 48. Philada., 1860 263

264 COMFORTS OF PURGATORY,
for those in the spirit land, that they might enjoy the better resur
rection, and reign with Christ a thousand years ; and for these and
other reasons, prayers were regularly offered for all the believing
dead, without the faintest idea that one of them was unhappy or
In any process of purification by pain,* While the idea of purifi
cation by fire was invented somewhat earlier than the sixth centuty,
it was in that age, and from the Great Gregory f of Rome, that it
was started in life, and sent forth on a career of growth and con
quest, never to terminate until its terrors should cover Europe
with magnificent churches, and tenant them with myriads of priests
whose most profitable occupation should be to lift souls out of the
fiery horrors of purgatoty. Purgatory in Italy is fitly called, " the
priest's kitchen," J because it provides his living.
The Regions occupied by the Departed.
Beside heaven and hell, in the dark ages, purgatoty was located;
it was placed next to the abyss ; the limbus infantum, or home of
unbaptized children was near by ; and not far off was the limbus
patrum, the abode of the saints who lived before Christ : this w as
the scene visited by Jesus, when he preached to the spirits in
prison. § From early times it was called " Abraham's bosom "
and Paradise, The Comforts of Purgatory.
Venerable Bede tells about a man in Northumberland, A, D
696, who died, and in a short time became alive again, and wht
gave an account of what he saw when he was out of the body.
" He that led me," says he, " had a shining countenance and a
white garment; he brought me to a vale full of dreadful flames on
the left ; the side horrid for violent hail and cold snow; both places
were full of men's souls, which seemed to be tossed by an angry
storm from one side to the other ; for when the wretches could nc
longer endure the violent heat, they leaped into the chilling cold,
and finding no rest there they bounded back again into the un-
• Bingham, book xv. chap. iii. sec. 16.
f Hagenbach's "History of Doctrines," vol. ii. p. 126. New York, 1869.
X "Novelties of Romanism," by Collet, p. 96. London.
§ Hagenbach's " History of Doctrines," vol. ii. p. 130,

COMFORTS OP PURGATORY. 266
quen(;hable flames. It became densely dark, and my leader for
sook me, and I observed frequent globes of black flames rising out
of a great pit and falling back into it ; and the flames as they
ascended were full of human souls, like sparks flying up with
smoke, which dropped down into the depths below when the vapor
of the fire ceased,
" On a sudden I heard the noise of hideous lamentation, aud the
loud laughter of a rude multitude insulting captured enemies; it
was a gang of evil spirits dragging the howling and lamenting
souls of men, whilst they themselves were laughing and rejoicing.
They went down into the midst of the pit of fire until I could no
longer distinguish between the lamentation of the men and the
laughter of the devils. Some of the dark spirits ascended from the
flaming abyss, and beset me on all sides with their glaring eyes,
and the stench of the fire which proceeded from their mouths and
nostrils. They threatened to seize me with burning tongs, when
my guide appeared and put them to flight, and took me into a
scene of great light and happiness." He then explained to him
that the vale so dreadful for consuming flames and cutting cold is
the place where they are tried who delay to confess and amend
their crimes, and repent only at the point of death, but because
there was a change at death they shall be received into heaven at
the day of judgment. But many are relieved before the day of
judgment by the prayers, alms and fasting of the living, and more
especially by masses. Such was the purgatoty of the English in
A. D, 696.*
Charles, Monarch of the Roman Empire and King of the
Franks, has a mew of Purgatory.
On the night of a Lord's day, in the year 885 A, D., this sove
reign was taken away in the spirit to deep and fiery valleys, full of
pits burning with pitch, sulphur, lead, wax, and tallow. There
he found his father's bishops in torments, who soothingly informed
him that he and his bishops were coming to the same place. Some
of the blackest devils with fiety hooks tried to seize him and cast
him into the pits, but the guide protected him. He passed hot

• Bede's Eccl. Hist, lib. v. cap. 13.

266 A MONK SEES PURGATORY.
streams and marshes, and all kinds of boiling metals, in which
were innumerable souls of the people and nobles of his fiither,
some of them immersed to the hair, some to the chin, and some
to the waist in these boiling streams and metals.
He beholds two casks, one with boiling and the other with tepid
water, and his father in the hot water ; but he was informed that
evety alternate day, through the prayers of St. Peter and St. Re-
migius, his father was put in the pleasant water. He farther re
ceived the assurance that two casks well supplied with hot water
were waiting for him unless he did penance. He then heard the
tidings from his uncle Lothaire, whom he saw surrounded with
happiness and splendor, that his father would soon be delivered
from pain as Lothaire and others had been. Such was the purga
toty of the ninth century. *
A Monk sees Purgatory.
In A, D, 1196 a monk of the convent of Evesham had a vision
of purgatory. In it he beheld some leap suddenly forth from
their place of torture and fly away as far as possible ; then he saw
them, dreadfully burned as they were, assailed by the tormentors
with forks, torches, and every instrument of torture, and driven
back to their punishments. Though burned, pierced to the en
trails by lashes, and shockingly mangled, they were subjected to
more tolerable pains. He saw some roasted before a fire ; others
were fried on pans ; red hot nails were driven to the bone into
some ; others were tortured with a horrid stench in baths of pitch
and sulphur, mixed with melted lead, brass and other metals ; im
mense worms with poisonous teeth gnawed some ; others were
transfixed on stakes with fiery thorns ; the torturers tore them
with their nails, flogged them with scourges, and lacerated them
with dreadful agonies. The monk declares that if he had seen a
man in that place, who had slain all his relatives and friends, he
would suffer any earthly death a thousand times to rescue even
such a wretch from pains so dreadful.
He saw others plunged in fire at one time, and cast at another
into a place fearfully cold ; devoured by volumes of flames, and
* Matt. Paris, at a. d. 885.

PUNISHMENTS IN PURGATORY. 267
rising up like sparks in the air, they fell among the whu lings
of the tempest, the cold of the snow and the beatings of the
hail. He saw others jammed together like olives in a press
in the midst of the flames incessantly, A goldsmith of his ac
quaintance, who was occasionally dishonest on earth, told the
monk that now he was frequently thrown on a heap of fiery coins
and fi'ightfully scorched ; that often, with gaping mouth, he was
compelled to swallow them and be burned in his stomach ; and
that he was frequently obliged to count them and have his fingers
consumed,
: Another pimishment came from a multitude of worms covering
a given space, as the courtyards of houses were covered with
rushes ; and these were deformed and of monstrous size, with a
dreadftil gaping of the jaws ; they sent out fire from their nos
trils, and lacerated the crowds of wretches with a voracity not to
be shunned ; the devils seized the men and cut them in pieces
with their fiety prongs, tore all the flesh from their bones, threw
them into the fire and melted them as if they had been metals, and
then restored them for fresh torture,* Such was the horrible
abode of which the priests were complete masters, and through
which for many centuries the clergy became lords of the wealth
and consciences of most Europeans,
Of the tenth century Mosheim says : " The fire which burns
Dut the stains remaining on souls after death, was an object of in
tense dread to all, nay, was more feared than the pimishment of
hdl,  The priests perceiving this dread to conduce much to
¦^beir advantage, endeavoured by their discourses, aud by tales and
fictitious miracles, continually, to raise it higher and higher," f
Elaborate and cunning fables devised by men of considerable im-
j^ination and intellect were these old visions of purgatory. And
some of the leading features of these stories owe their orighi to
Mohammed ; the description of the intense heat and shocking
cold of purgatoty is the account he gives of his hell. And the
purgatorial inspection which paints a bridge, crossing the pit of
purifying fires, as excessively narrow, is evidently borrowed from
* Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1196.
\ Moshe'm'B Eccl. Hist., Tenth Cent., part ii. chap. iii. aec. 1.

THE GREEK PURGATORY,
Monammed's bridge, spanning the centre of hell, by which th«s
righteous reach heaven, which is as narrow as the edge of a
sword.* The inventors of purgatoty look well enriching Roma
nism from the treasures of the false prophet !
The Greek Purgatory,
In the Council of Florence, when the points of divergence and
of concord were presented by the Latin bishops and the represen
tatives of the Greek Church, Mark, of Ephesus, stated that, " The
Greeks believed that the souls of (saved) sinners went to a place
of darkness and sadness, where they were for some time in afflic
tion, and deprived of the light of God ; but that they were purified
and delivered from this place of affliction by sacrifices and alms." f
While these agencies aid in the Romish Church, the help they give
is in hastening the release of the soul from the torments of purga
tory ; they do nothing to assist in its purification. It is FIRE
THAT PURIFIES, In the Greek purgatory there is no fire,
and men are cleansed by sacrifices and alms.
Purgatory in tlie Council of Trent.
The synod says : " Since the Catholic Church, instructed by the
sacred Spirit from the holy Scriptures and the ancient tradition of
the fathers, has taught in holy councils, and very recently in this
general synod, that there is a purgatory, and that the souls
confined there receive assistance from the suffrages of the faith
ful, but chiefly from the acceptable sacrifice of the altar, the
holy synod commands the bishops that the sound doctrine
about purgatory, handed down by the holy fathers and sacred
councils, be believed, held, taught, and everywhere proclaimed by
the faithful in Christ  Moreover, let the bishops be care
ful that the suffrages of the faithful who are living — that is to say,
masses, prayers, alms deeds, and other works of piety which it is
customary for the faithful to perform for the faithful departed — be
piously and devoutly rendered, according to the appointments of
the Church ; and that the things which are due in respect to them
be discharged not negligently but diligently and accurately, either
* Sale's Koran, Prelim. Disc, pp. 65-6. Philada., 1868.
f Du Pin, iii. p. 29. Dublin, 1723.

butler's catechism on PURGATORY. 269
the things belonging to the foundations of testators or from any
other source, by the priests and ministers of the Church, and others
who are held to render this service." *
Butler's Catechism.
This popular work gives these questions and answers on purgatoty :
" Q. What is purgatory ?
" A. A place of punishment in the other life where some souls
suffer for a time before they can go to heaven.
" Q. Do any others go to purgatory besides those who die in
menial sin ?
"A. Yes; all who die indebted to God's justice, on account of
mortal sin.
" Q, When God forgives mortal sin, as to the guilt of it and the
eternal punishment it deserved, does he require temporary punish
ments to be suffered for it ?
" A, Yes, vety often, for our correction — to deter us from re
lapsing into sin, and that we should make some atonement to his
offended justice and goodness,
" Q, Can the souls in purgatory be relieved by our prayers and
other good works ?
" A, Yes ; being children of God and still members of the
Church, they share in the communion of the saints, and the Scrip
ture says: ' It is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the
dead, that they may be loosed from thdr dns ; ' 2 Mace. xii. 46," f
The Scripture just quoted is a mere human writing, not God's
word; and not only without authority, but it is a wicked falsehood,
Purgatoty rests on no Scripture worthy of notice. And yet
purgatoty has been one of the chief builders of that mighty pyra
mid of folly and heresy — the Church of Rome,
The dying thief entered paradise the day of his death ; when
Paul was absent from the body he was present with the Lord ; the
Scriptures know only two places for departed souls : heaven and
hell, the scene of happiness, and the world of woe. Any other
state or locality for departed souls is destitute of EXISTENCE,

* Canones et Decreta Cone. Trid., sess. xxv.. Deer. Purgator., p. 178
Lipsise, 1863.
' Butler's Catechism, pp. 87, 28. Philada.

INDULGENCES.
In the primitive Church transgressors were condemned co long
penances ; they had to appear either in front of the house of God,
or in a part of it specially appropriated to the fallen, for two, five,
and ten years, begging the forgiveness of the Church, and solicit
ing restoration to her communion. This situation inflicted the
greatest disgrace, and continued the most grievous distress of mind.
The ecclesiastical laws which governed religious delinquents were
marked by singular severity. But wiser and kinder counsels crept
in, and penitents, who showed undoubted sorrow, were relieved of
their penance earlier than old usage demanded. This abridg
ment of the long sentence of penance was called an INDUL
GENCE, and really was the commencement of that system which
reached its scandalous maturity under Leo X., and in the preach
ing of the immortal Tetzel, In that age no Christian knew any
thing of purgatory, or of the treasuty of merits acquired by the
saints, and dispensed by the pope ; or even of a supreme bishop at
Rome, with authority over all the churches and clergy elsewhere.
Pope Vigilius, writing to a bishop about certain penitents, said,*
that it was left to his judgment, and that of the other bishops
throughout their dioceses, if they approve the quality and devo
tion of a penitent, to grant him the benefit of an INDUL
GENCE : that is, to remove him from the prostrators before
the end of the time appointed in his sentence.
It would seem that among the Arians, as early as the fifth cen
tury, their presbyters were accustomed to recommend fines for

• In sestimatione fratemitatia tuae, aliorumque pontiflcum per suas dioeceaea,
re.inquatur, ut ai qualitaa et poenitentis devotio fuerit approbata indulgenties
quoque remedio aityicm*.— Vigil. Ep. ii., ad Eleutherium, cap. iii,
270

indulgences denounced in ENGLAND AND FRANCE, 271
penances ; and instead of seeking from transgressors such tears an
procured pardon for Peter, they were only anxious to levy a tax
upon the delinquent, *
In England this practice, with some additions and variations,
was very common. The money was not given directly for an
indulgence, but it was bestowed upon the poor as an atonement
for iniquity; and along with it psalms were repeated, and forms
of prayer ; and a number of days was devoted to fasting personally,
or by a hired deputy, with a view to secure remission without any
protracted penance. In A. d, 747, a council of bishops was held
at Cloveshove in England; and a wealthy man applied to this
synod for the pardon of a heavy crime, on the ground that he had
given so much alms, and secured so many to sing psalms and faiit
for him, that he had ample compensation for the sins of a hundred
years, if his life should be continued that long. The council de
cided that alms were not to be given as a license to commit sin ; that
they could relieve no transgressor from his appropriate ecclesias
tical penance, and that the singing of psalms was without meatt-
ing except as the expression of the heart.
The same custom obtained in France, and had to be denounced
by the provincial council of that country, meeting at Chalons, A, d.
813, This synod condemned the folly of those who expected to
secure freedom from Church penances by charitable contribu
tions, t
At first indulgences were limited exclusively to church penan
ces, but in process of time they embraced all the temporary punish
ments due the soul on earth and in purgatory, Christ, it was said,
had endured and removed the dernal penalties of sin ; but the
sufferings, short of everlasting continuance, must be borne in purga
tory or be removed by an indulgence.
The earthly sufferings could be endured by deputy. Any
amount of fasting, flagellation, or pilgrimage work couJd be dis
charged by substitute, and throngs of monks in times of papal
darkness were competitors for the repulsive service, J

• Neander, iii. p. 137. Boaton, 1869. f W., p. 18t »,
X Moaheim, p. 564, note. London, 1848.

272 the foundation of indulgences.
Works of Supererogation.
When a hired man performs his allotted task for the day, he
deserves additional reward or credit for any farther services he
may render. Such labors are beyond what his agreement demands;
they are works of supererogation. So when a Christian leading
a blameless life is persecuted, and killed ; as his sins did not draw
down his sufferings, these pains, it was argued, were meritorious,
they were higher than the measure of the man's deserts : these
were the works of supererogation. It was supposed that millions
of saints in heaven had left a legacy of such merits to the Church,
and that in it she had a treasury of good deeds of immense value,
incapable of exhaustion, no matter how many drafts, through in
dulgences, the Holy Mother might make upon it. Then some
times it was said that one drop of the Saviour's blood was sufflcient
for the sins of the whole world, and that all the rest went into
this treasury, which the Church might give to souls in purgatory,
or rich men on earth who had money to buy it ; or men not so
wealthy who had some means. This was the PAID-UP CAPI
TAL OF THE BANK OF INDULGENCES,
It is commonly agreed that Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth
century, was the inventor of this doctrine. His description of it,
from his distinguished position in the Catholic Church, and from
his remarkable talents, must be interesting : * " Moreover the unity
of the mystical body is the reason why they prevail, in which
many, in works of penitence, render more than their debts, and
many bear patiently unjust tribulations also, through which a mul
titude of punishments may be expiated, if such were owed ; of
whose merits the supply is so great that it exceeds every penalty
incurred by those now living, and especially on account of the
merit of Christ  Thus the aforesaid merits are the common
* Ratio autem, quare valere poasint, est unitas corporis mystici, in qua
mnlti in operibua poenitentise aupererogaverunt ad mensuram debitorum
BUorum, et multi etiam tribulationes injustas sustinuerunt patienter, per quas
multitude poenarum poterat expiari, si eis deberetur ; quorum meritorum tanta
est copia quod omnem poenam debitam nunc viventibus excedunt ; et praj-
cipue propter meritum Christi . . . Sic prsedicta merita communia sunt to
tius ecclesise.— ill., in Suppl. 25, a. 1 ; quoted Hagenbach, ii. 70.

CLEMENT VI. AND JOHN XXIII. OFFER INDULGENCES. 273
possession of the whole Church." Such was the grand foundation
of the system of indulgences : first and chiefly the meritorious
sufferings of the saints, in bearing more than was demanded by
justice from them, and secondly, the merits of Christ beyond those
which were needed to save from the dernal punishment.
In A, D, 1343, Clement VI. issued a bull beginning with the
words Unigenitus Dei filius, in which he proclaimed a jubilee, which
was to commence in 1350 ; and which was to be celebrated evety
fiftieth year. In this constitution the merits of-all the elect, and of
the Virgin Mary, are said to fill up a vast treasure, which i?
increased by the merits of Christ not needed to remove the dernal
punishment of sin,* This wonderful aggregate of soul-riches Jesus
gave to the popes for distribution, a liberal disbursement of which
is promised in the coming jubilee.
In A. D. 1411, John XXIII. issued a bull against Ladislaus,
King of Naples, in Avhich after pronouncing the most hideous
curses upon the king, living and dead, he proclaimed a crusade
against him, offering the same indulgence to those who enlisted to
fight him, as was given to the armed pilgrims who assumed the
cross, and went to fight the infidels in Palestine. He promised
heaven as the immediate reward of all who died fighting for Christ
and his Church, with, of course, the full pardon of all their sins."}
This bull offered the same indulgence to those who contributed
money equal to the sum they would have expended in one month's
campaigning. John Huss denounced the bull, and especially the indulgence
portion of it, and was led by it to a thorough examination of
priestly or papal powers to pardon sin, and to a complete rejection
of all created authority to absolve iniquity committed against God,
He expatiated with honest indignation against the indulgence mer-
; chants, and especially against the language which they used in con-
ducting their trafflc, of which the following is a specimen : " By
the apostolical power entrusted to me, I absolve thee from all the
sins which to God and me thou hast truly confessed ; if thou art
not able personally to take part in this enterprise, but if thou wilt
* Elliott's " Delineation of Romanism," p. 309. London, 1851.
t Boww's " History of the Popes," vol. iii. p. 174. Philada., 1846.
18

274 THE INDULGENCE MERCHANT OP WITTEMBURG.
furnish help according to thy ability, I bestow on thee the most
perfect forgiveness of all thy sins, both from the guilt and punish
ment of them, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,"
Said Huss: "Through indulgences, the foolish man of wealth is
betrayed into a false hope ; the law of God is set at nought ; the
rude people give themselves up more freely to sin; grievous iniqui
ties are lightly thought of, and men are robbed of their property."
A profound sensation was created throughout Prague by the elo
quence and principles of Huss, Jerome fired the enthusiasm of the
students by the same sentiments. The people sympathized with
righteousness, and hated the vile frauds of Rome ; and to express
their contempt for the indulgence iniquity a procession was formed,
the papal bulls were suspended from the necks of certain lewd
women, and, surrounded by a great throng of people, they were
driven through the chief streets of Prague, The carriage occupied
by the women was attended by men with arms, shouting : " To the
stake with the letters of a heretic and rogue." The documents
were formally taken to a large fire and publicly burned,*
Leo X., Tetzel and Indulgences.
Leo X. was a pope of extravagant tastes and expensive habits.
A.nd in A. D. 1517 he issued a bull for the sale of indulgences.
That act was the most eventful one that had happened in a
thousand years, or that should occur in the next millennium. It
was destined to bring Protestantism from heaven to rouse up a
slumbering world. That bull stirred up saints and heroes to
shiver the tyrannical sceptre of " the man of sin ; " to behold the
adorable Saviour in his woes as the sole Redeemer of the sons of
men, whose blood cleanses from all sin ; to pursue the idolatries
of saint and angel worship, prayers to dead men and living seraphs,
the filth of the confessional, the festering follies of human merit,
the wafer- worship of the mass, and the unclean system of celibacy
in convents and churches over the nations and down theages. And
these TRUE CRUSADERS will never stop in then- efforts until
they drive the paganism of the papacy into the abyss where it was
born. That bull, under God, was the instrument in raising up

• Nesnder, vol. v. pp. 383, 4, 6. Boston, 1869.

THE BASE TETZEL. 276
men of apostolic feith and zeal, who will never rest till they over
turn the ignorance, degradation, heathenism, and apostasy of man
kind, and enthrone the life-giving cross, with its healing blood, in
the wounded souls of our lost race,
JOHN TETZEL,
This man belonged to the Dominican Friars, When he began the
business of peddling indulgences for Leo, he was over sixty years
of age ; he had a voice of great strength ; in his way he was a man
of moving eloquence ; his tact and facility for meeting all objections
were never surpassed ; he had been predestinated by the Prince of
Darkness for the indulgence trade, and had given all diligence to
make his calling and election, and success sure; he lacked no
qualification for his position. It needed a man without shame,
and Tetzel had no such impediment ; it required a man destitute
of truth, and John regarded falsehood as a daily pastime ; it de
manded a man without fear, and the agent of Leo was no coward ;
it was indispensable that the preacher of indulgences should have
no heart, and John Tetzel had no pity, and no love except for
himself, John Howe speaks of the human soul being the temple
of God in ruins : * his idea prompts the thought that all over the
soul there are fragments of columns, cornices, and sculpture of rare
beauty — ^that is to say, that there are good thoughts, desires, affec
tions, and purposes — broken and defective, strewed all over the
soul, Cromwell's chaplain, with the most charitable inclination,
and after the most careful and protracted scrutiny, could discover
none of these beautiful and broken remains in the heart of Tetzel,
He was a monk and an adulterer, a sot and a preacher ; a man
without any tinge of decency, and without one worthy quality.
Such was Leo's indulgence commissioner.
His Mode of Conducting Business.
He and his companions appeared in a gorgeous carriage, fol
lowed by attendants finely equipped, before a city ; immediately
the magistrates were informed that. The grace of God and of St.
Peter was at their gates. Forthwith the whole population, of all
• Howe's "Living Temple," part i. chap. i. p. 9. London, 1844

276 TETZEL AS A SALESMAN.
ages, sexes, and ranks, with lighted tapers, went out to meet the
monk ; and such a welcome greeted him as ftw men have ever
received. Soon John was installed in the principal church ; the
pope's bull was spread out on a velvet cushion, a great red cross
was erected near the altar, above which the papal arms were hung ;
John ascended the pulpit and began : " Indulgences are the most
precious and sublime gift of God ; this red cross has the very same
efficacy as the actual cross of Christ ; come and I will give you
letters under seal, by which the sins which you may desire to com
mit in the future shall be forgiven you ; I would not exchange
my privileges for those of St, Peter in heaven, for I have saved
more souls by my indulgences than he converted by his sermons ;
there is no sin too great for indulgence to remit. If it were possi
ble for any one to have committed an outrage on the mother of
God, let him pay, let him pay well, and it will be forgiven him ;
indulgences not only save the living, they save the dead also ;
priest, noble, merchant, wife, young girls, young men, hear your
departed parents and your friends crying to you from the bottom
of the abyss : ' We are enduring horrible torments ! a little alms
would deliver us .; you can give them and yd you will not ! ' At the
very instant the piece of money chinks on the bottom of the strong
box, the soul comes out of purgatoty, and flies upward into
heaven Oh, imbecile and brutish people, who perceive not the
grace that is so richly offered to you  Now heaven is evety-
where open ; now you can ransom so many souls ! Hard-hearted
and thoughtless man, with twelve pence you can ransom your
father out of purgatoty, and you are ungrateful enough not to save
him I declare to you that though you had only a single coat,
you would be bound to take it off and sell it, in order to obtain
this grace. The Lord God is no longer God ; he has committed
all power to the pope,"
Kings, queens, princes, and bishops, had to pay twenty-five
ducats for an ordinaty indulgence. Abbots paid ten. All with
an income of five hundred florins, paid six. Those who had two
hundred florins a year, paid one; others only a half, A still
smaller sum might be taken from poorer persons.
There was a tax for particular sins. Polygamy paid six ducats/
theft in a church and perjury nine ducats ; murder eight ducats ;

ONE OP TETZEl's INDULGENCES, 277
and magic two ducats. For thirty crowns Tetzel sold a Saxor.
gentleman an indulgence giving him pardon for a nameless sin
which he was about to commit. The Saxon flogged and robbed
him, and was discharged by Duke George without penalty when
he showed his indulgence. The Form of an Indulgence.
" May our Lord Jesus Christ have pity on thee, N, N,, and
absolve thee by the merit of his most holy passion. And I, in
virtue of the apostolic power entrusted to me, absolve thee from
all ecclesiastical censures, judgments, and penalties which thou
mayst have deserved ; moreover, from all the excesses, sins, and
crimes, wliich thou mayst have committed, how great and enor
mous soever they may have been, and for whatsoever cause. I
efface all the marks of disability, and all the notes of infamy which
thou mayest have incurred on this occasion. I remit the pain
which thou shouldst have to endure in purgatoty, I render
thee anew a partaker of the sacraments of the Church, I again
incorporate thee into the communion of saints, and re-estab
lish thee in the innocence and purity in which thou wert at the
hour of thy baptism ; so that at the moment of thy death, the
gate of entrance to the place of pains and torments will be shut to
thee, and, on the contrary, the gate which leads to the heavenly
paradise, will be opened to thee. If thou art not to die soon, this
grace wdll remain unimpaired till thy last hour arrive. In the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen, " Friar John Tetzel, commissaty, has signed it with his own
hand," *
Tetzel was alone among mortals. As a man he was beneath any
known priest or human being ; Judas would have shrunk, how
ever great the bribe, from signing a document so full of falsehood
and soul-murder, A more wicked instrument never was written
by human hands. And yet, such were the indulgences sent forth
by Leo X., through Tetzel, Samson, and others.
This infamous traffic brought money in heaps to Leo, to Cibo,
• D'Aubigne's "Hist, of Reformation," vol. i. p. 181, 3, 8, 6. Glasgow,
1846.

278 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT ON INDULGENCES,
his brother-m-law, and to the Archbishop of Mentz. And if it
rebuilt St, Peter's, it erected, under God, the great temple of
Protestant Christianity, in which fervent piety glows, and from
which science, liberty, literature, and prosperity have gone forth,
in the grandest earthly exhibitions, to bless the nations of the
world. One of the most popular modern historians of Grermany says :
" The sale of indulgences was let out for entire provinces, to the
highest bidders or farmers-general, and these again appointed seve
ral sub-farmers, who, for the sake of gain, committed the most
shameful abuses. They selected men of eloquence and impudence to
excite the minds of the people, and induce them to purchase by
wholesale. They sold indulgences for the heaviest crimes committed ;
for pillage of churches, perjuty and murder ; nay, the promise of
indulgence could even be obtained before the commission of the
contemplated crime," *
And such was the universal outcry against indulgences all over
Europe that the Council of Trent, while approving of the prac
tice, had to recommend restraints upon their issue, and prohibit the
receipt of all evil gains from them.
The Decret of the Coundl,
" Since the power of conferring indulgences was given by Christ
to the Church, and she has used the said power, divinely granted
to her, even in the earliest times, the sacred and holy synod teaches
and commands that the use of indulgences, most salutary to
Christian people, and approved by the authority of sacred coun
cils, be kept in the Church ; and it condemns with anathema those
who assert that they are useless, or deny that the Church has the
power of granting them. Yet, in granting them, it desires that
moderation be observed according to the ancient and approved
custom of the Church, lest by too great facility ecclesiastical disci
pline be weakened ; and desiring that the abuses be amended and
corrected which have crept into them, and by the occurrence of
which the excellent name of indulgences is blasphemed by heretics ;
it appoints generally by this decree, that all evil gains for procur-
» Kohlrausch's " Hist, of Germany," p. 254. N. Y., 1870.

INDULGENCES STILL IN EXISTENCE. 279
ing them be altogether abolished, from which a very fruitful cause
of the abuses among Christian people has been derived." * , , , ,
Indulgences iu some form exist still, the pitiable, decrepid skel
eton of the burly, insolent demon that flourished everywhere in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and excited abhorrence and
indignation in the sixteenth.

• Canones et Decreta, aess. xxv.. Deer, de Indulg., p. 204. Lipaiee, 1868

THE WORSHIP OF RELICS.
The most remarkable love for articles belonging to Christ and
Lis mother, and for the bones of departed saints and martyrs,
sprung up in the fourth century and spread over the world, Evety
church must have its relic ; evety village the remains of its pro
tecting saint ; and every populous city some bone of an apostle or
something consecrated by the touch of the Saviour, In time the
Relic Fever sent men all over the East in search of these invalu
able treasures; and in execution of the task assumed, they dis
covered the resting places of saints hidden for five hundred or a
thousand years, and they brought home heads of apostles, bones
of prophets, and several coats without seam worn by Jesus,
As relic worship grew the living Saviour was set aside for the
bodies of his dead servants ; the meritorious anguish of his cross
was rejected for the wood of his crucifix; his mercy-seat was
supplanted by the shrines of saints, and the Name which is above
every name was heard at distant intervals, while the powers of
scores of saintly carcasses were lauded each day by millions of his
professed followers. For centuries an unbridled furor seized the
Christian nations, leading them to pay any price for relics; and to
become the easy victims of cunning cheats who sometimes sold
them the remains of heathens, or the bones of criminals of any
creed as the venerable relics of Christ's honored friends. This
form of idolatry first showed itself in the worship of
Objects conneded with Christ.
The true cross was the most famous of all the relics ever wor
shipped, Helena,* the mother of Constantine the Great, in the
• Sozomen, lib. ii. cap. i.
880

RELICS. 281
fourth century, searching for it, discovered three crosses, and a
piece of wood separate from them, with the words inscribed upon
it in Hebrew, Greek and Latin : " Jesus of Nazareth, the King of
(lie Jews," To find Chi-ist's out of the three, by advice of Maca-
rius. Bishop of Jerusalem, each was applied to a dying lady, but
two of them showed no power ; when however the third touched
her, she opened her eyes and regained her strength. This was
decided to be the cross of Jesus, The greater portion of it was
preserved in a silver case and kept in Jerusalem, A part of it
was sent by the empress to her son in Constantinople with the
nails by which the body of Jesus was fastened on it, and wherever
the cross or the nails were carried they were honored with worship.
The Cross of Apamea.
After the captm-e of Antioch, about A, d. 540, by the Persians,
the people of Apamea, who had possession of the true cross, ordered
its guardian Thomas to bring it out that they might kiss it for the
last time ; and as they expected death from the army of Chosroes,
that they might obtain from it " Provision* for the passage to an
other life ;" and they rejoiced in this " Precious cross as their
means of transport to the better lot,"
The Cross carried into Perda,
In A. D. 621 the Persian army is reported to have laid waste
Jerusalem ; to have slain many thousands of the people ; and to
have carried off "The precious wood of the cross" into their
country.f This loss was regarded as a heavy calamity to the
Christian nations. The Cross in Constantinople,
In the seventh century, in the Rotunda Church of New Rome,
during three days in "Holy Week "J a portion of the cross was
exposed on a golden altar, where the emperor, court, army, clergy,
and others went at different hours to kiss that sacred wood,
• Evagrius' Eccl. Hist., book iv. cap. 26.
t Matt, of Westminster, at a. d. 621.
t Butler's "Lives of the Saints," vol. ix. 741. N. Y., 1858.

282 RELICS.
The Cross in Rome,
hi A, D. 695 Pope Sergius found in the sacristy of the blessed
Peter at Rome a large piece of the Lord's cross, which, evety year
on the day of the " Exaltation of the same lifegiving cross, is
wont to be kissed and revered by all the people at Rome," *
The Cross in England.
About A. D. 938 king Athelstan received as gifts a piece of the
true crosSjt a small portion of the crown of thorns, and the sword
of Constantine the Great, on the hilt of which, upon thick plates
i of gold, was fastened one of the four nails by which Jesus was
secured to the cross.
In the year A, d, 1223 a clergyman came to England from the
East, and sold to the monks of St, Alban a crucifix and two fingers
of St, Margaret ; and to the monks of Bromholm in Norfolk he
gave a cross made out of the wood on which the Saviour hung, on
condition, that they would receive him and his two children among
them. Immediately it began to work miracles ; it raised the dead,
made the lame walk, cleansed the lepers, and cast out devils,
" The said cross is frequently worshipped, not only by the English
people, but also by those from distant countries who have heard of
its miracles," | The Cross in France,
In A, D, 1241, " The holy cross of our Lord " was obtained by
France through the king; his mother Blanche; and "by the
grace of Christ seconding their pious wishes," It was purchased
at a high price. The king the year before had secured possession
of the Saviour's crown of thorns. On the Friday before Easter,
" The king, with his wife and mother and brothers, riding in a
carriage at the head of a procession, with archbishops, bishops,
abbots, and other religious men, with nobles, and a countless host
of people, raised the cross above his head with tears, and all
worshipped it. with due reverence and devotion." § When the cross
•Matt. Paris, at a. d. 695. f Ingulph, at A. r>. 938
X Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1223. § Matt. Paris, at A. D. 1241 .

BELIOB. 283
and crown of thorns reached the cathedra all the belis in the city
were rung ; and as the king and clergy and people returned from
the worship of the cross and crown of thorns, with clasped hands
glorifying God, a sight " more joyful the kingdom of France had
never seen," All Paris was enraptured by the possession of new
Deities. At Venice there is a Portion * of the True Gross,
And it, with a part of the Saviour's dress, and some of the earth
whioh imbibed his blood, is exposed for the veneration of the
faithful. Parts of the true cross are still exhibited at Rome f and else
where ; and the people are invited to adore it as if it had power
to impart some wonderful gift.
It is impossible to estimate the quantity of the wood of the true
cross which existed at one time in Europe ; but it may be safely
affirmed that there was enough to make a number of huge cruci
fixes. All this wood was devoutly venerated and preserved, as
the most sacred earthly treasure. And yet there never existed
credible evidence that one piece of it belonged to the cross on which
Jesus was nailed. The Blood of Chrid brought to England.
In A. D. 1247, a portion of the Saviour's blood, J in a beautifiil
crystalline vessel, was presented to the King of England. It was
attested by a document, with many seals, from the patriarch of
Jerusalem, and the bishops, abbots, clergy, and nobles of the Holy
Land, as a part of the " blood of our Lord which he shed upon
the cross." It was received with the greatest reverence, and
carried by the king, attended by the great and the godly, to
Westminster, where the Bishop of Norwich preached a sermon
expounding its glories, and declaring that " Whoever worshipped
this most holy blood would, by the permission of all the prelates,
obtain free remission of penances /or six years, and a hundred and
fody days." His lordship of Norwich was not quite as liberal in
• "Echoes of Europe," by E. K. Waahington, p. 332. Philada., 1860.
t Id., p. 422. X Matt. Paris, at A. d. 1247.

284 RELICS.
his application of the Saviour's blood as the apostle John, who
says (1 John i. 7) : " The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses
us from all dns," without limitation as to time. The monkish
historian tells us, there were those who questioned the genuine
ness of the blood.
The Lance which pierced the Saviour's Side is found.
In A. D. 1098, Peter of Provence had a visit from St. Andrew
in a dream, who told him three times to go to the church of St.
Peter in Antioch, in which, by following his instructions, he
would discover the lance which penetrated the Saviour,* The
lance was easily uncovered. And the people hearing the glad
news, " flocked to the Church and worshipped so precious a relic,"
The Robe of Christ is obtained at Zaphat.
In A, D, 594, through the confesdon of a Jew, the famous coat
of the Saviour was discovered at Zaphat ; f and carried by three
bishops to Jerusalem, It was without seam. But it is difficult
to see the proof furnished either by the Jew or the bishops, that
this garment was ever worn by Jesus,
In A, D, 1156, another coat of Christ without seam was found,
by revelation, in France, And this robe, as the letters fmmd with
it showed, had been made by his mother; and enlarged itself as
he grew, J Several other robes of Christ have been exhibited at
different times for the veneration of the faithful.
The Likeness of Christ.
When Tiberias the Emperor was UI, it is said that he heard
of the fame of Jesus as a physician ; and that ignorant of his
death he sent for him. His messenger became acquainted with
Veronica, a friend of the Saviour in Jerusalem, She, on a cer
tain occasion, was taking a linen cloth to an artist to have a pic
ture of Jesus painted upon it, when she met him ; and on learning
her business, he took the cloth for a moment, and then handed it
to her, bearing a likeness of his adorable countenance, § Veronica

• Matt. Paris, at A. d. 1098. -f Id., at a. d. 594.
t Matt, of Westminster, at a. d. 1157. § Id., at a. d. 38.

RELICS. 285
brought htv picture to Tiberias ; and it healed him the moment
he looked upon it. This imaginary likeness is in St. Peter's at
Rome now. * I' he Holy Staircase at Rome.
In the Baptistery of St. Jolin de Lateran, in Rome, are the
marble stairs of Pilate's house in Jerusalem, down which Jesus
came from the judgment seat, and which he stained with his
blood , they are nearly covered with boards to protect them.
They were brought through the air, as Catholics believe, ages
ago, to Rome ; and they possess astonishing merit yet. Devotees
in millions have ascended them. Luther passed over them on
his knees to gain their matchless virtue .f And notwithstanding
the light of the nineteenth century, and the jeers of Protestant
spectators, pilgrims still ascend the worn marble stairs, devoutly
kissing each step as they approach it ; and by this sacred per
formance securing an extensive indulgence. {
The Cradle of Jesus is in Rome.
The identical cradle in which the infant Jesus was rocked, it is
imagined, enriches a great Roman Church, and claims the venera
tion of Christendom, §
A Piece of Christ's Manger
Was in All-Saints' Church in Wittemburg when Luther began
his labors in that city, || And in Wurtemberg, soon [after, a
vendor of indulgences, following his calling, wore a feather on
his head plucked from the wing of Michael, |{ the archangel. In
the Church of the Escurial, near Madrid, the Rev, Joseph
Blanco White saw one of the babes of Bethlehem ^ which Herod
butchered. A Ga'rment of the Virgin Mary in France.
Charles the Bald brought to France from Constantinople
a certain linen garment belonging to the Saviour's mother.
• "Echoes of Europe," by E. K. Washington, p. 429. Philada., 1860.
\ D'Aubigne, vol. i. p. 147. Glasgow, 1846.
X "Echoes of Europe," p. 421. § Id., p. 529.
1 D'Aubigne, vol. i. p. 35. Glasgow, 1846.
1 Gavin's "Master Key ti Popery," p. 339. Cincinnati, 1833.

286 BmjCB.
The people of Chartres became the fortunate possessors of this
article, ^Vlien Rollo and his Northmen, in A. D, 912, attacked Char
tres, the inhabitants made no appeal to Jehovah, nor any effort to
gather an army, but hoisted the linen garment as a standard. At
first the enemy laughed, and directed arrows at it : then their
eyes grew dim, and they could neither retreat nor advance ; and
they became an easy prey to their triumphant foes, who slew them
without mercy, *
The Hair of the Virgin Mary at Croyland.
In A, D, 975, when Turketul, Abbot of Croyland, was about to
die, he had the treasures of the convent exhibited to the brethren.
And among these, according to Ingulph, one of his successors,
was "Some of the hair of the Mother of God, enclosed in a
gold box," t The Chains of St, Peter,
The fetters which bound him in Jerusalem, when the angel set
him at liberty, are sacredly guarded in Rome at this day ; and
give their name to one of its oldest churches. J Where they came
from no one knows. And it is pretty certain Peter was not the
bearer of them to the Eternal City ; for he does not show any
special love for them in his conduct when he was set at liberty, or
in his epistles. The popes have rasped off filings of these chains,
and sent them as presents to princes, and the sacred dust has often
wrought miracles, § Peter's Chair.
The holy seat occupied by Simon, if he ever was in Rome, is in
St, Peter's, || The chair is enclosed in a huge gilded exterior of
bronze, and it lends sanctity to the noblest church edifice in the
world, • William of Malmesbury, lib. ii. cap. v.
t Ingulph, at A. D. 975.
t " Echoes of Europe," p. 423-4,
§ Butler's " Lives of the Saints, vol. viii. p. 262. N. Y., 1863,
I " Echoes of Europe," p. 409.

RELICS, 287
John the Baptists Head.
It was discovei-ed by some monks of the Macedonian sect
in the reign of the Emperor Valens, who commanded that it
should be brought to Constantinople,* But the mules drawing
the carriage in which it was conveyed stopped at Pantichium, in
Chalcedonia, and no lashing or coaxing could move them one step
ferther. The miracle was clear, aud there for a time the head re
mained. Subsequently, the Emperor Theodosius " prompted by
an impulse from God, or from the prophet" removed it to a
place in the suburbs of Constantinople, wheie he erected for it a
magnificent church. Matthew Paris tells us of a head of John
the Baptist, apparently a second, which was taken to Edessa in
A. D, 761.t A woman in France was greatly favored by the vic
tim of Herodias. For three years she had prayed for one of
his limbs ; and then vowed to give up eating till her prayer was
heard; after fasting for seven days one of his thumbs was placed
upon the altar of the church in which she worshipped, | It was
sfonderfaHy white ; and though John had been dead 615 years,
three bishops, in trying to tear a piece from it, drew blood.
An Arm of St. Andrew and the Head of St. Luke.
These precious relics were brought to Rome by Gregory the
Great before he became Pope, that his monastery of St, Andrew
might enjoy the glorious protection of the fe,mous saints to whom
the arm and head belonged, §
A Thumb of St. Bartholomew.
One of the most distinguished abbots of Croyland, the blessed
Turketul, in A. d, 975, had a thmnb of this saint ; and he set
such a high value upon it, that "He always carried it about
with him ; and in all times of danger, tempest, and lightning
crossed himself therewith," ||
* Sozomen, lib. vii. cap. 21.
t Matt. Paris, at A. d. 764.
X Matt, of Westminster, at a. d. 613.
§ Butler's " Lives of the Saints," vol. iii. p. 571. N. Y., 1853.
1 Ingulph, at a. d. 975.

288 RELICS,
St. Alban the Martyr
Had lain for centuries in a dishonored and unknown grave ; and
in A, D, 794, when the world was searched for relics, those of our
saint were found, Offa, King of Mercia, as he lay on his couch
one night, was warned by an angel to take Alban the saint up
out of the earth, and to place his remains in a repository more
worthy of them. The king knew nothing of Alban's resting-
place; and no one on earth had any better information. He
gathered a great multitude of his people at Verolamium, and he
saw a " Ray of light, like a flash of lightning descending towards
the sepulchre ; " and soon they found the supposed remains of
Alban ; they were delighted beyond measure with their success.
The thousands form a solemn procession and carry the relics to a
church singing hymns and praises, Alban has a new coffin, ex
quisitely fashioned of gold and silver and precious stones ; and
for centuries is incessantly engaged in working astonishing
miracles,* The Ashes of the Prophd Samuel,
In the time of the Emperor Arcadius, the relics of Samuel
were found and carried to Constantinople with extraordinary de
monstrations of delight. They were- placed in a golden urn and
covered with a silken veil. The highways from Palestine to the
city of the Cassars were filled with an uninterrupted procession ;
and the emperor at the head of the most illustrious members of
the senate and clergy went forth to greet his extraordinary guest, f
The Blood of St. Januarius.
This saint was martyred in the fourth century. His head is in
the Cathedral of Naples, and some of his blood in two vety old
glass vials. Repeatedly he has saved Naples from destruction,
when its citizens were alarmed by Vesuvius, In 1707, as the
volcano threatened a fearful flood of lava, J his shrine was carried
* Matt, of Westminster, at a. d. 794.
t Limborch, p. 84.
X Butler's "Lives of the Saints," vol. ix. 718.

RELICS. 289
by the clergy and people to the foot of the mountain, and in
stantly its eruptions cwi-sod. Ili.s blood is congealed, but when
brought near the head it melts and bubbles up. It does the same
thing regularly on his feast-day, September 19th, and on the 20th
of December. If there is any alarm in Naples the blood is con
sulted, and if it melts all is right; and joy is universal. When
the French * took possession of the city, the vials were examined,
and there was no liquefaction, and the people showed signs of in
surrection ; but the French commander threatened to shoot the
priest if the miracle was not performed in ten minutes ; and the
blood melted immediately. Of course Januarius is the Deity of
Naples, A City Protected by the Relics of a Martyr.
In A, D, 540, Chosroes led an army against Sergiopolis. There
were no men in the city who could resist such a chieftain. But
the relics of the victorious martyr Sergius, f lying in a coffin within
its walls, caused the miraculous appearance of innumerable shields
all around Sergiopolis, as soon as the hostile army approached, and
Chosroes and his hosts, justly alarmed, retired,
Simeon the Pillar Saint
Spent thirty years on a column sixty feet high ; and after his death
there was a controversy as to the place his remains should protect.
The neighboring cities all wanted Simeon. J The emperor wished
his guardian care. Antioch urged the strongest claim. Its people
said : " We have no walls, for we have been visited in wrath by
their fall ; we have brought hither the sacred body to be our wall
and bulwark," And the old weather-beaten tenement of clay fell
to their lot, and remained entire in their city, except some holy
teeth, stolen by " faithful men " to shield them against calamity,
St. Genevieve stops a Plague in Paris. §
This lady was born about A. d. 422, She is the chief protec-
• " Echoes of Europe," p. 568.
f Evagrius, Eccl. Hist., lib. iv. cap. xxviii. X ^^-i lit"- ¦• cap. xiii,
§ Butler's " Lives of the Saints," vol. i. 85 N. Y., 1853.
19

290 RELICS.
tress of Paris. In A. D, 1129, a pestilential fever, with a violent
inward heat and pains in the bowels, carried off in a short time
fourteen thousand persons. The medical art was powerless. The
clergy of Paris implored the divine mercy by fastings and suppli
cations, but the Lord would not hear them. Not so Genevieve.
They carried her shrine in procession to the cathedral, and many of
the sick were cured by touching it. And of all that lay ill when
the appeal was made to St, Genevieve only three died ; and no
others from that time took the disease. If this stoty were true,
little wonder that God should be neglected, and St, Genevieve
honored. And in such stories the Catholic Church abounds.
Triumph of St. Martin.
There was a bitter controversy between the friends of St, Mar
tin and St, German in reference to the powers of their relics. To
settle the question, a leprous man, wasted to a skeleton, was
placed between the two saints for a whole night; in the morning
the side next St. Martin was healed, while the other was un
changed. * The next night the diseased side was placed along
St. Martin, and in the morning the man was completely restored ;
both sides were free from leprosy. The monkish historian gravely
remarks : " Thus the Turonians * (the friends of St, Martin)
safely filled their common purse by the assistance of their patron,"
St. Guthlac's Rdics.
In A. D. 851, a severe disease scourged the whole of England ;
it was a kind of paralysis, by which the hands and arms became
useless, and were withered up ; the attacks of this malady were
preceded by intolerable pains. At last St. Guthlac was remem
bered, and " innumerable multitudes of the sick from the whole
land flocked daily to his most holy tomb, and sought the divine
grace through the merits of the most holy confessor Guthlac," and
sometimes in one day a hundred persons were healed. The num
ber of favored ones soon was legion, belonging to all classes of so
ciety, from Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury, down to the poorest

• William of Malmesbury, lib. ii. cap. iv.

RELICS. 291

serf. And the abbot of St, Guthlac's convent, after being tried
by the utmost poverty, began " to abound in all things," * th ough
the thronging myriads who gathered at the tomb of his pation.

The Head of King Edmund Speaks after it was Cut Off.
When Edmund was decapitated by the order of savage Hin-
guar, the head was taken to the woods and thrown among the
thick bushes and brambles, that his body might distress his
friends when they found it, A good while after, Hinguar removed
from that locality, and the followers of Edmund went in search of
his head ; as one of them cried to another : Where are you ? an
answer was returned by the king's head : Here, here, here I f Nor
did it cease speaking till all the seekers were gathered around it.
And then a huge wolf of savage aspect embraced the head of the
saintly king in his fore legs, where he had faithfully guarded it.
As they took it away he meekly followed them till it was interred
with the body, when he returned to his native wilds. King
Edmund was a special friend of the clergy.
The Rdics of St. Werebuge extinguish a Fire, f
In A, D. 1180, a desolating conflagration raged in Chester, of
which St. Wereburge was patroness ; and though it threatened to
consume the whole city, it was immediately extinguished, when
the monks carried in procession the shrine of the saint, with de
vout prayers. It would be a blessing to have the relics of half
a dozen such saints in each of our American cities.
The Relics of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Aquinas was a man of prodigious intellect and of immense in
fluence : highly cultivated for his age, and beyond it in many of
his conceptions. § He died in A. d. 1274, One of his arms was
out off-in 1288 and given to his sister, the Countess Theodora.
His body was carried into France, and received at Toulouse by a '
hundred and fifty thousand people, led by the king's brother and
* Ingulph, at A, D, 851. + Matt, of Weatminater, at a. d, 870.
X Butler'a " Livea of the Sainta," vol. ii. p. 348. N. Y., 1853,
I Id., vol. iii. 532.

292 RELICS.
by many archbishops and bishops. It now rests in a rich shr ne
in that city. An arm was given to the Dominican Church in
Paris, A bone of his arm was presented to the Dominicans at
Naples, where his intercession delivered the kingdom from a put lie
calamity. Thomas A'Beckets Relics.
This saint was Archbishop of Canterbury, As a churchman
he cared for nothing but the glory of the clergy. Had he been
able he would have placed the king and nation under the heel of
the meanest ecclesiastic in the land. As among popes, Gregoty
VII. stands forth unequalled in talent and tyranny, so A'Becket
appears among bishops.
If Providence had in wrath bestowed a few more A'Beckets
upon the nations in past ages, and restrained the hands of enraged
menslayers, Christendom would have had no rights except the
right to be governed by priests in everything, and scourged for
each act of disobedience.
The relics of this proud, unworthy man were the most famous
and powerful in Europe. At his translation, his body was placed
in a coffin elaborately worked with gold and jewels. * The clergy
of England were represented by all the dignitaries and an immense
body of priests. France and other European countries sent throngs
of ecclesiastics. The nation was moved as if a new Advent was
about to come, and all Europe f^lt the excitement.
Kings visited his tomb for healing ; and nations might be said
to have gathered around it for the same purpose.
The most astounding fables are told about the cures effected by
A'Becket, " The lame walk, f the deaf hear, the blind see, the
dumb speak, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are made alive ;
animals and birds felt the power of his mfracle-working relics."
Wealth was showered upon his bones, A royal diamond was given
by Louis, King of France ; J the church all around the relics
abounded with princely riches ; with pure gold garnished with
precious stones. The shrine containing the remains was about the
height of a man ; it was covered with plates of gold, adorned with
• Matt. Paria, at a. d. 1221. f Id., at a. d. 1171.
X Butler's "Livea of the Saints," vol. xii. pp. 809, 10.

RELICS. 293
brooches, images, angels, chains, jewels, and great oriental pearls.
When Henry VIII. seized the shrine, its spoils in gold and jewels
filled " two great chests, one of which six men could carry with
difficulty out of the church."
In one year there was offered at the shrine of the Virgin
£63 5s. 6d. ; at the altar of Christ, £3 2s. 6d ; and at the shrine of
St. Thomas, £832 12s. 3c/. * No wonder that Butler says of the
space before the shrine : " The marble stones remain to this day
very much worn and hollowed by the knees of the pilgrims who
prayed there."
His hairy shirt is in the English college at Douay, f a bone of
his ai-m is in the Church of St. Waldetrude at Mons, and his
mitre and linen, dipped in his blood, are in St. Bertins at St.
Omer. But it would appear that Lord Cromwell, Henry's Vicar
General, destroyed the miraculous power of these remaining relics.
Here was a man who reached an end which Lucifer was unable to
gain in Paradise ; he seated himself on Christ's throne in his own
kingdom and turned him out of it ; and nearly expelled the Vir
gin Mary from the hearts of her worshippers.
Rdics were the most Sacred Things to swear by.
Asser, a contemporaty of the celebrated Alfred, King of Eng
land, in his life of that monarch, speaks of a treaty which he made
A, D. 876 with his enemies, which they confirmed with an oath
over " the Christian relics, which (relics) with Alfred, were nexl
in veneration after the Deity," {
Four Coffers of Relics in the Holy Land.
When Saladin captured Jerusalem, he found four chests filled
with bones, each so weighty, that four men could only carry it a
short distance. These were the relics of the saints gathered from
the sanctuaries, Saladin ordered the bones to be sent to the caliph
that the " Christians might no longer believe that they had as
intercessors in heaven, those whose bones they worshipped on earth." §
» "Facta on Popery," by Belcher, p. 14. Philada., 1845.
t Butler's " Lives of the Saints," vol. xii. pp. 809, 10.
X Asser's "Life of Alfred," at a. d. 876.
S Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1191.

294 THE SECOND COUNCIL OF NICE AND RELICS,
At this, " all the followers of Christianity were overcome witli
grief and alarm." King Richard heard of the calamity, and paid
Saladin fifty-two thousand byzants to redeem the sacred treasures.
Over the Christian nations for centuries, the most unaccountable
infatuation seized men, women, and children about relics. Any
price was given for them, and no man could overtask their sup
posed power, A dead saint was quite as useful as a living one,
perhaps he was more powerful with God than if he were still in
the flesh. When it was reported that Romuald, a man of reputed
sanctity,* was about to leave France, he was quietly informed that
if he could not be persuaded to stay, the people intende'd to kill
him to secure the protection of his holy remains. Christianity was
lost in the mad idolatries of relic worship during many dark cen
turies ; and in this craty abomination the spiritual guides of the
Catholic Church from the highest to the lowest were the leaders.
The second Council of Nice, regarded by some as the seventh
general council, enacted the following law on this subject : f " We
decree that whatever venerable churches have been consecrated
without holy relics of martyrs, shall have a deposit of relics made
in them with the accustomed prayer. And if after the present
time any bishop shall be found consecrating a church without holy
relics, let him be deposed, as one that transgresses ecclesiastical tradi
tion." Here then it is broadly asserted that churches were defec
tive without relics ; that divine worship was incomplete without
the remains of holy martyrs ; that all destitute churches must be
furnished ; and that any bishop should be deposed who shall dedi
cate a church in future without a sepulchral divinity still bound
in the chains of death.
The Council of Trent says : f " Also the sacred bodies of holy
• Neander, iii. p, 446, note.
I oijot ovv cssTttoi vaoi xa9i,spui(s9ji(iav ixtbi ayiuv XBi-^dv<*iv fiapfvpiov, opl^ofiEv
iv avtot.^ xatd9taiv ytviG9ai Xii^aviov fjt-sta xai trji <Swij9ovi tvxvs* xai fi atto
tov jtapovtof tis tvpt9ij ijti.BxovSos ;|;upi; oytur Xti^dvuv xa9i,(piMi vabv, xa9ai-
pig9a, u){ rtapaSt/Jj/jtiif ta; ixxX'ijaiaatixas nlapaSoSEi;. — ConC. Vii. 604. Labbe
and Cossart, Paris, 1671-2.
X Sanctorum quoque martyrum et aliorum cum Christo viventium sancta
corpora, quse viva membra fuerant Christi, et teniplum Spiritus Sancti, ab
ipso ad eternam vitam suscitanda et gloiificanda a fidelibus veneranda esse,

THE COUNCIL OP TRENT AND RELICS. 295
martyrs, and of others now living with Christ, which were the
living members of Christ, and the temples of the Holy Spirit, and
which are to be raised and glorified by him in an everlasting life,
are to be venerated by the faithful. Through their bodies many
benefits are bestowed by God on men, so that they who affirm that
veneration and honor are not due to the relics of saints, or that
these and other sacred monuments are uselessly honored by the
faithful, and that the places dedicated to the memories of the
saints are vainly visited to procure their aid, are wholly to be
condemned, as the Church litis already condemned, and now ahn
condemns them." To worship relics is the duty of all the faithful,
and not to render them veneration is a glaring crime in the judg
ment of the Council of Trent.
The distinction which a Jesuit would make between the venera
tion and the worship of relics is one which the masses never under
stood ; and for dreary ages it was comprehended by few in the
Catholic Church. The wood of the cross, the seamless coat, the
images and bones of dead saints, the blood of St. Januarius, were
long the gods of Christian nations.
How strange it would sound to hear Paul say : " I am able to
do all things, for I have a thumb of Moses with which I make the
sign of the cross when great efforts are needed ! " Or to hear
David say : " I have a thigh bone of Abraham, and it is my refuge
and my strength, a vety present help in time of trouble ! " Or to
hear Luke say : " The Bereans are more noble than those of Thes
salonica because they devoutly venerate the head of Isaiah in a
golden shrine ! " How singular John would have appeared pray
ing to God before a leg of Melchised'ek ! Or Peter kneeling before
the relics of Joseph and venerating them ! Or Philip, Stephen,
Lazarus, and Martha and Maty, at their devotions in a chapel
dedicated to " all saints," before a costly shrine in which were
placed a tooth of holy Rahab, the mantle of St, Elijah, a finger
per quse multa beneflcia a Deo hominibus prsestantur, ita ut afflrmantes, sanc
torum reliquiis venerationem et honorem non deberi, vel eas aliaqne sacra
monumenta a fidelibus inutiliter honorari, atque eorum opis impetrandse
causa sanctorum memorias frustra frequentari, omnino damnandos esse, prout
jampridem eos damnavit, et nunc etiam damnat ecclesia. — Oanonea et Decreta
Gone. Trid., sess. xxv. p. 174. Lipsia?, 1863.

296 NO RELIC WORSHIP IN THE BIBLE.
of Esther, some of Miriam's hair, the renowned coat of Joseph,
and a foot of the mighty Jacob ! There is no record of the venera
tion or worship of one human relic in the Old Testament or in the
New, There was not one adored relic among all the servants of
Christ while he lived ; nor for two centuries after his death. And
as it is written : " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him
only shalt thou serve," there never should have been a trace of
relic worship among the servants of God.

MIRACLES.
The most maivellous tales are recorded in the annals of Chris
tian superstition, and are doubtless still credulously believed by
large numbers. SL Alban.
When St, Alban, in A, D, 303, was going to the place of execu
tion he was brought to a rapid river, and in answer to his prayers
it opened a dry path for him and those who were with him, * On
reaching the mount on which he was to lose his head, he saw
crowds of persons tortured with burning thirst under a scorching
sun ; immediately by his prayers, he opened a spring right before
them to relieve their misery. After his head was cut off, the eyes
of the executioner fell out of their sockets upon the ground,
Constantine the Great,
This prince was afflicted with an odious leprosy, to cure which
he intended washing in a bath filled with the blood of innocent
children. Three thousand were gathered to be slain to furnish
the required amount, but on seeing them Constantine shrank from
such a horrible remedy, f Soon after, at night, Peter and Paul,
by command of God, told him to send for holy Silvester, Bishop of
Rome, and to be baptized ; and they assured him that he would be
healed in his baptism. Silvester baptized him at Rome, we are told,
A, D. 318 ; and "in the font he saw Christ and was healed of his
leprosy," " Constantine was not baptized until his death was near,
many years after 318, and the ceremony was performed in Nico-

*.Matt. of Westminster, at A. D. 803. t Id., at A. D. 818.
X "Life of Constantine," by Eusebius, lib. iv. cap. Ixi. 297

298 MIRACLES,
St. Donatus,
This mighty man once met a dragon, which raised its head to
attack him ; without sword, lance or javelin he encountered the
monster, and spat upon it ; the saliva entered its mouth, and imme
diately it expired. * Such was its enormous size that the people
of the neighborhood yoked eight pair of oxen to the carcass to
bring it to an adjacent field, where it was burned.
Zodmas.
Was going to Csesarea, leading an ass heavily burdened, which a
lion seized and devoured. Zosimas being a holy man, followed
the lion, and overtaking him, gave him to understand that if
he wished to continue a wild beast instead of being changed into
some domestic drudge, he must immediately come and carry the
ass's burden to the gates of Csesarea. f All at once the lion
fawned upon and followed him ; and like a grateful lion inside of
which an entire donkey was lying, he bore the whole burden of the
defunct beast and itself too, as far as he was required, and then
returned to his den, James, Bishop of Nisibis,
In A, D, 359, Sapor, King of Persia, attacked Nisibis with great
fury but with poor success ; for after a considerable siege the holy
Bishop James mounted its walls, and entering a tower, he prayed
that flies and gnats might be sent against the besieging hosts. His
prayer was scarcely over when swarms of flies and gnats like dense
clouds, filled the trunks of the elephants, and the ears and nostrils
of the horses, and those of the other beasts of burden, J These
animals failing to get rid of the insects became furious, threw
their riders, broke the ranks, left the army, and fled away at full
speed, and the king and army had to retreat.
A Jewish Boy
In the East was induced by his Christian companions to receive
the body and blood of the Lord in the Church of " Our Lady." §
• Sozomen, lib. vii. cap. xxvi.
t Evagrius, Eccl. Hist. . lib. iv. cap. vii.
X Theodoret's Eccl. Hist., lib. ii. cap. xxx.
§ Matt, of Westminster, at a. d. 554.

MIRACLES, 299
When his father heard it he was enraged, and cist the child into
a burning furnace. Sometime after he was taken out by the
Christians uninjured ; and he declared that the woman with the
child in her arms, whose picture he had seen in the church, blew
away the flames with her cloak, and protected him from the fire.
This happened A. D. 552.
Imma, who coidd not be Bound, *
He was captured in battle A, D. 679, by Ethelred ; and his brother,
a priest, supposing that he was dead, offered up masses for his soul.
During the hours of each day when this sacrifice was celebrated
his chains fell off. Nor could anything bind him. The mass
immediately liberated him, " This story," says good, credulous
Bede, " made many persons offer up to our Lord the holy obla
tion for the deliverance of their friends who had departed from
this world," No doubt that was the object of its invention,
Clovis,
This celebrated king was baptized A, D. 476 by St. Remigius ;t
and as the holy chrism used in baptism was not at hand when it
was needed, St. Remigius prayed that the delay might not prove
hurtful, when suddenly a chrismatical unction in a miraculous
vase was brought to him from heaven by an angel. The vessel
was in the church of Rheims in the fourteenth centuty
St. Mamertus,
In his church at twilight, saw the public buildings of the city of
Vienne blaze with a great conflagration. X Every one fled to pro
tect his own property, except the saint. He stood before the altar
and checked the power of the flames with the stream of his tears.
And as the flames were immediately extinguished, the people,
returf-ing to the church ascribed the miracle to the holy man.
Bishop John.
Ip 4., D, 686, § the wife of Earl Puch languished forty days

* Bede's Church Hist., lib. iv. cap. xxii.
t Matt, of Westminster, at A. D. 482. X Id-, r.t a. d. 457,
§ Bede's Eccl. Hist., lib. v. cap. iv.

300 MIRACLES,
under a painful disease ; and for three weeks she could not be car
ried out of her room. Bishop John consecrated a church near her
husband's residence ; and after much persuasion, came home with
the earl, bringing with him some of the holy water used in the
consecration ceremonies. By command of the bishop, the woman
drank some of it : and the diseased part was washed with the
same precious element ; immediately she lost her complaint and
recovered her strength, St. Swithin,
Was sitting one day on the bridge of Winchester, whilst some
workmen were repairing it. A woman with a basket of eggs
afforded malicious merriment to the laborers, who broke them
all,* The good bishop, filled with sorrow for her loss, and touched
by her lamentations, made the sign of the cross over the broken
eggs ; and every one of them was restored to its original perfection.
St, Dunstan,
On one occasion took burning forceps and seized the devil by the
nose, who came to him in the form of a beautiful woman, and
tempted him to sin ; and he held him for a long time, till he
changed himself into many terrible forms. f And when he was
released, he polluted and tainted the whole air.
St. Magnus,
In A, D, 1002, Ethelbert and eighteen companions were in the
churchyard of St, Magnus, f in a town in Saxony, dancing and
singing profane songs, Robert, the priest, commanded them to be
silent, as their voices intermingled with the solemn sounds of tha
mass, but they heeded him not. Then the holy man in his wrath
cursed them in these words : " May it please God and St.
Magnus, that you remain singing a whole year," And there
they continued a whole year. The rain fell not on them ; nor
did cold or heat, hunger, thirst or fatigue assail them. They
neither wore out their clothes nor shoes. They persevered in
• Matt, of Westminster, at A. d. 867. t Id., at a. d. 990.
t William of Malmesbury, lib. ii. cap. x

MIRACLES. 301
dancing and singing a whole year, as though they had been insane.
Nor could they leave the spot till Herbert, Bishop of Cologne,
released them. St. Kenelm,
The heir to the throne of Mercia, was deprived by death of his
father when he was seven years old. His sister, to secure the
kingdom for herself, had him secretly murdered. The tidings
though unknown in England, were published in Rome.* A dove
from heaven bore a pai-chment scroll to the altar of St. Peter, with
an exact account of his death and place of burial. But it was
written in English, a mistake having been made in heaven about
the language of Rome, and there was some embarrassment in the
eternal city, until an Englishman was found who could read it,
Robert de Broke, f
A secular priest, found himself excommunicated A. d. 1171, and
the dogs t became acquainted with the fact too, for when he was
at dinner they would eat nothing which he had touched, though
they were hungry, and greedily ate from the hands of others. As
if to confirm the truth of the canine story, the chronicler immedi
ately adds : " The same year the bones of a giant were found in
England, the length of whose body yf as fifty fed."
Celedine V.
This Pope is represented as extremely modest. On a certain
occasion he rode to church on the meanest of men-carrying beasts ;
and as he dismounted, a cripple entreated the people to place him
on the Pope's donkey, and when the man occupied Celestine's
saddle immediately soundness came into his whole system. The
palf led was completely healed, J
Vitalis,
A wealthy Venetian, in a, d, 1195, went into the woods and fell
into a trap intended for wild beasts, out of which he could not
• William of Malmesbury, lib. ii. cap. xiii.
f Matt, of Westminster, a. d. 1171. | Id., at a. d. 1294,

302 MIRACLES.
escape. Here he found a lion and a serpent, fierce and hungty,
which like himself had been caught in the pitfall. He was greatly
frightened, but making the sign of the cross on himself, neither
lion nor serpent would touch him, though he was their unwilling
companion a whole night,* A grateful Woman.
Eustace, Abbot of Flaye, was a great preacher and no friend to
the wicked one, A woman swollen with devils as if with dropsy
applied to him for relief. At his suggestion she drank from a
certain blessed fountain, after which she threw up two large black
toads, which were immediately changed into great black dogs ;
and these soon after took the forms of asses. On being sprinkled
with water from the holy fountain the monsters flew up into the
air and vanished.f St. Francis,
The famous founder of the Franciscans, one of the most remark
able men of the thirteenth century, had a great miracle performed
upon him. He saw in a vision a seraph with six shining wings,
blazing with fire, coming to him in rapid flight from the highest
part of the heavens ; there appeared between his wings the figure
of a man crucified with his hands and feet stretched out and fas
tened to the cross ; after an intimate and delightful season the
vision vanished, and his body appeared to have recdved the image
of the crucifix. His hands and fed seemed bored through in the
middle with four wounds, and these holes appeared to be pierced
with nails of hard flesh ; the heads were round and black, and
were seen in the palms of his hands, and in his fed in the upper
pjart of the instep. The points were long and appeared beyond
tlie skin on the other side, and were turned back as if they had
been dinched with a hammer. There was also in his right side
a red wound, as if made by the pierdng of a lance. Pope Gre
gory IX. attested the truth of this miracle in a bull issued A, D,
1237, Pope Alexander IV, declared himself, in a sermon to the
people A, D, 1254, an eye witness of the miraculous wounds, J
• Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1196. t Id., at a. d. 1200.
X Butler's " Lives of the Saints," vol. x. p. 68.

PAUL AND JOHN FORETELL PAPAL MIRACLES, 303
There is no end to papal miracles. On reading these and very
many others we could not avoid astonishment at two things : The
wholesale creative poiver of the human ivniginntion ; and the un-
fathomed depths of mortal crcdii/ify. Paul foresaw the wound.s
of St, Francis and kindred prodigies when he ¦wrote about "Lying
wonders ; " * and John when he says of Antichrist, "And he
doeth great wonders ; he maketh fire come down from heaven on
the eartli in the sight of men, and he deceiveth them that dwell
on the earth by those miracles which he had power to do in tha
sight of the beast," f
The miracles of Rome are continued still. Some years ago in
Ireland the five wounds of Jesus were said to have been miracu
lously inflicted upon a nun. And after brief intervals, in some
benighted corner of Europe, the Virgin miraculously appears, or
some picture sweats blood, or some other prodigy startles the
ignorant community, and is sent forth abundantly attested to
demand the credulity of the " Faithful " in all lands.
By such means the Infallible Church secured wealth, dominion,
and wondering awe in past ages, and a legacy of contempt from
the enlightened in Catholic lands, and from the Protestant world
in these centuries of intelligence.

• 8 Thess. L 9. + Kev. xiii. 13 14,

THE INVOCATION AND WORSHIP OF SAINTS
AND ANGELS.
The worship of saints forms an important part of the religion
of Rome, Saints have days set apart specially for them. Some
departed worthies are the guardians of particular countries ; and
others preside over special blessings, or situations of peculiar
misfortune. A proper conception of the idolatrous customs of
saint and angel worship can only be obtained by examining some
facts. The following are all selected from Catholic works,
Guthlac is rescued by St. Bartholomew.
When Guthlac located on Croyland, in a, d, 714, he built a cell
and planned a convent. This very much annoyed the wicked one,
who, durmg a dark night, while the holy man was praying, filled
his room with foul spirits. These bound him and cast him into
the muddy water of the swamp ; afterwards they dragged him
over rough ground till nearly all his joints were dislocated ; then
they scourged him with whips " made as it were of iron ; " when
this torture was over, they carried him into the air, then they
brought him to the gates of hell, and threatened to hurl him into
its flaming fires. At last St, Bartholomew, whom Guthlac
specially worshipped, burst among the demons "with immense
brightness," and tore Guthlac from their grasp, and sent him to
his cell on Croyland,* The dead Guthlac answers Prayers.
The monastery which he established was threatened by its
neighbors during the blindness of the Abbot Thomas, A, D, 1415.
• Matt, of Westmicster, at a. d. 714,
304

PRAYERS TO THE DEPARTED GUTHLAC, 305
At this period the aid of mighty Guthlac was invoked in the
following prayer : " How long, O Lord, how long will the sinners
exult? How long too wilt thou, holy father Guthlac, who didst
formerly, in thy might, render demons subject to thy rule, allow
malignant people to invade thy possessions, and to plunder what
is thine?"* The defunct Guthlac saves his Abbey from an Army.
In A. D. 1469, an army threatened the treasures and the exist
ence of the convent, " But," says the monkish Chronicler of St,
Guthlac's ; " Blessed be God 1 who did not give us a prey unto
their teeth ! for through the merits of the most holy father Guthlac,
at whose tomb, each night, in psalms and in prayers we offered
up holocausts of devout supplication, the divine mercy dealt
graciously with us," f
Guthlac saves his Monks from Starvation,
No bread is left in the Abbey of Croyland, and there is no corn
in the granaty; and there are no human means of obtaining
supplies. Then the monks " putting their trust in the Lord and in
the most holy father Guthlac," gave themselves to prayer before
the tomb of their saint, and cried devoutly all night for his inter
cession with God, These requests, with sobs and tears, were
repeated over and over again in the ears of the most pious saint,
and the whole night spent in watching at his tomb ; when morn
ing dawned, as the brethren were performing their devotions in
the church, a voice like an angel's thundered through the sacred
edifice ctying : " Receive ¦victuals for the brethren," On looking
around, four sacks of the largest size were found, two filled with
com, and two with flour ; and no man was to be seen. J After that
favor, St, Guthlac drove away want till it was easy to secure
supplies without a miracle. Is it any wonder that when the five
new bells were to be hung in Croyland, and were to receive their
names, that Guthlac should give his to the first, and that it should
appear in such good company ? The bells were called : Guthlac,
Bartholomew, Michad, Mary,% and Trinity. The most important,
* Ingulph, at A. D. 1415. t W-i a* ¦*• d- 1469,
t Id., at A. D. 1085. § Id., at a. d. 1465.
20

306 THE POPE AND DEAD ST. EDMUND.
in the estimation of those who gave the names, coming first. The
equal honors of Guthlac and the Trinity recall a prayer quoted
by Seymour :
" Jesus, Mary, and Joseph have mercy on us,
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph receive my last breath,
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph receive me now and in the hour of
death." *
The Pope apologizes to the Spirit of St. Edmund for not
canonizing him.
Innocent IV,, an imperious pontiff, is said to have been greatly
alarmed lest St, Edmund should take vengeance on him for not
conferring saintship upon him ; and suffering great pain from the
stone one day, he retired to his oratory, where on bended knees,
with bursting tears and clasped hands, he prayed, saying: "O
most holy Lord and confessor of Christ, O blessed Edmund, be not
very angty, because, being moved by the calumnies of en-vious
men, I have very foolishly put off the honor of your canonization,
to which you are entitled. For that which is not yet fiilfilled,
I do, without hesitation, now vow and promise you, shall be fill-
filled in a magnificent manner, if my life is spared. Show me
then this mercy, you who assist so many that are sick, to rdieve
me from my present sufferings, or at least to mitigate this terrible
anguish, " f Soon after Innocent issued a bull carrying out his
vow, in which he says : f " For the Lord would not that the
sanctity of so eminent a man should be lost to the world, but
rather that as he had been notorious for a number of good actions,
so too he should become celebrated for a diversity of miracles,
that so he who had worshipped him vnth entire devotion should now
rdgn with him and be himsdf worshipped."
Blanche, the Mother of the French King, prays to St. Edmund.
In A. D, 1247 the remains of St, Edmund, Archbishop of Can
terbury, were removed to Pontigny in France, where he was in-

* " Evenings with the Romanists," p. 256, N, T,, 1856.
? Matt, of Weatminater, at a. d. 1246.

8T, THOMAS QUIETS THE WINDS, 3U7
terred with great pomp, in the presence of Louis, King of France,
his mother, and many of his nobles, Blanche, filled with veneration
for the saint, kept vigils neiir his remains, and addressed him in the
following prayer : " O lord and most holy father and confessor,
Edmund, you, who at my supplication blessed me and my sons,
when you, living in exile by my assistance, though I was all
unworthy of your favor, passed through France : I entreat you
confirm that which you mercifully wrought in us, and establish
the kingdom of France in peaceful and triumphal solidity," *
Edmund is not asked by Blanche to intercede, but to perform the
work himself as if he were a Deity,
St. Thomas forbids Shipwreck between England and France.
In A, D, 1179 Louis, King of France, came to Canterbury to
worship St, Thomas A'Becket, and after paying his vows to as
arrogant a saint as a man worshipper ever reverenced, he thought
of crossing the sea to reach his home. But the sea between France
and England seemed vety wide to Louis and exceedingly stormy ;
he was frightened and despairing, and he prayed to mighty A'Becket,
who was no coward whatever else he may have been, to grant that
no one crossing that passage might suffer ship^wreck from that time
forth,f And "it was believed that St, Thomas, assuming the
mastershin of the storms had granted his request,"
St. Alban.
La A, D, 1256 the King of England went to St. Albans, at
which place, " according to his usual custom, he prayed to God
and to St. Alban." | The monkish writer places God and the saint
on the same footing. The Litany of the Saints.
Omitting the portion about the Deity and the Virgin we begin
with:§ "St Michael, I Pray for us.
St Gabriel, J
• Matt, of Weatminater, at a. d. 1147. t Id-, a. d. 1179.
1 Matt. Paris, a 4.. d. 1256. § Miasion Book, p. 194-5. N. T., 1866.

J08 PRAYERS TO SAINTS.
St. Raphael,
All ye holy Angels and Archangels,
All ye holy Orders of blessed spirits,
St, John the Baptist,
St. Joseph,
All ye holy Patriarchs and Prophets,
St, Peter,
St. Paul,
St. Andrew,
St. John,
St. Thomas,
St, James,
St, Philip,
St, Bartholomew,
St, Matthew,
St, Simon,
St, Thaddeus,
St, Matthias,
St, Barnaby, '~<
St, Luke, f ^
St, Mark,
All ye holy Apostles aud Evangelists,
All ye holy Disciples of our Lord,
All ye holy Innocents,
St, Stephen,
St. Lawrence,
St, Vincent,
SS, Fabian and Sebastian,
SS, John aud Paul,
SS, Cosmas and Damian,
SS, Gervasius and Protasius,
Ml ye holy Martyrs,
St, Sylvester,
St, Gregoty,
St, Ambrose,
St. Augustine,
St. Jerome,
St. Martin,

PRAYERS TO SAINTS. 309

St. Nicholas,

All ye holy Bishops and Confessors.

All ye holy Doctoi-s,
St. Benedict,
'
St. Anthony,
St. Bernard,
St. Dominic (Founder of the Inquisition),
St. Francis,
?
All ye holy Priests and Levites,
^
All ye holy INIonks and Hermits,
'^
St. Mary Magdalen,
%
St, Lucy,
St, Agnes,
St, Cecily,
St, Agatha,
St, Catharine,
St, Anastasia,
All ye holy Virgins and Widows,
J
All ye Men and Women Saints of God, make
intercession
for us,"
All these are invited to be pleaders or mediators ¦with God while
he says : * " There is one mediator of God aud men. the man
Christ Jesus " (Vulgate), Trent.
Gives its lofty sanctions to the bestowment of Christ's honor and
office upon others. One of its decrees says : f " The holy synod
enjoins on all bishops, and others sustaining the office and charge
of teaching, that according to the usage of the Catholic and apos
tolic Church, received from the primitive times of the Christian
religion, and according to the consent of the holy fathers, and to
* Unua Mediator Dei et hominum, homo Ghristus Jesus. — 1 Tim. ii, 5,
Vulg., edita et recognila jussu Six. 'V. et Clem. VIII. London, 1846.
t Mandat sancta synodus omnibus episcopis et ceteris docendi munus cu-
ramque sustinentibus, ut juxta catholicse et apostolicse ecclesise usum a pri-
rasevis Christianse religionis temporibus receptum, sanctorum que Patrum
consensionem, et sacrorum conciliorum decreta, in pj-imis de sanctorum in-
310 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT ON PRAYERS TO SAINTS.
the decrees of sacred councils, they in the first place diligently in
struct the faithful in regard to the invocation and intercession of
saints, the honor of relics, the proper use of images, teaching them
that the saints reigning with Christ offer prayers to God for men,
that it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke them, and to resort
to their prayers, aid, and help for obtaining benefits from God
through this son Jesus Christ our Lord, who alone is our Redeemer
and Saviour, but that they think impiously who deny that the
saints who enjoy eternal happiness in heaven are to be invoked, or
who assert either that they do not pray for men ; or that the invo
cation of them to pray for each of us even in particular, is idolatry,
or that it is repugnant to the word of God."
And yet the whole system is hateful to God himself and con
trary to the teachings of his blessed word. When the angel
showed John the new Jerusalem, and the river and tree of life,
John says, according to the Vulgate : * " I fell down that I might
worship before the feet of the angel who showed these things to
me; and he said to me: See thou do it not, for I am thy fdlow-ser-
vant, and of thy brothers the prophets, and of them who keep tlie
words of the prophecy of this book : worship God." John might
have said that he was only going to worship God at the feet of this
wonder fill angel, whose glories and love he displayed to him ; but
the angel forbids all worship to himself, and by implication to
any one who was only a fellow-servant of John, and orders John
to worship God. John the apostle was a great favorite -with Jesus;
tercessione, invocatione, reliquiarum honore, legitimo imaginum usu, fideles
diligenter instruant, docentes eos, sanctos una cum Christo regnantes ora-
tiones suas pro hominibus Deo offerre, bonum atque utile esse suppliciter eos
invocare, et ob beneficia impetranda a Deo per Filium ejus Jesum Christum,
Dominum nostrum, qui solus noster redemptor et salvator est, ad eorum ora-
tionea, opem auxiliumque confugere ; illos vero, qui negant, sanctoa aeterna
felicitate in coelo fruentes invocandos esse, aut qui asserunt, vel illos pro
hominibus non orare, vel eorum, ut pro nobis etiam singulis orent, invoca-
tionem esse idolatriam, vel pugnare cum verbo Dei. — Canones et Decreta Cone.
Trid., sess. xxv. pp. 173-4. Lipsise, 1863.
* Cecidi ut adorarem ante pedes angeli, qui mihi hsec ostendebat ; et dixit
mihi : Vide nc feceris ; conservus enim tuus sum et fratrum tuorum propheta-
rum, et eorum, qui servant verba prophetise libri Iiujus : DEUM ADORA. —
llcv. xxii. 8, 0, Vvlg., edita et recognila jussu Six. V. et Cle-m. VIII. London.
1846.

THE APOSTLE JOHN ON PRAYERS TO SAINTS, 311
he leaned upon his bosom ; among the apostles he was known as,
" That disciple in whom Jesus delighted," * In compliance with
the Saviour's request he became the adopted son of his mother ;
and after Christ's crucifixion he took her to his own home. In the
book of Revelation he describes more extensive visions of the fu
ture than those with which any of his apostolic brethren or pro
phetic predecessors had been favored. The angel calls himself his
" fellow-servant " and forbids all worship to persons like John and
himself, to prophets, apostles, angels, great favorites, to the most
glorious and godly in the throngs of angels or in the armies of
Saints. Throughout every page of revelation, and every region
of justice and common sense, the words of John's angel ring
forth, saying about all creature adoration ; SEE THOU DO IT
NOT: WORSHIP GOD.
• Dlnm discipulnm, quem diligebat Jesus. — John xxi. 20, Vvlg.

THE WORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN MARY.
The most popular form of idolatty that ever captivated the
human heart is the worship of Maty, To the unwedded priest of
contemplative mind, Mary has every beauty, evety charm, evety
divine grace. Pure enough to be the chosen mother of that human
body in which Deity dwelt, unapproached in her unparalleled
honors, chaste as the unspotted snow ; she is the queen of his
imagination, the ravishing idol of his heart. And as the mistress
of his affections, he sings her praises, proclaims her glories, and
gives her glowing homage. Those who fail to worship Maty,
in his sight, are destitute of moral taste and perception ; they are
blind to beauty ; they are governed by heartless ingratitude ; they
have no ear for the sweetest voice that ever fell on the ears of
angels, or sent its thrilling melodies through the ¦wounds of a
bleeding heart.
To the masses of the Catholic world, Jehovah does not appear
as a pitying Father, governed by a compassion too vast for finite
conception, a love which led him to give up his only Son to the
nails, the crucifix, the spear, the burning -wrath of indignant jus
tice, the ghastly arms of the universal destroyer, and to the loath
some grave, that "he might redeem us from the curse of the law,
being made a curse for us," He is the awful God who breathes
thunders ; whose eyes flash forth lightnings ; whose feet, as they
touch our world, start the jarring earthquakes ; whose voice is like
the roarings of many cataracts ; who is holy, terribly just, spar
ing neither age nor sex, and never appalled by the numbers who
fall before his avenging righteousness, Jesus is not the God-man.
He is simply Jehovah, ¦without anything to make him our brother,
to proclaim his intense and eternal human sympathies. The only
•inception +lie Catholic masses have of Christ's humanitv is a
312

THE WORSHIP OF MART. 313
little child sitting in helpless and unconscious innoceixe on the
knees of a loving mother ; to them Jesus is the infinite God, mov
ing through the universe as its master, to inflict punishment ; and
to be coaxed into acts of mercy by a mother whom he loves.
They view Mary as the personification of maidenly modesty,
of motherly love, of all beauty, goodness, and gentleness. There
is not a pure and loving quality known to the human imagination
which is not attributed to Mary. She has pity in ocean fullness ;
she is ever ready to intercede for her penitent petitioners ; she has
unlimited sway over the heart of her Son. She is the queen of
love, of goodness, and of heaven. She is the most venerated
di-vinity in the Catholic Church. Little wonder that Mohammed
should say : * " Believe, therefore, in God and his apostles, and
say not there are three Grods, forbear this ; it will be better for
you." His commentator tells us the three Gods of whom he spoke
were the Father, the Son, and the Virgin Mary.
The Worship of Mary began in Arabia.-\
About the end of the fourth century certain women in Arabia,
once in twelve months, dressed a car or square throne ; spread a
linen cloth over it ; and on a clear day placed a loaf of bread or
cakes called collyrides upon it, which they offered to the Virgin
Maty. It would seem that this was a transfer of the services of
the Lord's Supper to Maty from her Son. These first worshippers
of Maty were called CoUyridianians. This service, though offen
sive to the churches at first, under another and milder form spread
rapidly over the East and West.J
The Virgin gives Pope Leo a new Hand.
When Leo was a young man, he was on one occasion doing
penance for sinful acts ; and while he was praying before the altar
of the Virgin she appeared to him, saying : " O Leo, correct
your excesses, and I will promote you to the highest rank." He
took her advice, and some time after was elected pope. When
celebrating his first mass after becoming pontiff, a woman brought
him an offering, and when she gave it to him, " she sweetly pressed
* Koran, p. 80. Philada., 1868. \ Mosheim, iv. cen. chap. v. sec. xxv.
X Neander, ii. 339.

314 THE WORSHIP OF MARY,
the hand of Leo, and kissed it." The lady's charms and love
made the pope remember that he was not yet an angel, that he was
btill a man,* Not long after he cut off that hand. From that time
he declined to officiate in public, and concealed his injured arm. At
last, greatly distressed, he called on the Virgin in earnest prayer
to g've him another hand, that his reproach might be taken away ;
and siie granted his request, so that no trace of the mutilation
could be discovered, " From that time," says Matthew of West
minster, "those who brought offerings were ordered to kiss the
pope's foot, and not his hand,"
God and His Mother.
King Athelstan " determining to seek all the relics of the dif
ferent saints throughout his kingdom for the sake of praying be
fore them," came to Glastonbury.f Elfleda, a niece of the king,
who was leading the life of a nun, was greatly exercised about the
entertainment of Athelstan, as there was no mead in the abbey,
wliich the king preferred to all other liquors. She entered the
Church of the Mother of God, and "she prostrated herself in
prayer to God and His Mother," and never was any king or com
pany served with such a supply of mead before.
The Virgin cures a Clerk.
In A, D, 1134, a clergyman was the victim of a dreadful malady
which tormented him day and night. He cried constantly to the
Mother of God for deliverance. One night, when he was grie
vously tormented, the Mother of God appeared to him in white
garments, and stretched out her hand to him. The sick man
trembled, but he no sooner felt her touch than he was immediately
healed.J The Virgin appears to St. Godric.
Once when this servant of God was praying before the altar of
His blessed Mother, he saw two girls of tender age and of the ut-
* Matt, of Westminster, at a. d. 800.
t Id., at A. D. 931.
t Matt. Paris, at a. d. 1134.

THE WORSHIP OF MARY, 316
most beauty, clothed in garments of snowy whiteness. Godric
looked fi-om one to the other and " bowed his head in adoration."
One of these beautiful young girls said : " I am the Mother of
Christ, and through me thou shalt obtain his grt,ce." Godric
then threw himself at the feet of the Mother of God, saymg :
" I commit myself to thee, my lady, and beseech thee to take me
under thy protection."* She then placed her hands upon his head,
and smoothing down his hair, filled the house with a sweet odor.
The Scapular,
Is a short mantle worn on the shoulders of Carmelite monks,t
St, Simon Stock, a general of the Order of Carmelites, who de
voutly worshipped Mary, was favored about A, d, 1257 with a
•visit from her, and he was informed by her that "no person
should be eternally lost who should expire in this sacred mantle."J
Benedict XIV- says of this vision : " We believe it to be true,
and think it ought to be so considered by every one." John
XXII. had an interview with the Mother of God in a vision, in
which she conferred greater privileges on those who wore her
Scapular, For, on compliance with certain easy conditions, she
would pay them a motherly visit in purgatory, and their release
from its pains might be expected on the next Saturday after death.
Those who " show their tender devotion to the Mother of God "
shall surely " have her assistance to persevere in the grace of God,
and her special and powerful protection in the hour of death,"
Prayers a,ddressed to the Virgin.
" Most holy and immaculate Virgin, my mother Mary, it is to
thee, the Mother of my God, the Queen of the world, the advo
cate, the hope, and the refuge of sinners, that I have recourse to
day, I, who am the most miserable of all, I render thee my
humble homage, O great Queen, and I thank thee for all the
graces which thou hast bestowed upon me till now, particularly
for having delivered me from hell, which I have so often deserved.
* Matt. Paris, at A. n. 1170.
t Mosheim, xiii. cent., part ii. chap. ii. sec. 29.
t Mis'^on Book, pp. 188-90. N. Y., 1866.

316 PRAYERS TO MARY,
I love thee, O most amiable Sovereign, and for the love I bear
thee, I promise to serve thee always, and to do all in my power to
make others love thee also, I place in thee after God all my
hopes, I confide my salvation to thy care. Accept me for thy
servant, and receive me under thy mantle, O Mother of Mercy ;
and since thou art so powerful with God, deliver me from all
temptations, or rather obtain for me the strength to triumph
over them till death. Obtain for me, I beseech thee, a perfect
love for Jesus Christ, To thee I look far grace to make a good
death. O my Mother, by thy love which thou bearest to God, I
beseech thee to help me at all times, and particularly at the de
cisive moment of death. Do not leave me till thou seest me safe
in heaven, occupied in blesdng thee and ringing thy merries
throughout eternity." *
St. Ephraim' s Prayer to the Virgin.
"O Queen of the universe, and most bountiful Sovereign!
Thou art the great advocate of sinners, the sure port of those who
have suffered shipwreck, the resource of the world, the ransom of
captives, the solace of the weak, the comfort of the afflicted, the
refuge and salvation of every creature. O full of grace ! enlighten
my understanding, and loosen my tongue that I may recount thy
praises, and sing to thee that angelical salutation which thou dost
so justly merit. Hail ! thou who art the peace, the joy, the conso
lation of the whole world ! Hail ! Paradise of delight, the sure
asylum of all who are in danger, the source of grace, the media
trix between God and man," f
St. Bernard's Prayer to the Virgin.
" Most sweet and amiable Mary, no one can pronounce thy
name without feeling the greatest desire to love thee ; and those
who do love thee cannot call thee to mind without being animated
to love thee more. Pray for us to thy divine Son that he may
vouchsafe to strengthen our weakness : no one is better entitled to
speak in our favor to thy God and ours than thyself, who art the
nearest to him. Intercede, then, for us, O blessed Mother, be-
* Mission Book, p. 161. N. T., 1856. f Id., p. 160.

PRAYERS TO MARY. 317
cause thy Son hears thee, and thou canst obtain whatever thou
wilt ask, O Mary, obtain for me the grace to have constant
recourse to thee ! " *
Another Prayer of St. Bernard to Mary.
" Remember, Maty, that it was never heard of, that a sinner
had fled to thy protection, and been abandoned by thee, O
Mother of God, thou prayest for all ; pray then for me, who am
the greatest of sinners, and therefore have the greatest need of thy
intercession," Another Prayer of St. Bernard to the Virgin.
" Remember, O most merciful Virgin Mary, that it is unheard
of, that any one flying to thee for protection, imploring thy help,
or seeking thy intercession, was ever forsaken. Animated by this
unerring confidence I hasten to thee, O Virgin of Virgins : I fly to
thee, O sweet Mother; a wretched sinner, I prostrate myself,
groaning at thy feet; despise not my prayer, O Mother of the
divine Word, but graciously hear and grant the same. Amen." |
Prayer of Devout Blodus to Mary.
" O my Sovereign, protect me in my combats, fortify me in my
weakness. O most holy Mary, in this great contest which I sus
tain against hell, aid me always : but if ever thou seest me waver
ing and ready to yield, O my Sovereign, stretch out thy hand to
me without delay, and sustain me still more powerfully, O God,
what temptations still remain to be surmounted until death I Ah I
Maty, my refuge, my strength and my hope, never permit that I
should lose the grace of God, for I am resolved m all my tempta
tions to have always immediate recourse to thee." §
Prayer of St. John Damascen to Mary.
" Hail Maty I thou hope of Christians, Hear the petition of
a sinner who wishes to love thee with the greatest tenderness, and
to honor thee as thou deservest, and who reposes in thee, next
after God, his hope of salvation. Indebted as I am to thee for
• Mission Book, p. 163. N.Y,1866. tld.,p.l68. tld.,p.l88, §Id.,p.l68.

318 PRAYERS TO MARY.
the preservation of my life, I entreat thee to restore me to
the grace of thy divine Son, Thou art the surest pledge of my
salvation : deliver me, then, by thy prayers from the heavy load
of my sins. Disperse the darkness of my understanding ; banish
every inordinate affection from my heart ; repress the temptations
of my spiritual enemies, and so order my life, that, under thy pro
tection, I may arrive at eternal repose in heaven," *
Prayer of St. German to Mary.
" Most holy Virgin I who art the greatest consolation that
I receive from God; thou who art the heavenly dew which
assuages all my pains; thou who art the light of my soul
when it is enveloped in darkness; thou who art my guide in
unknown paths, the support of my weakness, my treasure in
poverty, my remedy in sickness, my comfort in trouble, my refuge
in misery, and the lurpe of my salvation; hear my supplications,
have pity on me as becomes the Mother of so good a God, and
obtain for me the favorable reception of all my petitions at the
throne of mercy," f
The Prayer of St, Anselm to Mary.
" Help us, O Queen of Mercy, without regarding the multitude
of our sins. Remember that our Creator took of thee a human
body, not to condemn but to save sinners, Hadst thou been chosen
to be the Mother of God for thy own benefit alone, thou mightst
then be said to have no particular interest in our salvation ; but
God clothed himself in thy flesh for the sake of all mankind. Help
us therefore, and protect us. Thou knowest the need which we
have of thy assistance, and we earnestly recommend ourselves to
thy prayers. Pray that we may not be eternally lost, but with
thee may love and serve Jesus Christ forever," J
Prayer of St. Ildefonsus to Mary.
" O my Sovereign, and Mother of my God, thou art blessed
amongst all women, pure amongst all virgins, and queen of all the
heavenly host : all nations call thee blessed. Vouchsafe that I
may publish as much as possible thy greatness, that I may love
• Mission Biok, p. 167. N. T., 1866. f Id., p. 164. X W., p. 166.

PRAYERS TO MARY. 319
thee to the utmost of my power, and that I may serve thee with
all the capacity of my soul." *
Litany of the Blessed Virgin.
This Litany was composed in Loretto, and sung in the proces
sions it. that city ; and on that account it is often called, " The
Litany of Loretto." Sixtus V., June 11th, 1587, granted to all
Christians an indulgence of two hundred days for each time this
Litany was piously repeated. This indulgence was confirmed by
Benedict XIII,, January 20th, 1728,t
The portion of it about Maty is blasphemous in the highest
d^ree ; it is the most idolatrous prayer ever presented to a dead
woman, " Holy Mary,J pray for us.
Holy Mother of God, pray for us.
Holy Virgin of Virgins, pray for us.
Mother of Christ, pray for us.
Mother of Divine Grace, pray for us.
Mother most pure, pray for us.
Mother most chaste, pray for us
Mother inviolate, pray for us.
Mother undefiled, pray for us.
Mother most amiable, pray for us.
Mother most admirable, pray for us.
Mother of our Creator, pray for us.
Mother of our Redeemer, pray for us.
Virgin most prudent, pray for us.
Virgin most venerable, pray for us.
Virgin most renowned, pray for us.
Virgin most powerful, pray for us.
Virgin most mercifiil, pray for us.
Virgin most fiiithftil, pray for us.
Mirror of Justice, pray for us.
Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.
Cause of our Joy, pray for us.
Spiritual Vessel, pray for us,  ___^
• Mission Book, p. 169. N. T., 1866.
t "The Gar =len of the Soul," p. 296. London, t Id., p. 2«7-«

320 PRAYERS TO MARY.
Vessel of Honor, pray for us.
Vessel of singular Devotion, pray for us.
Mystical Rose, pray for us.
Tower of David, pray for ua.
Tower of Ivory, pray for us.
House of Gold, pray for us.
Ark of the Covenant, pray for us.
Gate of Heaven, pray for us.
Morning Star, pray for us.
Health of the Weak, pray for us.
Refuge of Sinners, pray for us.
Comforter of the Afflicted, pray for us.
Help of Christians, pray for us.
Queen of Angels, pray for us.
Queen of Patriarchs, pray for us.
Queen of Prophets, pray for us.
Queen of Apostles, pray for us.
Queen of Martyrs, pray for us.
Queen of Confessors, pray for us.
Queen of Virgins, pray for us.
Queen of All Saints, pray for us,"
Language is exhausted in applying titles to Mary, pilfered from
her divine Son, Not in any tongue used by mortals has such a
list of impious compliments been given to a woman living or dead.
Nor has any religion or superstition ever showered such praises
upon a female divinity. Every sentence is but the prayer :
" Come, then, our advocate,
O turn on us those pitying eyes of thine ;
And our long exile past.
Show us at last
Jesus, of thy pure womb the fruit divine j
O Virgin Maty, mother blest !
O sweetest, gentlest, holiest ! "
Mary and Eve, the Authors of Sin and Salvation,
The Rev, M, Hobart Seymour, an Episcopal clergyman, spent
Bome time in Rome at the period when Puseyism threatened to

THE VIRGIN MORE MERCIFUL THAN JESUS, 321
cariy the Cluiroh of England into the arms of the " Scarlet Lady ;"
and as it was assumed in Rome that he was there to join the
Church of the Dark Ages, provided some difficulties were
explained, certain Professors of the Collegio Romano, of the order
of Jesuits, visited him repeatedly to remove his objections. One of
these Jesuits declared to him, * " That as it was a woman brought
in sin, so a woman was to bring in holiness ; that as a woman
brought in death, so a woman was to bring in life ; that as Eve
brought in dissolution, so Mary was to bring in salvation ; that as
we regard Eve as the first sinner, so we are to regard Mary as the
first Sariour ; the one as the author of sin, the other as the
author of its remedy,"
The ^'irgin More Merdful than her Son.
One of these professors declared that the " feeling was uni
versal among Romanists that the Virgin Mary was more merciful,
more gentle, and more ready to hear than Christ," f On another
page the same doctrine is taught by one of these Jesuits : " It is
I he opinion of many of the fathers that God hears our prayers
more quickly when they are offered through the blessed Virgin
than when offered through any one else," And again : " Many
of the fethers were of the opinion that even Christ himself
was not so •willing to hear our prayers, and did not hear them
so quickly, when offered simply to himself, as when they were
offered through the blessed Virgin," And again, the professor
says : " The Romanists feel that Mary is altogether of their own
nature, and that this insures a more perfect sympathy, so as to
make Maty more accessible than Christ; and this feeling leads
them to pray -with more frequency, as well as with more eonfidence
to Mary than to Christ." The Two Ladders to Heaven.
St, Bernard had a vision once, in which he beheld two ladders
extending from earth to heaven. J At the top of one ladder the
Saviour appeared ; and Mary at the top of the other ; those tty-
•* "Mornings among the Jesuits," p. 44. N. T., 1849.
t Id., pp 48, 49, 102, 106. X Id , p. 56.
21

322 A CURIOUS TRINITY.
ing to enter heaven by Christ's ladder were constantly tumbling
down, and meeting with perpetual failures ; those who attempted
to reach the skies by Mary's always succeeded, for she put forth
her hands to assist them. Seymour says : * "I saw this as an
altar-piece (a picture of it) in a church at Milan — none succeeding
by the Saviour's ladder, none failing by the Virgin's."
The Triangular Trinity.
In the Baptistcty of Parma there is a representation of the
Trinity. At the top of a triangle is the Father ; at the two
angles of the base are the Son and Mary ; the two arms of the
Father resting on the heads of the Son and Maty, form the legs
of the triangle ; while the arms of the Son, extended to the head
of Mary, form the base. The Sacristan called it the Trinity of
the Father, Son and Virgin, f
Four Persons in the Godhead.
Seymour quotes from Meyrick's " Working of the Church ui
Spain," the form of doxology admired in that coimtry : |
" Gloty be to the Father,
Glory be to the Son,
Gloty be to the Holy Ghost,
Glory be to the most Holy Virgin,
Throughout all ages, forever and ever. Amen."
The Chief Source of St. Mary's Merits.
To have had such a Son as Jesus is the common basis of Mary's
claim to the peculiar respect of our race ; but the Jesuits of the
Collegio Romano have discovered another foundation for these
merits. "Assuredly," says one of them, " there was merit in the
sufferings undergone by the blessed Virgin in gimng birth to the child
Jesus. There was no necesdty whatever; no reason whatever why
she should have subjected hersdf to them; and therefore her having
¦• " Mornings among the Jesuits," p. 56. N. Y., 1849.
\ Seymour's " Evenings with the Romanists," p. 258. N. Y., 1856,
t Id., p. 256.

THE GOSPEL OP MARY IN ITALY. 323
actually undergone such sufferings, was meritorious.* She had
some claim upon God for it," Here the doctrine is that maternity
inflicted on Mary without her consent gave merit to her enforced
sufferings. If so, then every case of compelled maternity has
overflowing merit to blot out the sins of others, even when the
mother is a heathen.
The Rdigion of Italy, the Gospd of Mary, not the Dispensation
of Jesus.
The intelligent observer already quoted confirms the universal
testimony of travellers who have visited Italy about the extent of
Maty worship. He says :t " The whole devotional system of the
Church of Rome, the prayers unceasingly offered to the Virgin, the
innumerable pictures of the Virgin, the countless images of the
Virgin, the many churches dedicated to the Virgin, the universal
devotion rendered to the Virgin, the manner in which all the
services and prayers of the church and people are impregnated with
thoughts of the Virgin, the extent to which, in conversation, all
classes went, in speaking of the Virgin, all had impressed me with
the feeling that the religion of Italy ought to be called : The reli
gion of the Virgin Mary, and not the religion of Jesus Christ."
" If I enter the church of the Augustines, I see there an image
of the Virgin Mary as large as life. Some are decking her with
jewels as votive offerings; some are suspending pictures around
as memorials of thankfulness ; some are placing money in a box
at her feet ; some are devoutly kisdng her fed and touching them
vnth thdr foreheads ; some are prostrate in p-ofound devotion before
her; some are repeating the rosary before her; all are turning
their backs upon the consecrated host ; upon that which the priest
is elevating upon the high altar, and which he and they devoutly
believe to be Jesus Christ Himself bodily and visibly among them;
turning thdr backs upon Christ and thdr faces upon Mary, prac
tically forsaking Christ for Mary, with a prostration the most
profound before her image — a prostration that was never surpassed
in the days of heathen Rome, and can never be justinea m
Christian Rome," J
• "Mornings among the Jesuits," p. 192. N. T., 1849. f M., p. 107,
t Id., p. 55-6.

324 THE COUNCIL OF TRENT AND MARY,
And one of these Jesuits told Mr, and Mrs. Seymour,* '' Thai
the devotion to the Virgin was very popular ; that latterly it had
become increasingly so, and that he knew many facts that
proved it a growing devotion among all classes. He mentioned
the frequency with which he hears the poor and simple people
praying to the Virgin, singing hymns to her pictures, at the corners
of the streets early in the morning, appealing to her for protection
in times of danger ; and he narrated an instance of a little child
appealing to the Virgin whose piety so touched his heart that a
tear glistened in his eye as he told the incident,"
This Devotion rests upon the highest Authority.
The Council of Trent gave birth to modern Romanism ; ite
decisions have greater weight in the Papal Church than passages
of Scripture, The fathers of Trent had two classes of decrees to
which they gave their sanction, the first originated with themselves,
the second was made up of bulls, and commandments of other and
commonly inferior synods. The Council of Trent in its fifth
session, in its article on "Original Sin," adopted the following
from a decree of Sixtus IV. : f " When we investigate with the
scrutiny of devout consideration the exalted insignia of the merits
with which the Queen of the heavens, the glorious Virgin mother
of God, advanced to the celestial dwellings, shining amidst the
constellations as the morning star, and revolve beneath the secrets
of our breast, that she herself as the path of mercy, the mother of
grace, and the friend of piety, the consoler of the human race, the
eedulous and vigilant advocate of the salvation of the faithful,
who are oppressed by the load of their offences, intercedes with the
King whom she has brought forth . , , , that thereby they may
* Seymour's "Mornings among the Jesuits," p. 55-6. N. T., 1849.
t Quum prseexcelsa meritorum insignia, quibus regina ccelorum, Virgo Dei
jenetrix gloriosa, sedibus praelata sethereis, sideribus quasi Stella matutina
perrutilans, devotae considerationis indagine perscrutamur, et infra pectoris
jircana revolvimus, quod ipsa, utpote ¦oia misericordim, mater gratim, et pieta-
ila arnica, Tiumani generis eonsolatrix, pro salute fldelium, qui delictorum
jnere gravantur, sedula oratrix et pervigil ad regem quem genuit, intercedit . . ,
»t exindefiant ejusdemVirginis meritis et intercessione divinm gratim aptiorea.
—Canones d De'^eta Cone. Trid., p. 260. Lipsise, 1863.

GREGORY XVI, AND MARY, 325
become more fit for divine grace by the merits and inici cession of
the same Virgin." Here Mary is the path of mercy, the mother
of grace, the consoler of the human race, with merits and interces
sion to qualify men for divine grace; and that, by the decree of
the authoritative Council of Trent.
The Catechism of the Cotoiri! of Trent,
Speaks with equal significance : * " Therefore, we, exiled sons of
Eve, who inhabit this vale of tears, ought assiduously to invoke
the Mother of Mercy, and the advocate of the faithful people, that
she might pray for us sinners, and that from her, in prayer, we
might implore aid and assistance ; for no one, unless impiously and
wickedly, can doubt but that she has the most surpassing merits
mth God, and the highest desire to assist the hun an race."
G)-ego7y XVI, in 1832,
Says, in his Encyclical Letter, published Augu t 15th of that
year : f " But that all things may have a prosperous and happy
issue, let us raise our eyes and hands to the most holy Virgin
Mary, who only destroys all heresies, who is our greatM hope ; yea,
the entire ground of our hope."
Such is the position occupied by that modest, unassuming
woman, who gave birth to Jesus, in the Church of Rome. She is
adored ¦with a worship of the loftiest order ; she is venerated by
many milKons who neglect her Son and his Father. She is at this
moment the great divinity of the papal world. Nor is there a
doubt but that she would denounce this impious idolatry if she
were on earth, and drive her images and worshippers from every
Christian temple.
* Ergo nos exules filii Bvse, qui hanc lacrymarum vallem incolimus, assidue
misericordise matrem ac fidelis populi advocatam invocare debemus, ut oret
pro nobis peccatoribus : ab eaque hac prece opem et auxilium implorare,
cujus et prsestantissima merita apud Deum esse, et sumraam voluntatem
juvandi humanum genus, nemo, nisi impie etnefarie, dubitare potest. — Oate
chismus Oonc. Trid., pars iv. cap. vi. quest. 8, p. 405. Lipsise, 1865.
t Sed ut omnia hsec prospere et feliciter eveniant, levemus oculosque manus
ad sanctissimam Virginem Mariam, quse sola universas hsereaes interemit,
nosirague maxima flducia, imo, tola ratio est apei nosirce.-- Elliott's Delinea
tions of Bomanism p. 754, London, 1851.

326 THE saviour's opinion of HIS MOTHER.
Not one Prayer was ever addressed to Mary when living, nor wa*
any Worship ever offered her.
While her Son lived on earth, she was respected by his followers,
simply as the mother of the Baptist, or any other godly woman was
esteemed. After his death, there is nothing in the sacred records
about her; nor is there one single instance, in the NewTedament,
of reverence, veneration, dulia, hyperdulia, or latria given to Maty,
Romish prayer-books are full of petitions to the Virgin; the
Scriptures are absolutely silent about any supolications to and
worship of the Saviour's mother.

The Lord rebukes his Mother for interfering vnth his
At the marriage of Cana, when the wine failed, Mary, concerned
for the honor of the family, told Jesus, and undoubtedly hinted to
him the propriety of performing a miracle. According to the
Vulgate, the only Bible recognized by the Council of Trent, the
Saviour answered : * " What is it to me and thee, woman ? my
hour is not yet come," The use of the word " woman " by the
Saviour, does not lead one to think that he regarded her as " queen
of heaven," His answer to her is a refusal, coupled with an inti
mation that she was ignorant of the time when he should assume
his divine authority before men.
The Samour decides that every one who does his Father's Will is the
equal of his Mother.
On one occasion, it was announced to Jesus, that his mother and
brethren were without, and wished to speak to him : the Saviour's
reply, according to the Vulgate, was : f " Who is my mother, and
who are my brothers ? and, extending his hand to his disciples, he
said : Behold my mother and my brothers ; for whosoever shall do
* Quid mihi et tibi est, mulier ? Nondum venit bora mea. — John u. 4,
Vulg., edita et recognila jussu Sixt. V. et Clem. VIII. London, 1846.
f Quse est mater mea, et qui sunt fratres mei ? et extendens manum in dis-
cipulos suos, dixit; Ecce mater mea, et fratres mei. Quicunque enim fecerit
voluntatem Patris mei, qui in coelis est, ipse mens frater, et soror, et mater
est — Matt. xii. 48, 49, 50, Vulg., edita et recognila jussu Sixt. V. et Clem-
VIII. L'>ndon, 1846,

THE saviour's OPINION OF HIS MOTHER. 327
the ¦will of my Father, who is in the heavens, he is my brother and
sisto- and mother." He refuses to go and speak with the " refuge of
sinners, the comfortress of the afflicted," and he makes the declina
ture publicly, as if to show that even his mother must not interfere
with him in discharging the duties he owes his Father. And he
immediately rebukes the idea that his mother was any more to him,
as the Great Teacher, than any other disciple ; whosoever does his
Father's will is dear to him, and powerful with him, as " brother,
sister and mother,"
The Saviour declares that there is a greater Distindion on earth
than that of bring his Mother.
On one occasion, while he was speaking, a delighted woman,
most probably a mother, exclaimed, according to the Vulgate: *
" Blessed is the womb which bare thee, and the breasts which thou
hast sucked ; and he said : Nay, rather, they are blessed who hear
the w^ord of God, and keep it," This woman properly pronounced
Mary blessed for gi^ving birth to the Redeemer, But the Saviour,
while admitting that Mary had a blessing in being his mother, de
clares that the hearing and keeping of the word of God was a
greater honor — a happier distinction. And if the inferior honor
justifies the worship of Mary, on the same principle higher worship
should be given to all who hear God's word and keep it. But we
very much fear that if this rule was observed, most of the present
Catholic saints would be discarded, and millions of godly persons,
who were never inside a Romish Church, would have thdr images put
in Catholic shrines, and prayers and devotions presented to them —
because they heard GOD'S WORD AND KEPT IT, instead of
observing the traditions of men,
A woman so deaf that she can hear nothing, has a powerful son,
persons are ignorant of her deafness, and anxious for the favor of
the mighty son ; they seek the intercession of his deaf mother. But
though they plead earnestly, they appeal to her in vain ; she cannot
hear them. In regard to all earthly prayers and devotions, Mary
is a deaf woman ; she cannot hear. She knows nothing of all the
words addressed to her.
* Beatus venter, qui te portavit, et ubera, quse suxisti ; at ille dixit : Qui-
nimo, beati, qui audiunt verbum Dei, et custodiunt illud. — Luke xi. 27, 28,
Vulgate. London. 1846.

THE WORSHIP OF IMAGES.
Du Pin declares that : " In the first three centuries, yea, and in
the beginning of the fourth, images were very scarce among Chris
tians, Towards the end of the fourth century they began, especi
ally in the East, to make pictures and images ; and they grew very
common in the fifth ; they represented in them the conflicts of
martyrs and sacred histories to instruct those who could not read.
Those of the simpler sort, moved by these representations, could
not forbear expressing the esteem, respect, and veneration they had
for those represented therein. Thus was image worship estab
lished,"* " There is no doubt when paganism was the prevailing religion,
but that it would have been dangerous for Christians to have had
images, because they might have given occasion of idolatry to those
just reclaimed from it ; and they might have given the pagans
reason to object to Christians, that they had, and worshipped idols
as they did ; therefore it was fitting that there should be no images
in those first ages, especially in churches, and that there should be no
worship paid them."*
This statement is truthful, and for a friend of image worship,
estremely candid. The practice became general over the East,
but was unknown in England, France, and Germany, though in
these Western nations the worship of relics was universal.
In A, D, 730, Leo the Isaurian issued an imperial edict ordering
images to be removed out of the churches and sacred places, com
manding them to be thrown into the fire, and inflicting penalties
upon those who ventured to disobey him. The decree was gener
ally executed in the East, though it excited a great amount of in
dignation. » Du P"-, vol. ii. p. 42, Dublin, 1724.
328

IMAGE WORSHIP. 329
Constantine Copronymus, the son and successor of I *o, assem
bled a council of 338 bishops at Constantinople, A. D. 754, to
complete the work of his father.* They showed the sternest oppo
sition to the worship of images of Christ, and of the saints ; they
denounced it as a taint of heathenism, condemned by the Scrip
tures, and by such fathers as Chrysostom and Athanasius; and
they forbade the use of all images in private houses or churches.
The effort of Constantine seemed to be successful, that is, it con
trolled the public acts of his subjects, but evidently failed to carry
their consciences along ¦with it.
The Empress Irene was instrumental in calling a council,
which permanently settled the controversy in favor of the worship
of images ; though quietness did not immediately fall upon the
excited passions of men,t Her synod met first at Constantinople
A. D. 786, but was scattered by military violence ; it assembled
afterwards A. d, 787, at Nice, It numbered 350 bishops, and
passed a number of argumentative and idolatrous decrees in favor
of the worship of images. And as this synod gave shape to all
subsequent views and conflicts about images, we present a portion
of one of its celebrated decrees.
" We X therefore as is aforesaid, honor and salute, and honorably
worship the holy and venerable images, that is to say, the image
of the humanity of our Great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and
of our immaculate lady, and holy Mother of God, of whom he was
pleased to be made flesh, and to save and turn us away from
impious love of idols ; and the forms and representations of the
holy and incorporeal angels, for they also appeared to the righteous
as men ; in like manner of the divine apostles, worthy of all praise,
* Perceval, "On the Roman Schism," p. 77. London, 1836. f I<J-) P' 79.
XTaiita; Si tdi ti/j-ia; xai aerttdi fixova;, xa9Jj; Tfpojtpjj-fai, tifiufifv xai
dffrtafo^f^a, xai tifiritixoj^ XpoaxwovficV tovtinti, fijv tov fiiydxov Bfov xai
Siotrjpo; ij/iii* 'itjaov Xpisroij ivav9pio7iriaia( cixova, xai frji ajjpOfroti StuHoivrif
ri/ii^v xai rtava/ylai 9eot6xov, i% iji avtoi tjiSoxvai eapxu9iivat,, xai tjutrat xai
axaXXd^ai, 'ijfiaf rta-jiji Sveaiftovf iCSioXonaviai' Twi/ ti wyiwv xai aeufidtM
6/yyixi^V xai av9paytoi, yap toic, Sixoiotj ivi^avia9ri<iav. O^otco; It xai t^t
9fiuv xai TCa/vtv^-^fiav artoatoXav, tuv dcrjyopojv rtpo^rjtav, xai aS^o^idpuK ^apfv-
puv, xai oaiuv dvSpuiv ta; /top'jxij xai tixovia^ata. — ConC, 'vil. 322. Labbe ind
Cossart Pa^s, 1671-3.

330 IMAGES.
and of the inspired prophets, of the victorious martyrs, and of holy
men." 
This was the doctrine of Adrian, then pope, and the decisions
of the council were speedily received in Italy ; but in France,
Charlemagne opposed them with the greatest vehemence, and had
a work prepared by the famous Alcuin, and issued in his name,
denouncing the adoration of images. He did not object to their
presence in churches, but the worship demanded for them by the
second synod of Nice was an intolerable iniquity. He sent the
book to the pope by Angilbert his embassador ; and His holiness
replied to the work of Alcuin.
Charlemagne against Images.
Whatever ridiculous distinction Rome has tried to recognize
between the worship of images and that of God, a distinction
which first appears in the decrees of the second Council of Nice,
Charlemagne only saw in these idolatrous edicts: "adoration,
worship." His book says of the prelates of the second Council
of Nice : " The bishops of this synod order images to be adored ; ''
" Whenever they find images spoken of either in the Scriptures or
in the writings of the fathers, they conclude from them that they
ought to be worshipped." * " Let us," adds he, " adore God alone."
He declares that " miracles performed by images are no proof that
they should be adored, for then thorn bushes should be adored,
because God spake to Moses out of a burning bush ; fringes should
be adored because Jesus Christ healed the woman who touched
the fringe of his garment; and shadows too, because St, Peter's
shadow wrought miracles," The whole controversy between
Charlemagne and the pope and council was based on the worship
of images. He honored them so far as to permit them to remain
in the churches. He would not worship them. The pope and
second council insisted that they should be adored, and cursed
all who did not worship them, f And the empire of Charlemagne
and the Christian world, in process of time, followed Irene, Pope
A.drian, and the second Synod of Nice.
* Dn Pin, vol. ii. pp. 39, 40, 41.
"{"Ot jxri oiVcj; J'^'o^-ffj dvd9c^a eatioaav. — Conc. vii. 318. Labbe and Cos
Bart. Paris 1671-2.

IMAGES. 331
Nothing could be more untruthful or pernicious than the princi
ple upon which the bishops of the Deutero-Nicene Council justified
their idolatry. "He, who worsliips the figure," said the council,
"worships the substance of that which is represented by it."*
According to this theory every heathen in the world could plead
exemption from the charge of idol-worship under the pretence that
he adored the great God represented by a statue of Jupiter, or by
tJie shining sun. Myriads have worshipped images in Christian
churches without exercising a thought beyond the figure itself.
And they have reverenced one image, rather than another repre
senting the same adored one, because of some special virtue sup
posed to dwell in that particular image.
Other Catholic Autlwrities copy the exad Spirit, if not the Letter,
of the Deutero-Nicene Synod.
The Council of Trent says : f " Moreover the images of Christ,
of the Virgin mother of God, and of the other saints are to be
had and retained particularly in temples, and that due honor and
veneration are to be awarded them ; not that any divinity or
virtue is in them on account of which they are to be worshipped ;
or that anything is to be asked of them, or that confidence is to be
reposed in images as was of old done by the Gentiles, who place
their hope in idols ; but because the honor which is shown unto
them is referred to the prototype which they represent,"
Creed of Pope Pius IV.
"I most firmly assert, that the images of Christ, of the
Mother of God, ever virgin, and also of other saints, ought to be

* 'O Ttpoaxvvuv triv lixova, rtpoBxvvEi iv aiifrj toi lyypa4io^£'>'Oii frjv inoataOLv.
—Cone. vii. 556. Labbe and Cossart. Paris, 1671-2.
t Imagines porro Christi, deiparse Virginis et aliorum sanctorum in templis
prsesertim habendas et retinendas, eisque debitum honorem et venerationem
impertiendam, non quod credatur inesse aliqua in lis divinitas vel virtus,
propter quam sint colendse, vel quod ab eis sit aliquid petendum, vel quod
fiducia in imaginibus sit figenda, veluti olim fiebat a gentibus, quse in idolis
spem suam collacabant ; sed quoniam honos, qui eis exhibetur refertur ad
prototypa quse illse representant.— Careoraes et Decreta Conc Trid., sess. xxv,
p. 174. Lipsiae 1863.

332 IMAGES.
had and retained, and that due honor and veneration are to be
given them," * Catechism of the Cowndl of Trent.
" Moreover it is not only lawful to have images in the Church
and to pay them honor and worship," \ 
Such, then, are the fundamental laws for the government of the
Papal Church about the worship of images. From the very start,
it was not mere honor to the pictures or statues of saints ; Char
lemagne was willing to render that ; it was veneration, adoration,
the burning of incense, worship.
To promote the worship of images, wonderful prodigies were
narrated about them, A Statue of Jesus bleeds.
In A. D, 561, a Jew,t by stealth, carried off a statue of Christ,
out of a church, and having brought it unobserved to his house, he
pierced it with a dart ; and, as he was going to burn it in the fire,
he found himself bathed in blood which flowed from the wounded
image. Greatly terrified, he changed his mind, and concealed the
wonderful wood. The Christians sought for it, and found it by
means of the traces of blood, and recovered it, stained with gore.
They subsequently stoned the Jew for his impiety.
An Image of Jesus speaks.
At a celebrated synod § convened by St, Dunstan, at Winchester,
in the heat of a violent discussion, the image of the Lord, in the
church, close to the disputants, spoke distinctly : " Expressing
such opinions as rendered the secular clergy dumb,"

* Assero firmiter, imagines Christi ac deiparse semper virginis, nee non
aliorum sanctorum, habendas et retinendas esse, atque eis debitum honorem
ac venerationem impertiendam. — Canones et Decreta Conc. Trid., sess. xxv.
p. 228. Lipsise, 1863.
f Non solum autem licere in ecclesia imagines habere, et illis honorem et
Ciltnm adliibere. — Oatechismus Conc. Trid., quest. 24, p. 307. Lipsise 1865.
i JIatt. of Wpsfminster, at a. r>. 561. § Id., at A. d. 975.

IMAGES. 333
An Image of the Virgin ivwks Prodigies.
At Sardeiiai,* six miles from Damascus, a. d. 1204, there lived
a venerable nun, who sadly lamented the fact tliat she had no
image of the Virgin to show her features when she offered up her
prayers, A certain monk promised to bring her an image or pic
ture of Maiy from Jerusalem, He forgot his promise ; and, as he
started out of Jerusalem, a voice from heaven said to him : " Where
is the image thou didst promise to take to the nun ? " He felt re
buked, and immediately returned and procured the image. As he
left the holy city again and came to Gith, a fierce lion, accustomed
to eat men, came to meet him and licked his feet. Afterwards,
robbers came forth to assail him, but the voice of an angel rebuked
them, and frightened them away. Seeing the power of the im<ige,
he concluded he would keep it ; and he went to sea to reach his
home, but a violent storm compelled all on board to cast their
goods into the sea ; and as he was about to throw his baggage into
the ocean, an angel forbade him, and said : " Lift the image up
towards the Lord ;" he obeyed, and immediately there was a calm.
He took it as quickly as possible to the nun, who erected a suitable
house for such a wonderful figure, and forthwith it began to drip
oil, and it never ceased sending it forth from that time. Then the
linage formed breasts of flesh, and below them it was covered with
flesh. This image performed great numbers of miracles; and,
among other marvels, it gave sight to the blind Sultan of Da
mascus, who prostrated himself in prayer before it. " The image
then began to be greatly revered by all, and every one admired the
great and wonderfiil works of God in it,"
The Bambino.
The Bambino is an image of the child Jesus carved out of a
tree that grew on Mount Olivet, and painted by St, Luke while
the artist was asleep ; it is an ugly-looking babcf The church
Ara Coeli contains this celebrated image. Its miracles are famous
all over Rome, and especially at the birth of children. On these

? Matt. Paria, at a. d. 1204.
+ " Echoea of Europe," pp. 407, 480. Philada., 1860.

334 AN IMAGE OF JESUS IN ST, SALVADOR.
occasions, it visits mothers in a carriage, and " gets more fees than
any physician," A traveller, writing in 1860, says : " It is carried
about in procession by a company of priests, and attended by a
band of soldiers with music, the people kneeling, and esteeming it
a great happiness to get a glimpse of it. It looks extremely like
gross idolatry."
Seymour,* in 1851, says that the Bambino gives an exhibition
of detestable idol worship, " When the priest elevates the wooden
doll, the thousands which cover the slope and bottom of the mount,
fall prostrate, and nothing is heard but the low sounds of prayer
addressed to the image," An Old Statue of Jesus.
In the church of St, Salvador there is an ancient image of Jesus,
It has a wig on its head, its face looks black and disfigured, its
features are so indistinct that you are not certain which sex it is
intended to represent ; it is located in a small chapel behind the
choir. This image can work great miracles. When any public
calamity is threatened it is always ready. And as a consequence
it enjoys the devout worship and the warm love of the whole
people for many miles around. When rain is needed so badly
that the harvest is threatened, a day is fixed to take out the cru
cifix attended by its friends. The procession is composed of the
priests, friars and devout people, with visible marks of penance.
The archbishop, viceroy and magistrates assist in robes of mourn
ing. Twelve priests dressed in black, take the crucifix on their
shoulders; and wherever the procession moves the crucifix is
adored as if its wooden Jesus was the very flesh and blood of the
Son of God, It is naively added, that "The image is never taken
out but when there is great want of rain, and when there is sure
appearance of plenteous rain ; so they are never disappointed in
having a miracle published after such a procession." f
The Image of Our Lady of Pilar.
It is said the Apostle James came with seven converts to Sara-
gossa in Spain ; and as they were sleeping one night on the river
• Seymour'a " Pilgrimage to Rome," p. 288. London, 1851.
* Gavin's "Master Key to Popery," pp. 205-6. Cincinnati, 1883,

THE MIRACULOUS PICTURE OP ST. MARY MAGGIORE, 335
Ebro, an army of angels awoke them at midnight, and gave them
an image of the Virgin Queen of Heaven on a pillar, by whose
aid they should conquer the city for their Saviour, They built a
chapel for her. This image performs great and continuous prodi
gies, and enjoys the rapturous admiration of worshipping hosts.
It is contrived by having the wall broke backwards that a piece
of the pillar as big as two cro^wn pieces is shown, which is set
out in gold round about, and kings and other people kneel
down to adore, and kiss that part of the stone. There is always
so great a crowd of people that many times they cannot kiss the
pillar ; in that case they touch it with one of their fingers, and
kiss the part which touched the pillar.
It is said this chapel was never empty since the Apostle James
built it. The noble, the sons of toil, the profligate, the devout,
alike revere the image of our Lady of Pilar. *
In the church of St. Maty Maggiore, in Rome, there is a cele
brated picture of the Virgin Mary, invested -with perpetual power
to work miracles, f This picture was carried in procession through
the Eternal City to remove the cholera ; and Gregory XVL, the
immediate predecessor of Pius IX., walked barefooted with the
idolatrous throng who, forgetting God in their day of calamity,
appealed to the wonder-working picture of a woman.
In Catholic countries image-worship is universal, and whatever
theoretical distinctions are made between latria, hyperdulia and
dulia, the great body of worshippers know no difference between
the worship of an image and the worship of God,
The Catholic Church removes the Second Commandment from
some of her Books of Devotion.
This is one of the most extraordinaty steps ever taken by any
Christian community, one of the most audacious usurpations ever
attempted. The second commandment is : " Thou shalt not make
unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in
heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the
water under the earth ; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them,
nor serve them ; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God."
* Gavin's " Master Key to Popery," p. 208. Cincinnati, 1888,
t "Mornings among the Jesuits," p. 88. N. Y., 1849.

336 CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE SECOND COMMANDMENT.
This commandment prohibits the manufacture of idols, kneeling
to them, and all religious service to them. While the other com
mandments are received, this one is expunged from the decalogue,
and to possess ten commandments, the last one is divided ; and its
parts form the ninth and tenth, while the third commandment
becomes the second. This act is almost incredible ; and yet it is
sustained by the unbending logic of facts.
The " Mission Book " is a prayer-book of great popularity in
the Catholic Church, " It is drawn chiefly from the works of
St. Alphonsus Liguori." * It bears the following testimonial and
approval from the late Archbishop Hughes : " The Mission Book
has received the commendation of many distinguished prelates in
Europe, as a work eminently fitted for the instruction of the
faithful, and the promotion of solid piety.  1- John, Archbishop
of New York, September 8th, 1853,"
" It has had a wide circulation , , , , particularly in Austria,
Bohemia, Belgium, Holland, and France. Thousands of Catho
lics in this country within a few years past, have found this little
book next to the Mission itself a most precious and efficacious
means of grace." * With a view to preparation for confession
the Mission Book recommends an examination on the ten com
mandments, and gives questions under each for the penitent. Here
are its ten commandments : f First.
" I am the Lord thy God, Thou shalt not have strange gods
uefore me," etc. The Second Commandment.
" Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy Grod in vain."
The Third Commandment,
" Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day."
The Fourth Commandment.
" Honor thy father and thy mother."
• Preface to Mission Book. N. Y., 1866,
t Mission Book, pp. 304r-14. N. Y., 1866.

THE SECOND COMMANDMENT BLOTTED OUT. 337
The Fifth Commandment.
« Thou shalt not kill." The Sixth CommandmenL
" Thou shalt not commit adultety."
The Seventh CommandmenL
« Thou shalt not steal."
The Fjighth Commandment,
" Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."
The Ninth Commandment,
" Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife."
The Tenth Commandment,
" Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods."
After the first commandment is given by the authors of the
work, they place "etc," outside the quotation marks, sho^wing
that etc, is no part of the first commandment. What it is in
tended to represent we cannot tell. But no portion of the second
commandment in any form is in the Mission Book of St. Alphon
sus Liguori. The same prayer-book contains " The little Cate
chism ; " * and it presents another version of the ten command
ments :
" 1. One God alone, for evermore
By &ith, and hope, and love adore.
2. Thou shalt not take his name in vain.
3. The Lord's day thou shalt not profane.
4. Honor thy father, and thy mother.
5. Thou shalt not hurt, nor hate thy brother.
6. Thou shalt do no adultery.
7. Thou shalt not steal,
8. Thou shalt not lie,
* Mission Book, p. 260. N. Y., 1866,
22

338 THE SECOND COMMANDMENT ABOLISHED.
9, Thou shalt have no impure desire
10, Nor to thy neighbor's goods aspire,"
In no way does this prayer-book, " so widely circulated," re
cognize the second commandment ; while it mutilates and di^vides
the tenth to obtain a substitute for the expunged second.
The " Key of Heaven," * another well-known Catholic prayer-
book, recommended by Archbishop Hughes, makes precisely the
same changes in the decalogue, and utterly ignores the command
ment forbidding the manufacture and worship of graven images.
One distinguished writer on the papal controversy says : " In
the ordinary catechisms used in Great Britain by Roman Ca
tholics the second commandment is expunged from the decalogue,
and the tenth is split into two to preserve the number of ten," f
Another author, who had made a very extensive examination of
catechisms, says : " Here there are twenty-nine catechisms in use
in Rome and in Italy, France, Belgium, Austria, Bavaria, Silesia,
Poland, Ireland, England, Spain, and Portugal, and in twenty-
seven of them the second commandment is totally omitted; in two
it is mutilated, and only a portion expressed," J
Nor is there any difference between the Vulgate version of this
commandment and our own to justify this extraordinary procedure.
The Catholic translation into English faithfully renders it : "Thou
shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any
thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of
those things that are in the waters under the earth ; thou shalt
not adore them, nor serve them," §
But where Roman Catholics have no Bible they are ignorant of
any such divine prohibition of image worship. Belcher quotes a
missionary at Malta whose teacher, an Italian, observed the ten
commandments in a tract on his table one morning, and imme-
* " Key of Heaven," p. 182. N. Y., 1851.
t "The Papacy," by J. A. Wylie, p. 360. Edinburgh, 1852,
X " Novelties of Romanism," by Charles H. Collet, p. 96. London : Re
ligious Tract Society.
§ Non facies tibi sculptile, neque omnem similitudinem quse eat in ccelo
desuper, et quse in terra deorsum, nee eorum quse sunt in aquia sub terra ;
non adorabis ea, neque coles. — Exodus xx. 4, 5, Vulg., edita et reeognita
ivaau Sixt. V. et. Clem. VIII. London, 1846.

THE SECOND COMMANDMENT REGARDED AS AN ENEMY, 339
diately expressed great surprise at the second, and asked if it was
a part of the decalogue, Mr, Temple, the missionary, showed
him this commandment in Martini's translation of the Vulgate.
As he read it in a work authorized by the pope, he exclaimed : " I
have lived fifty years ; I have been publicly educated in Italy, but
till this hour I never knew that such a command was written in
the pages of the Bible." *
It is in the solemn prohibitions of Sinai, and no earthly autho
rity can remove it from the place assigned it by the Almighty
Jehovah, And while it is unrepealed, the worship of any image
is an act of forbidden idolatry ; more detestable in one claiming to
be a Christian than in any devotee of heathenism.
And of its hatefiilness to the God of the Bible, the compilers
of the " Mission Book " and of other " Manuals of Worship,"
and of various catechisms, are fiilly aware ; and for this reason
alone they blot it out of the ten commandments, that it may not
condemn the degraded adoration rendered to images, which their
worship so constantly exhibits,
• " Facts on Popery," by Belcher. Philada., 1845.

PAPAL INFALLIBILITY AND THE COUNCIL OF 1870.
Of all the vain delusions ever darting through the disordered
minds of lunatics, or the sober intellects of wise men, nothing
quite equals the insane doctrine of papal infallibility. Its promul
gation in the nineteenth century is a miracle, an event as much
beyond the laws of mind, of common sense, as the resurrection
of Lazarus, when four days dead, was an occurrence beyond the
laws of nature. What is the Infallibility of the Pope f
Archbishop Manning quotes with approval the definition of
infallibility given b) Liguori :
" When the pope speaks as universal doctor, ex cathedra (from
the seat), that is, by the supreme authority to teach the Church,
delivered to Peter, in deciding controversies of faith and morals,
he is altogdher infallible." *
Perhaps a more distinct definition of the dogma is given by
Bishop Cornelio Musso, of Bitonto, in a sermon preached in Rome,
in which he says : " What the pope utters we must receive as
though spoken by God himsdf. In divine things we hold him to
be God ; in matters of feith I had rather believe one pope than a
thousand Augustines, Jeromes, or Gregorys." f
This is precisely what is meant by the infallibility of the pope,
though it is not commonly so frankly expressed. To err is
human, is an attribute of all humanity, but in the concerns of
faith and morals his Holiness does not err, therefore, in these rela
tions he ij God,
* "Vatican Council," by Archbishop Manning, p. 69. N. T., 1871.
t Condones in Ep. ad Rom., p. 606, quoted m " The Pope and Council,"
p. 810. Boaton 1870
340

WICKED POPES. 341
The Absurdity of Infallibility in the light of Biography.
Pope John XIL, a youthful pontiff, reigned A. d. 956 ; he
perjured himself. And when the Emperor sent embassadors to
inquire into his treachery, the Romans informed them that he car
ried on a criminal intimacy ¦with Rainera, a soldier's widow, and
that he presented her with crosses and chalices belonging to St,
Peter's, and the government of several cities ; that he protected
another lady, named Stephanie, who lately died in childbirth ; that
he Kved in the Lateran palace with a sister of Stephanie, one of
his father's ladies ; that women were afraid to visit the tombs of
the apostles at Rome ; and that within a few days he had employed
violence to married women, widows, and virgins,* This was the
character of infallible John, who could not err in morals.
Benedict IX, became pope at eighteen, in A, d, 1033, A faction
in Rome, unable to bear the daily rapines, murders and abomina
tions of the young pope, compelled him to leave that city. And
that he might indulge in debauchery -with less shame, he sold the
popedom to John, who succeeded him as Victor II,t This young
monster was infiillible. Innocent VIII, J became Pope of Rome
A, D, 1484, Of his infalKble power to decide on questions of
morals we may learn from the fact, that he was the father of six
teen children without the benedictions of matrimony,
Alexander VI, became pope A, D, 1492, He was the most
untruthful and treacherous man in public or private life, in the
priesthood or in the penitentiaty, Europe supported. He was
cruel beyond almost any other assassin of his own or other times ;
he was the most licentious and foul creature whose deeds history
records and stigmatizes. Incest, poisonings, odious uncleanness,
and murders were the blessings Alexander gave as his papal bene
diction to his friends. His name "Borgia," in whose infamy his
son Csesar and his daughter Lucretia § shared, is now in every
land the fiivorite designation of the most deadly poisoner ; and
that because of infallible Alexander and his precious children.
There have been good and kind men popes of Rome ; but there
* Bower's " Hist, of the Popes," vol. ii. p. 316. Philada., 1844.
Ud.,ii. p. 340. t Id., iii. p. 258. § Id., iii. pp. 259-276. PhQada., 1845.

342 CONSTANCE DENIES INFALLIBILITY.
have been many of another sort; men whose company would be
an insult to Judas, and whose infallibility in faith and morals is
too ridiculous to be discussed.
Catholics as a Church never recdved the Dodrine till 1870.
Many of the leading men in the Church of Rome have utterly
repudiated papal infallibility. The learned Catholic, Du Pin,
speaking of the fourth century, says : " The Church of Rome,
founded by St, Peter and St, Paul, was considered as the first, and
its bishop as the first amongst all the bishops of the world ; yet
they did not believe him to be infallible ; and though they frequently
consulted him, and his advice was of great consequence, yet they
did not receive it blindfold and implicitly, evety bishop imagining
himself to have a right to judge in ecdedastical matters." * The
Bishop of Rome could give no laws to other prelates, he could offer
advice. Every ancient bishop had the same authority over his
flock, which the pope had over his,
Constance and Papal Infallibility.
The Synod of Constance assembled in A, d. 1414 ; and among
its decrees is this memorable one :
"Evety lawfully convoked (Ecumenical Council representing
the Church, derives its authority immediately from Christ, and
every one, the pope included, is subjed to it in matters of faith, in
the healing of schism, and in the reformation of the Church."
This decree was passed unanimously. And to show the meaning
of the decree and the infallibility of the pontiff. Pope John
XXIII,, t a very base man, was deposed by the council, and
Martin V. elected his successor. So far from being infallible, the
pope was subject to the council in faith and morals, in office and
in punishment.
According to Archbishop Manning, in the late Vatican Coun
cil, eighty bishops spoke on the general question of which papal
infallibility was the main point, and nearly forty of these were
what the newspapers termed the opposition, " The proportion of
» Du Pin, i. p. 590. Dublin, 1723.
i "The Pope and Council," by Janus, p. 244. Boston, 1870.

OPPOSITION TO INFALLIBILITY IN THE LATE COUNCIL. 343
the opposition to the council," says he, " was not more than one-
dxih." If this statement is true, it shows that about one hundred
and fifteen bishops did not believe in the new dogma. Infallibility
was the darling scheme of the sovereign pontiff; for years he and
his instruments, in every quarter of the world, had been advocat
ing it, by flatteries, promotions, and frowns. His influence with
clergy and laity was immense. The council is held under his own
eye in Rome, where threatenings, favors, and crafty persuasions,
and the perils of excommunication can play such a mighty part.
Besides, only the few have sufficient independence to come out
against power ; and in the face of danger. From these facts it is
reasonable to suppose that the council held elsewhere would have
sho^wn a majority against infallibility. But on the archbishop's
own admission one-sixth of the coundl were against it. And these,
we may add, were among the ablest men in the Catholic Church,
The majority at the end of the eighty speeches closed the gen
eral discussion ; the archbishop feels that this was a step to be
excused, and he says : " Most reasonably the council closed tne
general discussion." Evidently the opposition were powerful and
troublesome, and the archbishop might have had a different opin
ion of the reasonableness of ending the general discussion if he had
not been the most active instrument of the aged pontiff and his
Jesuitical advisers in the Council of 1870, One hundred and
fifty bishops petitioned the president to have the debate ended ;
the question was put to the vote, and carried by an " overwhelm
ing majority."
Then speeches might be made on each one of the five parts of
the decree ; and upon the last, one hundred and twenty inscribed
their names to speak, * but when fifty of them were heard the dis
cussion terminated. The archbishop says it was from " sheer ex
haustion," Perhaps it was. Those who do not like addresses are
easily wearied -with them ; no doubt the pope and his friends
would rather have had the decree ratified by the synod without an
opposition speech. But it would be a greater miracle than the
infellibility of Rodrigo Borgia, the patron saint of the poisoners,
to discover seventy men so anxious to speak on a question, that
» "Vatican Conndl," by Archbp. Manning, pp. 37, 88. N. Y., 1871.

344 TROUBLES IN THE VATICAN COUNCIL.
they record their names and wishes in the proper place ; and then,
without uttering a word, these ready men, from sheer exhaustion
in hearing others, bury their kindled and flashing light.
In measuring the opposition, we are attracted by the archbishop's
words : * " In a period of nine months the cardinal president was
compelled to recall the speakers to order perhaps twelve or fourteen
times." Bishops are commonly grave men, not inclined to violent
outbursts of anger in clerical convocations. It is not to be pre
sumed that the cardinal president would call his own section of
the council to order, unless indeed there was unusual need for it.
Those called to order were the determined men, whom neither
frowns nor favors could silence. The cause must have been very
dear to a bishop when, before hundreds of his brethren, he would
place himself in a position to be publicly rebuked. Perhaps the
archbishop observed every instance of violated propriety, and care
fully noted it down. He admits that the ruling of the president
was occasionally greeted with " audible murmurs of dissent : that
now and then a comment may have been made aloud ; and that
in a vety few instances expressions of strong disapproval, and of
exhausted patience at length escaped," f But without doubting
the archbishop's veracity, and remembering that he, as the ablest
prelate of the pope, is showing the most flattering ¦view of the
case, we are driven to the conclusion that infallibility was not a
pleasant dose in the Vatican Council. Elswhere he admits that
it was a " Doctrine which for centuries had divided both pastors
and people, the defining of which (by a council) was contested by
a numerous and organized opposition." J InfalKbility in the pope,
as a church dodrine, is the latest novelty in the papal system, and
one against which many of the sons of Rome protested most
loudly. The Dodrine has been often proved False.
The Sixth General Council, which met at Constantinople, A, D,
680, in its 17th action condemned Pope Honorius as a heretic: §
"They all exclaimed  anathema to the heretic Hon-
* "Vatican Council," by Archbp. Manning, p. 83. N. Y., 1871,
t Id., pp. 33^. t M-i P- 59.
i Conc. VI., 1010.— Labbe and Cossart. Paris, 1671-2.

TWO POPES PALL FROM THE FAITH. 346
orius ! " Archbishop Manning attempts to defend Honorius, by
asserting that his case is doubtful ; that Honorius defined no
doctrine ; that he prohibited the making of any new definition ;
that his fault precisely was in this omission of apostolic authority,
and that his two epistles are entirely orthodox. * Let us suppose
that these assertions are true ; then the Sixth General Council, led
by the Holy Spirit, as Catholics suppose, made a false decree about
Honorius. If that is admitted, it follows that we have no evidence,
that Catholics have none, to prove that the Vatican Council has
not made a false dcerec about the infallibility of Pius IX, The
Sixth Council surely condemned Plonorius as a heretic. If its
judgment was just, no pope is infallible. If that council was
mistaken, so may the Vatican Council of last year have been
mistaken ; and therefore that council gives no proof by its decree
nf the pope's infallibility. Nor is its decision, or the vote of any
other council competent testimony to prove the truth of any
doctrine. The archbishop may take either conclusion.
Vigilius, Bishop of Rome, in the sixth century, according to
Du Pin, was not popular with his people because he was a usurper,
being the cause of the death of their lawful bishop ; they charged
him ¦with kilKng his secretary ¦with a blow of his fist, and with whip
ping the son of his sister till he died. This precious pope showed
his infallibility in matters of faith by opposing first, "the condemna
tion of the Three Chapters, which was resolved upon in the Fifth
Council ; he suffered himself to be banished rather than subscribe
to it ; but guided by his own caprice or interest, he quickly con
demned them, after an authentic manner, that he might return
into Italy," f I* would take the shrewdest follower of the hero
of Pampeluna to show that Vigilius was infallible. And as the
destruction of one link in the cable sends the ship from her
anchor, so the existence of one pope like Honorius or Vigilius
shows the utter untruthftilness of infallibility in matters of faith
or morals, THE GREAT VATICAN COUNCIL OF 1870,
This body assembled in Rome, representing thirty nations. It
was composed at first of 767 bishops. The synod received a

• "Vatican Council," by Manning, pp. 244-5. N, Y., 187t
+ Du Pin, i. 552.

346 DOGMA OF INFALLIBILITY.
printed paper containing the subject under discussion, a copy ol
which was given to every bishop ; eight or ten days were allowed
for suggestions iu writing upon the printed topic ; these observa
tions were handed to a committee of twenty-four, who incorporated
them in the Schema, or not, according to their pleasure. The
text so amended, if the twenty-four changed it, or in its original
form, was then proposed for general examination and debate,
Evety bishop might speak till the president called him to order.
The previous question might be called for by the petition of ten
fathers. The first constitution, " On Faith," received the votes of 664
bishops. The second, involving Infallibility, was put to the vote
on the 13th of July, and eighty-eight votes were cast against it.
On the 18th of July, 1870, it was put on its final passage, and
only two bishops recorded their disapprobation of the measure.
The Schema is entitled
First dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ.
The first chapter declares the primacy of the Church to be
Peter's, The second asserts that this primacy is perpetuated in the
Roman Pontiffs,
The third makes it to mean that the pope is teacher and master
of all Christians.
The fourth is on the infallible teaching of the pontiff. The
only portion of the chapter of any consequence is at the end of it,
where it proclaims THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE,
" We * therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition received
from the beginning of the Christian faith, for the glory of God our
Saviour, the exaltation of the Catholic religion, and the salvation
of Christian people, the sacred coimcil giving its sanction, teach
and define, that it is a dogma divinely revealed, that the Pope of
* Itaque nos traditioni a fidei Christianse exordio perceptse fideliter inhse-
rendo, ad Dei Salvatoris nostri gloriam, religionis Catholicse exaltationem et
Christianorum populorum salutem, sacro approbante concilio, docemus el
livinitus revelatum dogma esse definimus : Romanum Pontificem, cum ei

DOGMA OF INFALLIBILITY. 347
Rome, when he speaks t.r cathedra, that is, when discharging the
duty of pastor and teacher of all Christians, he defines a doctrine,
by his supreme apostolical authority, either about faith or morals
to be held by the universal Church, by the divine assistance, pro
mised him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility, by
which the divine Redeemer wished his Church to be instructed in
defining doctrines about faith or morals : therefore definitions of
the Roman Pontiff of this description are of themselves irreform-
able, and not from the consent of the Church.
" But if any one shall presume to contradict this definition of
ours, which may God avert ; let him be accursed.
" Given at Rome in public session solemnly held in the Vatican
Basilica, in the eighteen hundred and seventieth year of our Lord's
incarnation, on the eighteenth day of July in the twenty-fifth year
of our Pontificate.
In conformity ¦with the original.
Joseph, Bishop of S. Polten,
Secretary of the Vatican Coundl."
What vnll this Dogma accomplish ?
If it carries out the intentions of its friends it will coerce the
minds of men " iato subjection to every papal pronouncement in
matters of religion, morals, politics, and social science,"* And if
the doctrine is fully received, it can have no other result. It is
designed as far as possible to repeal the decree of the Father invest-
cathedra loquitur, id est, cum omnium Christianorum pastoris et doctoris
munere fungens, pro suprema sua apostolica auctoritate doctrinam de fide
vel moribus ab universa ecclesia tenendam definit, per assistentiam divinam,
ipsi in beato Petro promissam, ea infallibilitate pollere, qua divinus Redemp
tor ecclesiam suam in definienda doctrina de fide vel moribus instructam esse
voluit ; ideoque ejusmodi Romani Pontificis definitiones ex sese, non autem
ex consensu ecclesise irreformabiles esse.
Si quia autem huic nostrse definition! contradicere, quod Deus avertat, prse-
aumpserit ; anathema sit.
Datum Romse, in publica sessione in Vaticana Basilica solemniter celebrata
anno Incarnationis Dominicse millesimo octingentesimo septuagesimo, die
decima octava Julii, pontificatus nostri anno vigesimo quinto.
Ita est. — Josephus, Episcopus S. Ippoliti., Sec. Conc. Vatic. — "Foijcari
Council," by Manning, p. 229.
• " T^d Pope and Council," by Janus, p. 38.

348 INFALLIBILITY DESTROYS LIBERTY OF CHURCH,
ing Jesus Christ with all power in heaven and upon earth, and to
coufer the terrestrial empire of Immanuel upon his Holiness,
What human beliefe and actions cannot be easily ranged under the
categories of " faith and morals ? " It might be easily said that
certain political opinions are immoral, that certain occupations, or
some methods of conducting all transactions are immoral. Morality,
or its opposite, like breathing and the life of a human body, is in
separable from every sane action of human existence. This decree,
investing the pope with what he never had, and with what the
council approving of it, never saw in him, and with what it did
not possess to bestow on him or on any one else, really gave the
pope authority to enter the souls of all under his dominion and
regulate their beliefs ; and to interfere in the whole transadions
of life whenever he was so disposed and could compel obedience,
under the pretence that the interest of morals demanded it.
It abolished the authority of the ancient fathers, and the claims
of all other competitors of primitive or of modern times for the em
pire of conscience ; and it handed over the soul in chains to the
infallible old man, tottering on the verge of eternity, on the banks
of the Tiber. It has annihilated the legislative power of the Catho
lic Church. Hitherto, in councils, Romish bishops were the supreme
legislature of their Church ; led in all their decisions, as they ima
gined, by the Spirit, they made canons and laws for popes and nations
which pontifical authority could not change. Now the pope is inM-
lible, and there will be no farther need to call them from the ends
of the earth for canon and decree making. Other motiv.'ss ¦will
bring them together, if they ever assemble again, than demands
for sacred legislation.
The pope is infallible only when, as the pastor and teacher of
Christians, he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when he addresses some
bull to the faithful. And every such document in the past, as
well as all similar missives in the future, must be regarded as
infallible, Paul IV, issued ex cathedra the bull cum ex apostolatus officio,
in which he asserts that as God's representative on earth he has
full authority over nations and kingdoms ; that he judges all and
can be judged by none ; that all princes, monarchs and bishops, as
soon as they fall into heresy, are irrevocably deposed and incur

INFALLIBILITY MAKES POPE MASTER OP NATIONS. 349
sentence of death; that none may venture to give any aid to a
heretical prince, even the mere services of <'ommon humanity ;
any monarch who renders such help forfeits his dominions and
property, * This bull was issued in A, D, 1558 ; it was subscribed
by the cardinals, and afterwards confirmed and renewed by Pius V,
That is an infallible document now. The pope has authority over
all nations and kings ; monarchs are worthy of death for adopt
ing Protestantism ; and those who assist them are condemned to
lose everything !
The popes never relinquish anything. Their coral rocks always
grow. The claims of their infallibility would lead them, had they
the power, to dethrone modern kings ; to burn the successors of
John Huss and Jerome of Prague ; to dig up and consign to the
flames the bones of our modern Wycliffes ; to cast the Bible into
the fire; to destroy the liberty of the press; the freedom ot
conscience, the worship of Protestants, and evety other obstacle
to the triumph of priestly despotism. Infallibility means an
unparalleled mental, moral, material and universal tyranny — a
despotism only limited by the rising manhood of Catholic lay
men, and the invincible power of that heaven-armed gospel des
tined to bathe the world in floods of glory, and cleanse it from all
apostasy and paganism,
• "The Pope and Council," by Janus, p. 311, Boston, 1870.

THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.
Among Protestants there is a sublime confidence in truth, i
fearless conviction that error will give her only an opportunity foi
fresh victories, a field to display her unequalled prowess, and the
intrinsic weakness and wickedness of all her enemies. The rugged
mountain-peak does not try to remove the huge arms of the tem
pest when, in its greatest fury, it embraces it ; the ocean may be
lashed into gigantic billows, towering, in crested and foaming ma
jesty, over ite mighty bosom ; but the sea, as if conscious that the
hurricane cannot hurt it, that it will soon be as calm and as deep
as ever, allows the wind to sport with its waters without an effort
to resist them. The earth, when vast hosts assemble in battle
array on her surface, listens to their rattling musketry, their thun
dering artillery, their shrieks, their shouts, the clash and din of
arms, the trumpet blasts of victory ; but she rolls on, as if con
scious that their struggles, groans and slaughter, cannot injure
her ; that, iu a few months, the grass will hide the traces of battle ;
and, in a few years, if it were not for memory or books, not a
footprint of savage Mars would be on the scene once slippery with
blood, and horrible with agony and slaughter. So Protestants,
judging by their free press and unrestrained speech, feel about
their principles. They say, in deeds, to papal Christendom, send
your monks and nuns to attack us, your priests and bishops, your
Jesuits, and sisters of mercy and charity; send your books and con
fessional, your logic and your zeal; let there be a siege or an
assault, a battle on the open plain, or an effort at secret slaughter,
like the mountain-top, defying the whirlwind, or the ocean,
despising the furious gale, or the earth, unterrified by the throes
and roars of the great battle, we hurl defiances in the fe,ces of all;
we are so sure that our principles will uproot yours, and bathe
360

freedom of the PRESS, 351
humanity in the light of saving love, that we do not fear your ef
forts, and would disdain to hinder you from making war upon
Protestantism, That is the faith and the practice of all great
centres of evangelical Christianity, The Church of Rome has
always acted as if she feared for the success of her religion, and,
whenever she had an opportunity, invited the policeman, the
prison, confiscation, the rack, the flames, the axe, and the halter,
to quiet her enemies, and to give perseverance to her friends.
In the Council of Trent, legislation against the freedom of the
press was introduced by the legates of the Holy See who presided
over it, and it was referred by them to a committee. The subject
was called : " The Business of the Books, Censures, and Index,"
The committee consisted of " The Embassador of Hungary, the
Patriarch of Venice, four Archbishops, nine bishops, one abbot,
and two generals" (of religious orders),*
Decree of the Coundl about this Committee.
" The sacred and holy synod, in the second session, celebrated
under our most holy lord, Pius IV., entrusted to certain chosen
fathers, to consider what ought to be done about various censures
and books, either suspected or pernicious, to report to the holy
synod itself. Hearing now that the last hand has been put to that
labor by them, which, however, cannot be distinctly and advanta
geously decided by the holy synod, on account of the variety and
multitude of the books, it orders that, whatever has been done by
them, may be shown to the most holy Roman Pontiff, that it may
be settled and published by his decision and authority. And it
commands that the same should be done about the Catechism by
the fathers to whom that question was entrusted, and about the
Missal and Breviary." f
One very important work of this committee was the preparation
of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, which was finally pub
lished three years after the dissolution of that synod by command
of Pius V, It is a work of five hundred pages, prepared with
» Sarpi, p. 477. London, 1629.
f De Indice Libr. et Catech, seaa. xxv. p. 205, Canones et Decreta Conc
Trid. Lipsise, 1863.

352 TRENT FORBIDS THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.
singular ability, and it presents the most complete view of Catholic
doctrine and practices in existence. Of course, its statements bear
the impress of the highest authority.
The weightiest business with which this committee was charged
was the duty of looking after books doubtful or dangerous in the
judgment of the Catholic hierarchy ; it framed TEN RULES for
prohibited books, which were published with the approval of the
pope, and which have been the laws of the Catholic Church ever
since. THE PAPAL ENACTMENTS DESIGNED TO KEEP CATHOLICS IG
NORANT,
The first rule condemns all books censured by popes or councils
before A, d, 1515,
The second condemns the works of all arch-heretics and minor
errorists since A, d. 1515 ; it, however, permits books of the latter
class of authors on secular subjects, and books of Catholic -writers
who have fallen into heresy, after examination by a Romish uni
versity or general inquisition, to be read.
The third permits the Old Testament, at the discrdion of the
bishop, to learned and pious men. But versions of the New Tes
tament made by authors of the first class of this index shall be
permitted to no one.
The fourth prohibits the reading of the Bible in the vulgar
tongue (no matter in what version), unless when a bishop or in
quisitor, on the recommendation of a confessor, grants the privi
lege ; and it ordains heavy penalties against those who sell or read
it. Even monks must not search the Scriptures without the per
mission of their superiors.
The fifth permits lexicons, and similar works, from heretical
authors, after being duly expurgated, to be read.
The sixth permits books on practical religion to be read by tho
faithful in their own tongue ; but forbids the perusal of contro
versial books, except when permitted by a bishop or inquisitor on
the advice of a confessor.
The seventh forbids the use of all indecent books except the an
cient classics, and it permits these with restrictions.

TRENT AGAINST THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. 353
The eighth iiermits the use of books whose general sentiment ia
good, after purification by the Catholic authorities.
The ninth forbids the use of all books on magic, necromancy,
and kindred subjects.
The tenth aims at
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS THROUGH
OUT CHRISTENDOM,
It reads : * " Wherefore, if, in the noble city of Rome, any book
is to be printed, let it be first examined by the vicar of the supreme
pontiff, and the master of the sacred palace, or by persons aji-
pointed by our most holy lord. But in other places, let its exami
nation and approval belong to the bishop, or to another having
knowledge of the book or writing to be printed, sneh person to be
appointed by the same bishop, and an inquisitor of heretical de-
pra-vity, of that state or diocese in which the printing will be exe
cuted, and let it be approved by their hand, to be imposed by their
subscription gratuitously, and ¦without delay, under the punish
ments and censures contained in the same decree, with the addition
of this law and condition, that an authentic copy of the work to be
printed, subscribed by the author, shall remain with the examiner;
but the deputed fathers judge that those who issue manuscript
works, unless they are first examined and approved, should be
subjected to the same penalties as the printers : and they who re
tain and read them should be held as the authors unless they give
up the authors. But let the approbation itself be given in writing,
* Quare, si in alma urbe Roma liber aliquis sit imprimendus, per vicarium
Summi Pontificis et sacri palatii magistrum, vel personas a sanctissimo do
mino nostro deputandas prius examinetur. In aliis vero locis ad episcopum
vel alium habentem scientiam libri vel scripturse imprimendse, ab eodem
episcopo deputandum, ac inquisitorem hfereticse pravitatis ejus civitatis vel
dioecesis, in qua impressio fiet, ejus approbatio et examen pertineat, et pe;
eorum manum propria subscriptione gratis et sine dilatione imponendam sub
poenis et censuria in eodem decreto contentis approbetur, hac lege et con-
ditione addita, ut exemplum libri imprimendi authenticum et manu auctoris
subscriptum, apud examinatorem remaneat ; eos vero, qui libellos manscrip-
tors vulgant, nisi ante examinati probatique fuerint iisdem poenis subjici de
bere judicarunt patres deputati, quibus impressores ; et qui eos habuerint et
legerint, nisi auctores prodiderint, pro auctoribus habeantur. Ipsa vero
hujusmodi librorum probatio in scriptis detur, et in fronte libri vel scripti vel
23

354 TRENT AGAINST THE FREEDOM OP THE PRESS,
and let it appear authentically in the front of the book, whether
manuscript or printed ; and let the proving and examination, and
all the rest, be attended to gratuitously. Moreover, in the several
states and dioceses, let the houses or places where printing is per
formed, and libraries of books are for sale, be frequently visited by
persons deputed for that object by the bishop, or by his vicar, and
also by the inquisitor of heretical depravity, that none of the pro
hibited things may be printed, sold, or kept. Let all librarians and
booksellers have in their libraries a catalogue of the books for sale,
which they keep, with the subscription of said persons. And let
them keep or sell no other books, or by any means deliver them,
without the license of the same deputies, under the penalty of the
confiscation of the books, or other punishments, to be inflicted at the
discrdion of the bishops or inquisitors. And Id the buyers, readers,
and printers be punished at the discrdion of the same. But if any
persons introduce any books whatsoever into any state, let them be
botmd to report them to the same deputies ; or, if a public place
has been appointed for such wares, let the public servants of that
place signify to the persons aforesaid that books have been brought.
Let no one dare to deliver a book which he himself or another
has introduced into a state, to any one to read, or by any means to
transfer or lend it, unless the book has first been shown, and a
impressi authentice appareat, probatioque et examen, ac cetera gratia fiant.
Prseterea in singulis civitatibus ac dioecessibus domus vel loci, ubi ars impres-
soria exercitur, et bibliothecse librorum venalium ssepiua viaitentur a perso-
nis ad id deputandis ab episcopo aive ejus vicario, atque etiam ab inquisitore
hsereticse pravitatis, ut nihil eorum, quse prohibentur, aut imprimatur, aut
vendatur, aut habeatur. Omnes vero librarii et quicunque librorum ven-
ditores habeant in suis bibliothecis indicem librorum venalium, quos habent,
cum subscriptione dictarum peraonarum, nee alios libros habeant, aut ven-
dant, aut quacunque ratione tradant sine licentia eorundem deputandorum,
sub poena amissionis librorum, et aliis arbitrio episcoporum vel inquisitorum
imponendis. Emptores vero, lectores vel impressores eorundem arbitrio
puniantur. Quod si aliqui libroa quoscunque in aliquam civitatem introdu-
cant, teneantur eisdem personis deputandis renunciare, vel, si locus publicus
mercibus ejusmodi constitutus sit, ministri publici ejus loci prsedictis perso
nis signiflcent libros esse adductos. Nemo vero audeat librum, quem ipse
vel ahus in civitatem introduxlt alicui legendum tradere, vel aliqua ratione
alienare aut commodare, nisi ostenso prius libro, et habita licentia a personis
deputandis, aut nisi notorie constet, librum jam esse omnibus permiseian.
Idem quoque servetur ab heredibus et exsecutoribua ultimarum voluntatum,

TRENT AGAINST THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. 355
license obtained from the deputies, or unless it is notoriously clear
that the I)ook is now permitted to all. Let the same thing also be
done by heirs aud executors of last wills, that they may present
the books left by the departed, or a catalogue of them, to those
deputies, and obtain a license from them, before they use them, or
in any way transfer them to other persons. But in all and each
of these particulars, let the punishment be fixed either by the loss
of the books, or by some other pains, at the discrdion of the same
bishops or inquisitors, according to the character of the contumacy
or the crime  In conclusion, it is enjoined upon all the
feithful, that no one presume, against the authority of these rules,
or the prohibition of this index, to retain or read any books. But
if any one shall keep or read the books of heretics, or the ¦writings
of any author condemned and prohibited for heresy, or for the
suspicion of a false dogma, let him immediately incur the sentence
of excommunication. But he who shall read or keep books in
terdicted on any other account, besides the guilt of mortal sin,
with which he is affected, let him be punished severely at the discre
tion of the bishop."
Pius IV,, entering with his whole heart into the oppressive
spirit which governed the Council of Trent in most of its decrees,
after reading these ten rules, and submitting them for examination
to some learned men, sent them forth with his approbation in a
bull eulogistic of their tenor and claims, in which he says: * "By
our apostolic authority, we approve, by these presents, the index
ut libros a defunctia relictos. Sive eorum indicem illis personis deputandis
offerant, et ab lis licentiam obtineant, priusquam eis utantur, aut in alias per
sonas quacunque ratione transferant. In his autem omnibus et singulis
poena statuatur vel amissionis librorum, vel alia arbitrio eorundem episcopo
rum vel inquisitorum, pro qualitate contumacise vel delicti 
Ad extremum vero omnibus fidelibus prsecipitur, ne quis audeat contra ha-
rum regularum prsescriptum, aut hujus indicis prohibitionem libros aliquos
legere aut habere. Quod si quis libros hsereticorum vel cujusvis auctoris
scripta, ob hseresim vel ob falsi dogmatis suspicionem damnata atque prohi
bita, legerit sive habuerit, statim in excommunicationis sententiam incurrat.
Qui vero libros alio nomine interdictos legerit, aut habuerit, prseter peccati
mortalis reatum, quo afiicitur, judicio episcoporum severe puniatur. — Oano
nea et Decreta Oonc. Trid., Begula x., De Lib. Prohib., pp. 235-6. Lipsise,
1863. * Ipsum indicem una cum regulis ei prsepositis auctoritate apostolica te-
nore prsesertium approbamus, imprimique ac divulgari, et ab omnibus uni-

356 TRENT AGAINST THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS,
itself, together with the rules prefixed to it; and we command aud
decree that it be printed and published, and that it be received
evetywhere by all Catholic universities, and by every one whatso
ever ; and that these rules be observed ; prohibiting each and all, as
well ecclesiastics, secular and regular, of every grade, order and
dignity, as laymen, no matter what their honor and dignity, that
no one may dare to keep or read any books contrary to the command
of these rules, and the prohibition of the index itself."
This bull was issued on the 24th of March, 1564, and is binding
on all Catholics, and on the whole Protestant world at this mo
ment. No canon about the mass stands more defiantly on the
statute book of Rome than the decree of Pope Pius, gi^ving validity
to these rules. There is no likelihood of their repeal ; such an act
would declare infallibility to be liable to grave mistakes, and have
a tendency to overturn the whole pyramid of papal pretensions.
But Rome seeks no change. The Church of the popes to-day, in
the principles of those who dictate her great movements, is of one
mind with Pius IV. and the fathers of Trent, and would, if she
had the opportunity, chain the flashes of human genius, the impe
rial mountain-billows of that intellect which only God can imprison
or guide.
The tenth rule prohibits the circulation of all printed matter,
and even manuscript works, unless permitted by a Catholic bishop
or inquisitor, or their deputies, on pain of losing the books, and of
enduring any other punishment the bishop or the inquisitor may
choose to inflict.
It places the literature of the world in the hands of men who
thrust Galileo into the inquisition for his astronomical doctrines, and
compelled him to deny that the earth moves, and who have the
greatest jealousy of all light ; who, if they had power, would restore
the blindness of the dark ages, and perpetuate its ignorance and
tyranny till the blasts of the last trumpet awoke the dead.

versitatibus catholiois, ac quibuscunque aliis ubique suscipi, casque regulas
observari mandamus atque decernimus ; inhibentes omnibus et singulis, tam
ecclesiasticis personis SEEOularibus et regularibus, cujuscuuque gradus, ordi
nis et digni-tatis sint, quam laicis quocunque honore ac dignitate prseditis, ne
quis contra earum regularum prsescriptum aut ipsius prohibitionem indicis
libros ullos legere habereve audeat. — Piua IV., Ad Puturam Bei Memo-
Ham, p. 237, Oanonea et Decreta. Conc. Trid. Lipsise, 1863.

INTENTION IN THE PRIEST NECESSARY TO THE
VALIDITY OF A SACRAMENT.
This is one of the most curious and dreadful doctrines ever
proclaimed by human lips or written by the pen of man. In the
seventh session of the Council of Trent, thirteen canons were
enacted upon the sacraments generally, cursing those who shall
say, that the sacraments of the new law were not appointed by
the Sa^viour ; that they do not differ unless in externals from the
sacraments of the ancient law ; that the sacraments of the new
law are not necessary to salvation ; and pronouncing curses upon
all persons guilty of various crimes against the sacraments.
Among these maledictions is the following :
"IF ONE SHALL SAY, THAT IN MINISTERS,
WHILST THEY COMPLETE AND CONFER THE
SACRAMENTS, THERE IS NOT REQUIRED THE
INTENTION, AT LEAST OF DOING WHAT THE
CHURCH DOES, LET HIM BE ACCURSED." *
This canon sows uncertainty broadcast over the Catholics of the
world. Suppose that the priest who baptizes a child did not
intend to " do as the Church does," in granting the sacrament,
then the child is not baptized, and no faith subsequently received,
no works performed in the future can remove that original defect ;
according to the Catholic theory that man is not a Christian, and
cannot be saved. Suppose that when that man comes to be mar
ried, the same priest performs the ceremony with the usual rites,
but he does not intend to marry the couple, then it follows, that
the sacrament of marriage has never been administered to this
• Si quis dixerit, in ministris, dum sacramenta conficiunt et conferunt,
non requiri intentionem saltem faciendi quod facit ecclesia ; anathema sit.^
Can. xi,, sess. vii., Oanonea et Decreta Cone. Trid., p. 43. Lipsise, 1863.
357

358 INTENTION NECESSARY TO CELEBRATE A SACRAMENT.
man and his wife, that their wedded relations are stained with the
infamy of fornication, and that their children are branded before
God with the crime of illegitimacy. And suppose again, that this
priest in consecrating the host does not intend to consecrate it, it
follows, according to the papal theoty, that it is not the real body
and blood of Jesus, that it is only bread ; and, therefore, when
the people worship what they regard as the very Son of Maty,
they are only adoring a piece of paste, they are guilty of idolatty.
And suppose this priest in the confessional solemnly absolves a
penitent man from his sins, but does not intend to release him
from his guilt, on the Roman theory, the poor suppliant has no
pardon, he rejoices in a delusion, he is the victim of sacerdotal
imposition. And suppose that this priest baptizes an infant boy
without the intention of doing it, and as a consequence the child
is not a Christian, and can never perform with true validity any
act of a Christian ; that in time the priest becomes a bishop, and
the babe becomes a man, and a candidate for the service of the
altar; that his old friend ordains him deacon and priest, but
" does not intend to do as the Church does," in either case, it
follows that all the children he baptizes are heathens outside of
the Church, and with no title to heaven ; that all his absolutions
are null, and his penitents are still in their sins; that all his
marriages are invalid, the parties being yet before God destitute
of wedded sanctions ; and that all his masses are impositions, the
man himself being neither a priest nor a Christian ; and hence all
the people that worshipped the hosts which he consecrated were
guilty of idolatry on every occasion in which they were in the
church when he celebrated mass. Now let us suppose farther,
that this young man becomes pope in process of time, and he sits
in Peter's chair for many years. He is not a Christian, he is not
a priest, he can perform no religious act because he was never
baptized ; then all his masses are senseless mummeries, all his
pontifical blessings are impositions ; he has no right to send the
Pallium to any bishop, so that the hundreds of bishops who have
been consecrated during his long reign are destitute of authority
to perform one episcopal act; all the priests and deacons they
have ordained are laymen still, all the children they have bap
tized are yet in heathenism ; all their absolutions are mockeries

A PRIEST WITHOUT INTENTION. 359
and all their masses are but idolatries. Since the heavens were
stretched over the earth, since this globe's covering of waters was
gathered up into seas, nothing so monstrous as this doctrine was
ever invented. No Catholic, without omniscient knowledge of
the priest's intention, can possibly tell whether he was baptized, ab
solved, married, ordained; or whether in the mass he was idola-
trously worshipping unchanged bread, or reverently adoring the
veritable God- man made out of flour. In this way the whole earthly
and everlasting religious privileges of the Catholic depend, not on
Christ, not on the man's own deeds or his priest's, but on the intenr-
tions of a minister whose purposes he has no possible way of learning.
And while Catholic priests have, no doubt, the ordinary honesty
of motive common to men in general ; yet, as Protestant commu
nities have the deceitful, so unquestionably the Romish Church has
the insincere and hypocritical, who, out of malice, or to gratify
some caprice, or some sceptical opinion about the power of their
sacraments, occasionally or frequently have no intention to " do as
the Church does," and their masses, absolutions and other rites are
all counterfeits,
Anthony G^vin, a Catholic priest of Saragossa, describes the
confession of a brother priest on his deathbed, whose name he con
ceals, and who says : " The necessary intention of a priest in the
administration of baptism and consecration (of the wafer) without
which the sacraments are of no effect, I confess I had it not on
several occasions, as you may see in the parish books ; and observe
that the baptism was invalid of every person whose name is there
marked with a star, for in such cases I had no intention. And
for this I can give no other reason than my malice and wicked
ness. Many of them are dead, for which I am heartily sorry. As
for the times I have consecrated (the wafer) without intention we
must leave it to God's mercy, for the wrong done by it to the souls
of my parishoners, and those in purgatory cannot be helped," *
This disclosure is one of the most natural in the world. Unless
Romish priests are made of different materials than other men,
than the elements of which the Saviour's twelve apostles were
composed, there must be such characters as this dying priest, whose
• " Master Key to Poperv," p. 36. Cincinnati. 1833.

360 NO ONE CAN TELL A PRIEST'S INTENTION.
intention was not always " to do as the Church does " in making
sacraments. Gavin, on examining the parish books, found one
hundred and fifty-two names marked with a star, and of the per
sons enrolled in this ill-starred register eighty-six were dead.
Gavin was greatly troubled about these persons, knowing that it is
the decided opinion of the Church that " The intention of the priest
is absolutely necessary to the validity of a sacrament, without which
there is no sacrament at all." By the advice of his brother priests
he communicated the case to the bishop, who summoned the persona
still living, who through the absence of intention in the defunct
priest, were not baptized when they passed through all the forms of
baptism, and bringing them into his own chamber separately, he
baptized them; enjoining the strictest secrecy under the hea^viest
penalties upon each,*
No Certainty about Salvation in the Catholic Church.
According to Cardinal Bellarmine, f " It is not possible for any
one to be sure with the certainty of faith that he has received a
true sacrament, as a sacrament cannot be celebrated without the
intention of the minister, and no one can see the intentimi of
another." In the Romish Church, by the testimony of Bellar
mine, and the Council of Trent, no one can tell whether he has
ever received a true sacrament ; nor has he any certainty whether
he is not going headlong to the pit when he may have observed
all the rites of the Church ; and when he may have the assurance
of all its clergy that he is going straight to heaven. There is
ground here for dreadful uncertainty and apprehension,
* Gavin's "Master Key to Popery," p. 38. Cincinnati, 1833.
f Neque potest certus esse, certitudine fldei, se percipero verum sacra
mentum, cum sacramentum sine intentione ministri non conflciatur, et inten
tionem alterius nemo videre possit. — Bell. Diaput. de Juatif., lib. iii. c. 8,
sec. 5, tom. iv. p. 488. Prag., 1721.

SECRET SOCIETIES.
The Church of Rome has manifested a very violent antipathy
to secret societies ; and makes it an offence of no common magnitude
for one of her members to unite with such organizations. And
this opposition is strongest against Freemasons and Odd-fellows,
Clement XIL,
In 1738,* published the bull " In Eminenti " against the Free
masons, in which he solemnly excommunicates them from his
Church, This bull is binding on the whole Papal Church still,
Clement was an unusually enlightened and liberal man for a bishop
of Rome, but even he could tolerate nothing in papal countries
which he could not control.
M. Tournan is thrown into the Inquisition, at Madrid, in 1757.
On the charge of being a Freemason he is cast into the dungeons
of the Holy Ofl&ce ; and in due time solemnly tried. The follow
ing is a portion of his examination :
Q. You are then a Freemason? A. Yes. Q. How long have
you been so ? A. For twenty years. Q. Have you attended the
assemblies of Freemasons? A. Yes, in Paris. Q. Have you
attended them in Spain ? A. No, I do not know that there are
any lodges in Spain. Q. Are you a Christian, a Roman Catholic ?
A. Yes, I was baptized in the parish of St, Paul at Paris, Q.
How as a Christian dare you attend Masonic assemblies, knowing
them to be contraty to religion ? J., I did not know that ; I
never saw or heard there anything contrary to religion. Q. The
Freemasons are an anti-religious body? A. Their object is not to
? Llorente's " History of the Inquisition," p. 191. Philada., 1843.
361

362 SECRET SOCIETIES,
combat or deny the necessity or utility of any religion, but for the
exercise of charity towards the unfortunate of any sect, particularly
if he is a member of the society, Q. What passes in these lodges
which it might be inconvenient to publish ? A. Nothing, if it is
viewed without prejudice, Q. Is it true that the festival of St,
John is celebrated in the lodges, and if so, what worship is given
in such celebration ? A. His festival is celebrated by a repast,
after which there is a discourse exhorting the brethren to benefi
cence to their fellow creatures in honor of God. There is no wor
ship given to St, John, Q. Is it true that the sun, moon, and
stars are honored in the lodges ? A. No.
He was then assured that " He was a dogmatizing heretic, and
that he should acknowledge this with humility, and ask pardon,
for if he persisted in his obstinacy he would destroy both soul and
body," He confessed that he was wrong, and demanded absolution,
and hoped that his punishment would be moderate. He was con
demned to imprisonment for one year with a heavy batch of spiri
tual exercises during that period. He appeared with the infamous
mantle, the sanbenito, at a private axito da fl celebrated in the hall
of the Inquisition, where he promised never to meet ¦with a Masonic
assembly again. At the expiration of his imprisonment, he was
expelled from Spain, and ordered never to return without the per
mission of the king or of the Holy Office,*
Archbishop Cullen of Dublin,
A few years since, wished to admonish the Irish to renounce Fenian
organizations, and in his published pastoral, he began this work
by denouncing Masonic and all secret societies generally, and then
reached the object he had chiefly in view, the political clubs of his
countrymen, whose secret meetings and schemes filled Great Britain
and Ireland with apprehension and anxiety.
The Misdon Book on Masons and Odd-fdlows.
This manual of prayer, recommended by Archbishop Hughes,
and a work of great popularity, advises the penitent going to make
a " general confession " to question himself beforehand on the ten
* Llorente's "History of the Inquisition," p. 192. Philada., 1843.

SECRET SOCIETIES. 363
commandments with a view to recall his sins, and to be ready to
tell them to the priest. Under the first commandment he is to
ask himself this question : " Have you c.rposcd your faith to davger
byerilassodatimsf HAVE YOU UNITED YOURSELF
TO THE FREEMASONS, OR ODD-FELLOWS, OR
ANY SIMILAR SOCIETY FORBIDDEN BY THE
CHURCH?"*
It is known that not a few Catholics become members of various
secret societies, not^withstanding the menaces of the Church ; but
it is generally understood that in any serious sickness, or when
desiring the use of the confessional, all such relations must be re
nounced. Rome must be mistress in everything, and mistress in
all places ; and if not, she will drag her children away where the
tiara is not sovereign, • "Mission Book," p. 305. N. T., 1866.

THE FAMILY AND PUBLIC WORSHIP, AND THE
BOOKS OF PROTESTANTS.
The Irish Catholic, when not cursed by whiskey, nor degraded
by crime, when his religion is not called in question, is an obliging,
good-natured man; a kind word will make him extravagantly
happy ; a loving act will summon up a torrent of grateful expres
sions, to be followed, if necessary, by all the practical exhibitions
of thankfulness a man ever displayed. He is ready on the most
trivial successes to shake off care, and to impart to his family and
friends all the joy he can give. He will carry his wife and children,
and his old father and mother in his heart over the oceans, and
down the stream of years ; and his generous love will make him
labor in America, denying himself every comfort, to save money to
send for the parents of his youth, the wife of his heart, the children
that sported around his knee in his mud home in the " Green
island," and called him "father." He has his faults ; but when free
from drunkenness and crime, his ready wit and warm heart make
him many friends among the sternest Protestants.
And yet, ask him to come to an Evangelical church, and you
are treading on excitable ground ; press the invitation stiffly, and
the " exile of Erin " may burst into a towermg passion, and per
haps threaten your life. Or, instead of an effort to bring him to
an Evangelical church, offer him what he knows to be a Protestant
tract or Bible, and insist upon his taking and reading it, and his
countenance will instantly exhibit the fiercest pa.ssions, and his
burning words, lighted up by oaths blazing with the flames of the
pit, will make you wonder why such a cause should make him
angry. The Protestant will listen to an invitation to a Romish
church, and commonly will not be irritated however much it is
pressed. He occasionally may be found at Catholic worship. The
3C4

CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANT WORSHIP AND WRITINGS, 365
Romanist is hardly ever seen in a non-Catholic sanctuary. Nay,
the Catholic will not come to family worship in the house of his
Protestant employer. The anti-papist, instead of being angry at
the offer of Catholic books, will generally accept and read them.
The tract-distributor is welcomed by Jews and Protestants, but
frowned upon, if not insulted, by a man as full of good nature on
other questions as any one whom the world contains. And if you
ask how this change is produced, we answer :
His Creed embitters him against the Protestant, his Worship and
his Books.
Among the questions which he is asked in the confessional are
these : " Have you allowed yourself to be enticed into the churches
of herdics, to join in thdr family prayers, or to read thdr reli
gious books f How many times ? " * Another part of the same
manual of prayer tells him in preparing for the confessional he
must ask himself and be prepared to answer these questions :
" Have you read Protestant Bibles, tracts or other books on mat
ters of religion, circulated by heretics ? Have you kept them in
your house, or sold them, or given them to others to read ? How
many times? Have you joined in the worship of heretics either
in public or in private ? Have you gone to their worship ? Have
you listened to their preaching ? How often ? " f And this, the
" Mission Book" calls a sin against the first command : "Thou
shalt have no other Gods before me," Again, in the same book,
page 261, " It is said to be a sin to join in the worship of heretics
or schismatics, or to be present at their meetings or preachings.
Yes, it is a sin to countenance their doctrines or their worship in
any way," " The Garden of the Soul," under the first command
ment, proposes these questions to the penitent in view of the con
fessional : X " Have you by word or deed denied your religion,
or gone to places of false worship ( Protestant), so as to join in any
way in the worship ? How often ? " It places along with this
sin under the same commandment, idolatry, witchcraft, blasphemy,
and other enormities, as if joining in Protestant worship was their
•"Mission Book," p. 319. N. T., 1866. f Id., p. 804-5,
t "The Garden of the Soul." p. 194. London,

366 CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANT WORSHIP AND WRITINGS,
equal. Now here is the secret of the good-natured Irishman's
wrath, of his refusal to take your tracts, or to go occasionally to
your church. He dare not. He would have to confess it, and do
penance for it before his next communion ; or be guilty of a
" sacrilegious confession or communion by concealing some mortal
sin on confession, or what he doubted might be mortal," * In all
probability he might have to dine without flesh for a week, while
compelled to work hard to earn bread for his children, or suffer
something else equally unpleasant for such favor shown to heresy.
In his mind Protestant tract and Bible reading are associated with
pain ; Protestant family worship with labor on an unsatisfied
stomach ; and attendance at a Protestant church ¦with priestly wrath
in the confessional.
We have sat on the old wall of an ancient city, not fiir from
the boundaries of two kingdoms, around which fierce conflicts
raged at intervals for several centuries ; and once for two hours
we watched a convent, below and outside the bulwarks which we
occupied, A lofty wall around the convent kept off much of the
pure air and bright sunbeams, and all human intruders ; the win
dows were small, to keep men out, or the sun ; they had iron bars
to keep the nuns in, or their enemies from disturbing them ; no
nun in the yard must look at the worldly people on the wall, lest
some portion of the inflammable material in her heart might be
set on fire by seeing the freedom women outside enjoyed ; or by
the splendid looks of handsome men. The inmates of that prison
never came out of their bastile, though from visible precautions it
was clearly not a happy home to them all, A near relative could
speak to a nun through a pigeon-hole, with a wall between, and
watchful eyes and ears attentively observing the parties to the
interview. That was a place of safe keeping provided for those
who needed to be guarded against themselves and the world.
The " Holy Church " places the restraints of a moral convent
around all her children. She rears high moral walls around them, to
keep out the blasts of liberty, of Protestant free inquiry ; they must
enjoy the light of the Sun of Righteousness, not by walking abroad
and bathing without restraint in its blessed oceans, but through the

" The Garden of the Soul," p. 195. London.

PROTESTANT WORSHIP AND WRITINGS, 367
little barred and cobwebbed windows of her system of apostasy ;
like the nun of downcast eye, they must not even look at Protes
tant worship ; and if they speak a word with the tract distributor
or the donor of Bibles, it must be through a pigeon-hole in the
thick wall of superstition with the priest standing by, with an ear
trumpd in one hand, called the " confessional," listening to all that is
said, and a dub in the other, called "penance," ready to bruise and
blacken without mercy if he deems its use expedient. There is not
so much cause for astonishment in the surly look and answer of
the good-natured Romanist when Protestantism claims his atten
tion.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PUBLIC EDUCATION.
In a republic like our own, the education of the people is a
great public necessity. Intelligence will not change a heart
naturally wdcked, but it qualifies a man to judge for himself and
renders it impossible for him so easily to be made the dupe of
agitators political or sacerdotal. The ignorant march in masses
at the command of a leader; and because he issues the order.
The educated accept no leader but conscience, prejudice, or selfish
ness ; and generally the sceptres of these three potentates work with
immeasurably greater success for the public good, than the schemes
of such men as commonly control illiterate multitudes. A repub
lic or a liberal constitutional monarchy cannot be permanently
founded among an ignorant people. As there is a necessary
descent for the ball thrown into the air, down to the earth, so a
people blessed -with liberty aud plagued with ignorance, will
gradually perhaps, but surely, sink until they reach some crushing
tyranny wearing its own name, or a designation peculiar to liberty.
Every country with political institutions in any measure like
our own, can only shield its cherished and blood-bought rights,
its heaven-given blessings of freedom, by the widest diffusion
of light. As flowers receive their beautiful colors from the
sun and turn to the King of day if twisted from him, so the
institutions of liberty are fashioned and painted by the sun of
intelligence, and wither when robbed of its blessed light.
For Centuries the Church of Rome has been the enemy of
Education.
Tu the countries exclusively Catholic, where Rome has had
evetything her own way, these facts are as clearly seen as the
rivers, lakes, mountains, and cities of those lands. Mexico, ¦with
368

THE ROMISH CHURCH AND EDUCATION, 369
an endless list of priests, rich endowments for the clergy, every
facility for the Church to carry out her own plans, and with no
Protestants to impede the progress of the priesthood in any chosen
direction, is a fair intellectual specimen of the culture which
Romanism aims to give. That land has dense clouds of ignorance
brooding upon her people, like the volumes of darkness envelop
ing the earth before the majestic words of the Everlasting were
heard: "Let there be light." Spain, of illustrious memories,
with her mighty kings, proud armies, vast fleets, invincible heroes,
with her fertile lands, and the wealth of the Indies added to the
vast resom-ces of her own people : Spain, where the Church was
mightier than the king ; where the Inquisition seized the loftiest
and lowliest, and measured out punishments without stint, and
¦without timidity ; where, for centuries, the Church sat an imperious
queen, mistress of every Spaniard and of all that he had, ought
to show the exact marks and monuments which the Church aimed
to produce. And Spain bears the harvests the Church planted :
and dense, accursed ignorance is one of these harvests.
Three-fourths of the inhabitants of Ireland, for several hundred
years, have been as much at the disposal of the Church of Rome
as the people of the Eternal City in all religious and educational
relations. There was not one earthly agency to hinder the instruc
tion of the whole Catholic population of the island. The people
are heartily in favor of education, and have an unusual readiness
to receive the light of the school-house. A century after that
grand, old, evangelical missionary, St. Patrick, went to heaven, the
Tiish were the best educated people in the west of Europe. But
fc>r ages their island home, unless where the Scotch have settled
ill Ulster, or in the large cities, has been given over to deplorable
ignorance by the Catholic clergy. And that ignorance is all the
more inexcusable, since the British Parliament votes annually a
handsome grant for books and other school requisites, and for part
of the teachers' salaty, for every school in Ireland accepting its
simple and non-sectarian conditions,
Rome, of all the cities on earth, should exhibit the peculiar
fruits of sacerdotal toils. Legions of priests and nuns have
labored there for long centuries. Hundreds of popes, most of
whom held a temporal sceptre, as well as the mighty sword of St
24

370 THE ROMISH CHURCH AND EDUCATION.
Peter, have made it their home. The wealth of the world has
flowed into it, enabling its pontiffs to spend fifty millions of
dollars on St. Peter's, and incredible amounts on other structures
sacred and secular. In statuary, and in paintings, the bishops of
Rome have showed a superb taste and a lavish hand. But when
you look for the education bestowed upon the Roman masses it is
nowhere to be found. Nothing can be more distressing to the
generous mind than the wretched ignorance of great numbers of
those who occupy the city, rendered famous by the eloquence of
Cicero. Seymour says, that " He proposed to one of the Jesuit
professors in the Collegio Romano, to secure any number of Bibles
that the inhabitants of Rome could require," The professor told
the truth about the intelligence of the masses of the people, when
he replied : " The people of Rome are very ignorant — are in a
state of brutal ignorance, are unable to read anything, and there
fore could not profit by reading the Scriptures, even if we supplied
them gratuitously," * Then the Church of Rome is not friendly to
the education of the people at large, or the Romans would not be
so ignorant,
Rome cherishes a deadly Hostility to Schools not completdy under
her own Care.
This fact is attested by the experience of evety countty where
her devotees are mixed with Protestants. The Church of Rome
wants all educational efforts placed in her charge.
In Naples, in December, 1849, by a decree of the Minister of
Public Instruction, f " All students were placed under a commis
sion of ecclesiastics, and were obliged to enroll themselves in some
religious congregation or society. All schools, public and private,
were placed under the same arbitrary law. The schoolmasters were
bound to take all their pupils above ten years of age to one of the
congregations, and to make a monthly return of their attendance,"
William E, Gladstone, the present Prime Minister of England,
describes a catechism taught in these schools in 1851, " as the most
singular and detestable work he had ever seen,' The doctrines of
this catechism are, ' That all who hold liberal opinions will be lost ;
* "Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome," p. 128. N. Y., 1849,
\ "The Panacy," by J. A. "Wylie, p. 504. Edinburgh, 1852.

THE ROMISH CHURCH AND EDUCATION, 371
that kings may violate as many oaths as they please in the cause of
papal and monarchical absolutism ; and that the Head of the
Church has authority from God to release consciences from oaths,
when he judges that there is suitable cause for it,' "* Now here
is the Catholic idea of tiie relation of schools to the Church ; all
students placed under a commission of ecclesiastics, and all schools,
public and private ; and the entire scholars over ten years attend
ing the Catholic Church, Any other school system is defective
and dangerous in the estimation of the popish hierarchy.
In 1851, a concordat was ratified between Spain and the Holy
See, the second article of which is : " All instruction in universi
ties, colleges, seminaries, and public and private schools, shall be
conformable to Catholic dodrine, and no impediment shall be put
in the way of the bishops, etc., whose duty it is to watch over
the purity of doctrine and of manners, and over the religious edu
cation of youth, even in the public schools." f That is the univer
sal aim of the Romish clergy. They desire, if possible, to have
supreme authority over the public schools of all lands, and failing
in that they are
Bent on having S^arate Schools where thdr Rdigion will be taught
to Catholic Youth.
This determination is strongly expressed in the spacious school
building adjoining every Catholic church in our large cities ; a
structure erected at great expense by a comparatively poor peo
ple, and conducted ¦with vast labor and constant outlay. And we
are confident that these Catholic schools are supplied ¦with children
uu'willingly by parents. They know that the public schools are
immeasurably superior in order, in the higher attainments, or bet
ter method of imparting instruction possessed by the teachers ; and
in everything characteristic of a good school. Not a few Catholics
take a great interest in our public schools, and serve sometimes
with evident satisfaction and ability, in boards having charge of
their management. But the clergy, from the highest to the lowest,
* Two letters to the Earl of Aberdeen, on the State Proseoutions of the
Neapolitan Government. London, 1851.
i " The Papacy," by J. A. Wylie, p. 116. Edinburgh, 1852.

372 THE ROMISH CHURCH AND EDUCATION,
look upon every school where they are not directors of the teacher,
with alarm and hatred,
Pius IX. condemns the present Audrian Constitution for permit
ting heretics to be buried in cemeteries where they have none of
their own ; and " He condders it abominable {abominabilis) because
it allows Protestants and Jews to erect educational institutions."*
Pius and his priests think that they should have supreme autho
rity over the schools of all Christian countries. Many are under
the impression that
The Removal of the Bible from the Schools
Would satisfy the priests, conciliate their people, and unite all in
every community in sustaining our public schools. Never were
men more deceived. There is not on record an instance of one
Catholic child being converted by hearing the Bible read in the
common school ; the priests are not afraid of it there. It is per
haps something of a slight to them, which, if nothing depended
on it, they would rather than otherwise have removed ; but the
Bible in the common school is a perfect " godsend " to the clergy. It
enables them to denounce the whole system ; to harp on the danger
Catholic children risk from the Protestant Bible ; to appeal to
their own people to sustain Catholic schools ; and to send out loud
demands to all the unprincipled politicians of all parties to give
them A FAIR DIVISION OF THE SCHOOL FUND,
That is their aim. Take the Bible out of the schools, and then
without any religion, they will denounce them as GODLESS
SCHOOLS, When the English Government, in a fit of laudable
generosity, established at great expense, and liberally endowed
three colleges in Ireland, for the benefit of all creeds, without
any religious instruction ; and placed in them a list of talented
men as professors : though the Catholics were represented among
the presidents and teachers of these institutions, Pius IX, de
nounced them as " Godless, and forbade every good Catholic, as
he valued his salvation, to allow his child to enter them," f
* " The Pope and Council," by Janus, p. 24, Boston, 1870,
\ " ThJ Papacy," bv J. A. Wylie, p. 121. Edinburgh, 1853,

THE ROMISH CHURCH AND EDUCATION, 373
The " Mission Book " of prayer, in the preparation it directs
for a " General Confession," requires a parent to ask himself about
his children : * " Have you sent them to herdic or godless schools,
to tlie danger of their faith?" The heretical schools are of
course Protestant places of instruction. The " Godless Schools "
must be our public schools. The " Mission Book " was specially
altered to suit this countiy ; and already the cry is raised in the
confessional, that it is a sin to send your children to the Godless
 Schools.
As far as thinking men can discern, the priests in our country
are determined to have a share of the educational funds of our
States to support their schools already built, and to erect and sus
tain other separate schools. Everything looks in that direction.
They want to build a wall around their youth to shut out the free
breathings of American Protestant children ; they wish to stop
their young ears against the inspirations of American liberty,
floating from the lips of boys and girls. They are resolved, if
their children must be instructed, that a " sister," unctuous with
reverence for " Holy Church," and a " brother" of the " Christian
Schools" devoted to the "Sacred Heart of Mary," shall give a
limited education, and impart a wholesale stock of papal piety at
the same time. Two Emts spring from such a Course.
The first is : The educational effort, if limited to the Catholic
schools, ¦will not generally succeed. Of course, we do not speak
of the convent schools, got up especially to give a finished education,
and the faith of the popes to Protestant young ladies, but of the
parochial schools. Of one of these institutions Wylie says : " In
St. Patrick's Roman Catholic School, Edinburgh, instances have
been frequent of children four years there, and yet unable to put
two letters together; and of others who had been at school for ten
years, and could not read. The Jesuits build schools, and appoint
teachers, not to educate, but to lock up youth in prisons, mis
called schools, as a precaution against thdr bdng educated." f
* "Miasion Book," p. 316. N. T., 1866.
+ " The Papacy," by J. A. Wylie, p. 438. Edinburgh, 1853,

374 THE ROMISH CHURCH AND EDUCATIOH
Now, while this statement would be untrue, probably, of
American Catholic schools, that is, in its full extent ; a large
measure of the same charge it is believed might be justly level
led against Catholic parochial schools. The second evil is : a
body of youths is raised up among us, and yet not of us ; a class
of girls is brought up in our midst without having their sympa
thies linked to the great heart of Columbia, The men and women
thus trained by foreign teachers, or native instructors with alien
prejudices, in the dogmas of an Italian Church ; and taught to
render unlimited obedience to a great priest in Rome ; led from
childhood to regard their neighbors and their institutions aa ene
mies of everything sacred to them, are excluded from the youthful
and lasting friendships of American boys and girls ; and are fitted
to be foreigners and unfeeling strangers in our social and national
movements while their lives last. Every patriot should aim to
laiit his countrymen together ; and to this end he should exert
himself to destroy all exclusive systems ; and especially all educa
tional efforts tending to the isolation of any portion of the young
from the other parts of our juvenile population. And as the
education of our public schools, next to the gospel, is the greatest
protectress of our liberties, he should pray for the prosperity of our
common schools; and never cast a vote or perform an act by
which any portion of our educational funds should be given to
any denomination ; or any part of our youthful population sepa
rated in their early struggles and training from the associates of their
boyhood and girlhood. Let those who look on the same scenety,
breathe the same atmosphere, and bask in the same bright beams,
drink knowledge at the same fountain.

SINS TAKEN AWAY BY GIFTS AND FAVORS.
Nothing seems more astonishing than that intelligent men who
have any knowledge of the Christian religion should ever imagine
that gifts of property or money could blot out guilt, and cancel
the record of it from the books of the judgment day. And yet
nothing on earth is more certain than that this doctrine for cen
turies governed the leading men of Catholic Europe, It erectec
the most spacious and magnificent churches in the world ; it founded
and endowed hosts of those rich and grand old convents whose
corpulent and lordly abbots, and idle throngs of unpopular monks
in^vited covetous hands, and sanctioned general spoliation in some
countries. To this doctrine the Church owed much of its power
in the dark ages, much of that wealth which made her the owner
of the fairest lands in Christendom, and not a few of those laws
which gave her a towering supremacy over every corporation in
the State and over the nation itself, A rich sinner in the olden
time bought a priestly title to heaven by founding a monastery ;
building a church; or by conferring some great favor on the
clergy. And in the deed of gift he stipulated ¦with scrupulous
care that he made the donation : "for the remisdon of his dns,"
The pious devotee, -wishing a higher title to heavenly favor, fol
lowed in the same well-beaten path. The Church, through her
most exalted national officials, accepted the grant, charter, eccle
siastical edifice, or bounty, with this solemnly expressed condition.
Let any one take up the history of some old abbey, and examine
its charters, deeds, bequests, and other recorded benefactions of
value ; and he -will find that almost every gift was bestowed, and
evety charter executed for the remission of the sins of the indivi
dual conferring the fevor. The gates of heaven seemed open forf
a^^ who would enrich the clergy and the Church 375

376 GIFTS AND GRANTS TAKE AWAY SINS.
St. Eligius in the Seventh Century,
A great man for that age, says : " He is a good Christian who
comes often to church, and brings his gifts to be laid on the altar
of God, who does not taste of his produce till he has offered some
of it to God  Redeem your souls, says he, from punishment
while you have the means in your power : — present oblations and
tithes to the churches ; bring candles to the holy places, according
to your wealth : — and come often to the churches, and beg suppli
antly for the intercession, — If ye do these things ye may come with
confidence before the tribunal of the dernal God in the day of judg
ment and say : Give, Lord, for we have given." * Such was the
doctrine of the celebrated Bishop of Noyon in France, a great
missionary, and founder of churches in Holland, Friesland, and
Suabia, Ethelbald, King of the Mercians,
In A, D, 726, promulgated a statute, declaring all monasteriea
and churches free from public taxes, works, and burdens. And
this he did, " In consideration of his love of the heavenly land,
and for the redemption of his own soul, determined by good works
to make it free from all the bonds of sin." f
Offa, King of Mercia, founds St. Albans Convent.
In A, D, 794 he went to Rome and solicited from the supreme
pontiff, Adrian, the canonization of Alban, and the pope's counsel
about founding a monastery in his honor. To this Adrian replied:
" My most beloved son Offa, most mighty King of the English,
we exceedingly commend your devotion about the first martyr of
your kingdom, and we gladly consent to your request to build a
monastery and to endow it with privileges, enjoining you, for the
remisdon of your dns, that on your return home you shall, by the
advice of your bishops and nobles, confer on the monastery of the
blessed Alban whatever possessions or privileges you choose," J
Monastery building, according to Pope Adrian, secured the remis
sion of sins,
* Mosheim, p. 251. London, 1848. f Ingulph, at A. D. 736,
X Matt, of Westminster, at a. d. 794

GIFTS AND GRANTS TAKE AWAY SINS, 377
Bertulph, King of Mercia, gives a Charter to the Abbey of
Croyland,
In A, D, 851, in which he grants substantial gifts and favors to
Grod and the blessed confessor St. Guthlac, " In behalf of the late
King Wichtlaf, his brother and predecessor, and as a ran^som for
his ovm dns,"*
EthdundfX King of the West Saxons, commands the performamoe
of Charitable Deeds.
In A. D. 856 he prepared a letter of instructions, or as we
would say a \vill, directing that "Every tenth poor man in his he
reditary possessions, native or foreigner, for the benefit of his soul,
should be supplied, by his successors, with meat, drink, and cloth
ing until the day of judgment ; he commanded also three hundred
mancuses to be carried to Rome for the good of his soul; to be
distributed in the following manner ; a hundred mancuses in
honor of St. Peter, to buy oil for the lights of his church on
Easter eve and at the cock crow ; a hundred in honor of St, Paul,
for the same purpose, and a hundred for the universal, apostolic
pontiff," The same Ethdwulf institutes Tithes.
In A, D, 855, shortly after his return from Rome, EthelwuJ/,
King of the West Saxons, with the " Free consent of all his pre
lates and chief men, for the first time endowed the whole Church
of England with the tenths of all lands and other goods or chat
tels." And this he did, as he says : " For the forgiveness of my
soul, and the remission of my dns." This unwise act was per
formed at Winchester in November 855, in the Church of St,
Peter, before the great altar. All the archbishops and bishops in
England were present and signed the document, thereby accepting
it as a remedy to blot out Ethelwulf's sins. Beorred, King of
Mercia, Edmund, King of the East Angles, and a multitude of
abbots, abbesses, dukes, earls, and others of the faithful, approved
of the charter, and the dignitaries subscribed it.J That charter
* Ingulph, at A. D. 851. t Asser's "Life of Alfred," at a. d. 856.
X Ing-ulph, at A. D. 855.

378 GIFTS AND GRANTS TAKE AWAY SINS.
has been executed ever since, and has burdened Englishmen foi
more than a thousand years. If anything could make the Saviour,
whose blood, unaided, cleanses from all sin, hesitate in his career
of resistless mercy, it would be the execution of a law compdling
posterity to give the "tenths of all lands and other goods or
chattels" to any church under heaven, thereby exciting endless
heartburnings against religion; and indolence and arrogance among
ministers of Jesus, independent of the love and confidence of their
people. Beorred, King of Merda, grants a Charter to Croyland.
In A, D, 868, at the request of Earl Algar, Beorred confirms by
charter all the lands bestowed on the monastety of Croyland, and
its whole possessions and claims ; and he took this step as he de
clares " as an almsgift for my own soul, and for the remission of
my transgressions."*
This charter was signed by Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canter-
buty, confirmed by Elstan, Bishop of London, approved by Ed
mund, Bishop of Sherburn, commended by Alcwin, Bishop of
Winchester; Hynebert, Bishop of Lichfield, signed it; Ethelbert,
Bishop of Hereford, made his cross upon it ; and besides these
many others ecclesiastics and nobles subscribed the document. The
whole Church in England, high and low, accepted Beorred's char
ter as a remedy for his sins.
King Edred confers a Charter on Croyland,
In A, D. 948, Edred, holding " the temporal government of
Great Britain," bestowed a very favorable charter on the Abbey
of Croyland, of which his former minister Turketul was abbot :
" The said gifts (in the charter)," he declares, " I have established
and rendered lasting, to the praise of the Holy Trinity, and as a
price of the ransom of my soul.'f " The two archbishops, and four
bishops sanctioned and signed the instrument, thereby accepting
the doctrine that such acts took away sin.
King Edgar bestows a Charter on Medeshamsted,
And in this document he enumerates many gifts and favors
• Ingulph, at A. D. 868. t Id., at A. d. 948,

GIFTS AND GRINTS TAKE AWAY SINS. 379
which he confers, and he does this, he says : " By the grace of St.
Peter, and out of affection for so valued a father (Bishop Ethel-
wold), and for the redemption of my soul." * This charter was
signed by all the leading ecclesiastics, including the two archbi
shops, showing their approval of its doctrine,
William Rufus gives his Father's Treasures away.
When William the Conqueror died, he left in Winchester sixty
thousand pounds of silver, besides gold, precious stones, and
jewels in vast quantities. His son and successor distributed them
in accordance ¦svith the ¦will of his father, bestowing on the greater
churches, over the land, ten marks, and upon the smaller churches
five shillings ; and on each of the counties one hundred pounds
for the relief of the poor, "And this he did on behalf of the soul
of his father." f
Canute confirms the rights of Glastonbury.
In A. D. 1031, Canute visited the church of Glastonbury, and
at the request of Ethelnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury, he con
firmed the privileges of that renowned abbey ; and this he did, as
he says : " For the love of heaven, and the pardon of my dns, and
the remission of the transgresdons of my brother. King Edmumi." $
William the Conqueror founds Two Monasteries.
By the salutaxy warnings of Remigius, Bishop of Dorchester,
the victor of Hastings builds two abbeys "for the atonement of his
transgressions." Fang John deeds England and Ireland to the Pope. \\
In A. D. 1213, this act, which has never found a parallel in the
doings of English sovereigns, was consummated ; and in the infa
mous document in which John transfers his dominions to Innocent
III., he states that he offers, and freely grants to the pope, " The
whole kingdom of England, and the kingdom of Ireland, with all
• Ingulph, at A. D. 970. t W., at a. d. 1091.
X William of Malmesbury, book. il. cap. ii.
^ Matt, of Westminster, at a. d. 1085. J Id., at a. d. 1318.

380 GIFTS AND GRANTS TAKE AWAY SINS,
their rights and belongings for the remisdon of our sins, and those
of our whole race (family) both tiring and dead." * Such was the
instrument, inspired, if not written by the pope, and ratified by
him : showing that such a sacrifice could take away John's sins,
in his distorted opinion. Hervry III. makes good Laws.
In A, D. 1236, this monarch, in a council at Merton, granted
and established wholesome laws, and ordered them to be universally
obeyed ; and this he did, " For the salvation of his ovm soul and that
of his queen." f He founded a house for Jewish converts in
London, " For the redemption of his own soul and that of his
father."X In Burmah, it is said, that there is no such thing as love piompt-
ing an act. When relief is given to the poor, it is to obtain merit ;
when offerings are made on the altars, a similar motive prompts it ;
when supplications are made, the design is still the same. And it
is asserted that a torrent of ridicule would greet the man who
claimed to perform an act which seemed to be benevolent, from
motives of pure compassion. So for ages in the Romish Church,
while doubtless there were hosts of hearts full of pity, in acts for
the public good, for charitable purposes, and for religious objects,
the leading motive was precisely the one which governs the heathen
followers of Graudama : the creation of merit. It was for the
" good of their souls, to secure the pardon of their sins," Promp
tings of this character bestowed the finest lands of Europe, stately
ecclesiastical structures, and innumerable rich gifts on the Church ;
and similar motives led to the enactment of beneficent laws, and
to the bestowment of immense benefits upon individuals and com
munities. So that ignorance of Isaiah's idea, as the Vulgate has
it : " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come up to the waters, and ye
that have no money ; hasten, buy, and eat ; come, buy wine and
mUk ¦without money, and without any return," conferred immense
benefits occasionally on communities, and for centuries on ecclesi
astics. * Matt, of Westminster, at a. d. 121S.
» Id., at A. D. 1236. X Id-, at a. d. 1234.

SEYMOUR TAKES HIMSELF OUT OF PURGATORY. 381
This Doctrine lives in the Modern Catholic Church.
Says Gavin : " In all families (in Spain) whatsoever, if any one,
is dangerously sick, there are continually friars and prie.sts waiting
till the pei-son dies, and troubling the chief of the family with
petitions for masses for the soul of the deceased ; and if he is rich,
the custom is to distribute among all the convents and parishes,
one thousand or more masses, to be said the day of burial. When
the Marquis of St. IMartin died, his lady distributed a hundred
thousand masses, for which she paid the very same day £5000,
besides one thousand masses which she settled upon all the con
vents and parish churches, to be said each year forever." Surely
here it was the money of the defiinct marquis, which, in the esti
mation of the li^ving, was to redeem his soul from the hot atmo
sphere of purgs.toty.
A Man in Rone buys his own Soul out of Purgatory a few years
dnce.
The Rev, Mr, Seymour, when in the Eternal City, visited a
church with a privileged altar ; where one mass brings a soul from
purgatoty forthwith, Mr, Seymour witnessed the sale of this
mass himself " to a large number of persons in the Basilica of
Santa Croce di Gemsalemme in Rome, Each person stated the
name of his friend in purgatory, paid four pauls, about forty cents,
and received an acknowledgment in writing," He saw the same
process at the Feast of the Assumption at Varallo in 1851 ; and
he entered a bureau near the high altar of the principal church,
and was received with marked politeness by the gentleman in
charge of it, who opened a large account book, entered his name
in it, and took his money ; he then handed him the book in which
he was to write the name of the soul to be released ; there were
twenty names just recorded in it, and to them Seymour added his
oum ! He obtained a receipt, of which the following is a transla
tion : " 1851, Sept. 8th. THE SACRED MOUNT,*
" I, the undersigned, agent of the venerable fabric of the Sacred
* 1851, addi 8 Smbre, dal 8, Monte.
Ho ricev'tto io sottoscrittff assistente della veneranda Pabrica del Sacrt

382 GIFTS AND GRANTS SECURE PARDONS.
Mount of Varallo, have received from Mr. Hobart Seymour the
charity of one shilling and eight pence, for one mass to be cele
brated at the perpetually privileged daily altar of the most blessed
Virgin Mary in Varallo. "In Witness, Agno Bertoli."
For forty cents a soul can be rescued from purgatoty forthwith,
by this system. Says Seymour : * " The murderer and his victim
may be released from the sufferings of another world by a small
sum in this, and where such a system prevails, it ceases to be a
matter of surprise that crime should abound in all its most dark
and terrible features,"
The Mission Book has substantially the same Dodrine.
It says : f " There is also an indulgence of one hundred days for
every time we lodge a poor person, or give him alms in his necessity,
or perform some other work of mercy  All these indul-
gances are applicable to the souls in purgatoty," Gifts bribe God
for his fiivor. The Coundl of Trent teaches this Dodrine.
One of its leading canons reads :
" If any one shall say that the satisfactions by which penitents
redeem their sins through Jesus Christ, are not the worship of
God, but traditions of men, obscuring the doctrine of grace, and
the true worship of God, and the benefit itself of the death of
Christ ; let him be accursed," |

Monte di Varallo dal Signer Hobart Seymour I'elemosina di lire, 2 : 7. di
Mil. per Messe unada celebrarsi all' altare privilegiato quotidiano perpetuo
della Beattissima Vergine Maria. — In fede : Agno Bertoli. — " Eneninga with
the Bomaniats," pp. 28, 29, 30. N. Y., 1856.
* Seymour's " Evenings with the Romanists," p. 30. N. T., 1850.
t " Mission Book," p. 190. N. Y., 1866.
:|: Si quis dixerit, satisfactiones, quibus pcenitentes per Christum Jesum
peccata redimunt, non esse cultus Dei, sed traditiones hominum, doctrinam
de gratia, et verum Dei cultum, atque ipsum beneficium mortis Christi ob-
acivantes; anathema sit. — Canones et Decreta Gone Trid., aess. xiv., can.
14, >. 84 Lipaiffi, 1863.

MASSES FOR THE DEAD, 383
No matter whether the satisfactions are sufferings, meritorious
prayers, or purchased masses, the great fact is asserted by the
Council of Trent, that "Penitents can redeem thdr dns through
Jesus Christ," not that he has bought them ; but that they, through
payments or pains, can redeem their iniquities themselves.
The Priests must have a proper Price for thdr Masses, or one
Mass must stand for a Number.
There was a serious difficulty in the times of the Council of
Trent ; many pious persons, as religion was then understood, re
quested masses in the most solemn manner from the clergy of par
ticular churches, where they had been accustomed, when li^ving, to
worship God, and in their last testament, they had left a sum of
money to be paid annually for these sacrifices ; but the amount
was small, and the priests could not afford to bring souls out of
purgatory without a proper hire, and it was impossible, in many
cases, to procure the services of these unwedded priests, whose ex
penses need not be great. In cases of this class, the ecclesiastical
authorities were authorized to make a compromise, most probably
permitting one mass to be offered up for ten, twenty, or more ; so
that all the dead would be remembered, and the priest not be over
taxed. No other interpretation can be put on the follo^wing decree
of authoritative Trent : *
" It happens frequently in certain churches, either that so great
a number of masses is required to be celebrated by various legacies
left by the departed, that it is impossible to give satisfaction thereto
on the special days appointed by the testators, or that such alms
left for celebrating the masses are so slender that it is not easy to
find any one who wishes to subject himself to that duty ; whereby the
pious intentions of testators are frustrated, and occadon is given for
buHhening the consdences of those whom the aforesaid obligations

* Contingit ssepe in quibusdam ecclesiis vei tam magnum missarum cele-
brandarum numerum ex variis defunctorum relictis impositum esse, ut illis
pro singulis diebus a testatoribus prsescriptis nequeat satisfleri, vel eleemo-
synam hujusmodi pro illis celebrandis adeo tenuem esse, ut non facile inve-
niatur, qui velit huic se muneri subjicere ; unde depereunt piae testantiura
voluntates, et eorum conscientiaa, ad quos prsedicta spectant, onerandi oc-

384 ONE MASS OFFERED INSTEAD OF SEVERAL,
concern. The holy synod, desiring that these bequests for pious
uses should be satisfied in the most complete and useful way pos
sible, gives authority to bishops in diocesan synod, and likewise to
abbots and generals of orders, that in their general chapters they
shall ordain in regard to this matter, whatsoever in thdr consdences
they shall, upon a diligent examination of the drcumstances, ascer
tain to be most expedient for God's honor and worship, and the good
of the churches, in those churches aforesaid, which they shall find to
stand in need of such provision ; in such wise, however, that a com
memoration be always made of the departed, who, for the welfare of
their souls, have left the said bequests for pious uses," The Coun
cil does not command the bishops and abbots to order their avari
cious priests to offer up a mass for every one who has left a legacy,
however small, for that purpose, as it ought to have done. That
was what the deceased in his life wanted. No, the bishops in
their synods, and the abbots in their chapters, are to make some
different providon for such cases ; and as all the dead testators are
to be commemorated in a mass, and that not a separate one for
each, it is one for all; or, at least, a few masses to represent all.
Money, according to the Council of Trent, brings souls out of pur
gatory, or it keeps them in it. When the prices of masses are
slender, none will be offered up, unless a heap of masses can be
discharged by one ; and the small prices of many form a handsome
reward for a solitary mass. That all Catholic priests are of the
class recognized in this decree as despising the masses with
" slender " wages, we do not believe. But the council recognizes
the fact that masses are to be paid for, and that there may be few
oblations when they are not appreciated at a respectable pecuniaty
value.

casio datur. Sancta Synodus, cupiens haec ad pios usus relicta, quo pleniug
et utilius potest, impleri, facultatem dat episcopis, ut in Synodo dicecesana,
itemque abbatibua et generalibus ordinum, ut in suis capitulis generalibus re
diligenter perspecta possint pro sua conscientia in prsedictis ecclesiis, quas
hsec provisione indigere cognoverint, statuere circa hsec quicquid magis ad
Dei honorem et cultum atque ecclesiarum utilitatem viderint expedire ; ita
tamem, ut eorum semper defunctorum commemoratio flat, qui pro suarum
animarum salute legata ea ad pios usus reliquerunt. — Canones et Decreta
Conc. trid., sess. xxv., de Reformatione, cap. iv. p. 191. Lipsiae, 1863.

ONE MAt^S WITH THE EFFICACY OF A HUNDRED, 386
Gavin speaks of a grant given by the pope to .some friars in his
country, by which one mass is said instead of a hundred, and this
one is " equivalent to a hundred masses," * Fifty-two masses
celebrated in the year would count for 5200, and these sold at a
price equal to twenty-eight cents each, if they could be all disposed
of, would bring some fifteen hundred dollars ; so that each friar,
if he only celebrated one mass every week, and obtained the ordi
nary price paid for it in Spain, could live most comfortably. But
all this is salvation by money, when God, in the Vulgate, says : f
"The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from every

• " Master Key to Popery," p. 129. Cincinnati, 1833.
\ Sanguis Jesu Christi, filii ejus, emundat nos ab omni peccato. — 1 John i, 7.
25

NO SALVATION FOR PROTESTANTS.
The admission into heaven of a soul is of unspeakable import
ance, the pledging of which to an unsaved man, or the denial of
which to a regenerated child of Jesus, is exceedingly wicked.
The Church of Rome Consigns to Perdition all who r^ed
Her Faith.
The bull " In Coena Domini " is one of the most notorious docu
ments ever issued by the pontiffs ; it has been ratified, confirmed,
or enlarged by more than twenty popes, whose names and constitu
tions are prefixed to the bull itself; it has been published for ages
in the Eternal City every Maunday-Thursday, * One section of
this document reads : f " We do, on the part of Almighty God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and also by the authority of the
blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, and by our own, excommunicate
and curse all Husdtes, Widiffites, Lutherans, Zwinglians, Cal-
vinists. Huguenots, Anabaptists, Trinitarians, and Apostates from
the faith of Christ, and all and sundry other herdics, by whatso-
* Bower's " History of the Popes," vol. iii. p. 484. Philada., 1845.
t Excommunicamus et anathematizamus ex parte Dei omnipotentis, Patris,
et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, auctoritate quoque B. Apost. Petri et Pauli, ac nostra,
quoscunque Hussitas, Wicklepliistas, Luteranos, ZuingUanos, Calvinistas,
Ugonottas, Anabaptistas, Trinitarios, et a Christi fide Apostatas, ac omnes et
singulos alios hsereticos, quocunque nomine censeantur, et cujuscuuque
sectsB existant ; ac eis credentes eorumque receptatores, fautores, et genera-
liter quoslibet illorum defensores ; ac eorumdem libros hserisin continentes,
vel de religione tractantes sine auctoritate nostra et sedis Apostolicse acienter
legentes aut retinentes, imprimentes, sen quomodolibet defendentes. — Oon-
ttitutio Pauli V., 63., Perceval on tin Soman Schism, Introduction, p. 37.
London, 1836.
386

NO SALVATION FOR PROTESTANTS, 387
ever name they may be reckoned, and of whatever sect they may
be; and those who believe in them, and tlieir receivers, abettors, and
in general, all thdr defenders whatsoever ; a)ul those who without our
authority and that of the Apostolic See knowingly read, or rdain,
or print, or in any way defend the books eontaining thdr heresy,
or treating of religion." In this instrument the popes curse every
denomination of Protestants, and every individual who declines to
obey the bishops of Rome ; or who aids non-Catholics in any man
ner; or who, ¦without papal authority, knowingly reads, or re
tains a Protestant book, or prints it. The curse and excom
munication involve and mean the damnation of the soul in its
severest pains.
The creed of Pope Pius IV. must be received by every Catholic
bishop ; it is the standard of orthodoxy in the Church of Rome.
This creed makes those who recite it say : * " I, N. N,, at this pre
sent, freely profess, and sincerely hold this true Catholic faith,
without which no one can be saved." This is the creed and oath
to-day of the clergy of the entire Romish sect. We do not brand
them with infamy, for such an atrocious conviction ; we simply
present it as an unquestionable part of papal doctrine.
In Protestant denominations men generally think that each true
believer on the Son of God in the papal or in Rome-rejecting com
munities will surely be saved ; that wherever God discovers faith,
that soul will be found in heaven. Nor do we hesitate to express
our conviction that the Infallible Church has some of the elect of
God among her numerous progeny. But that Church consigns us
all to damnation in due and solemn form.
No doubt there are many Catholics who reject this atrocious
dogma. We have met some of them ourselves : men and women
of large hearts and noble impulses. There are priests, too, who
secretly hold a generous confidence in the existence of salvation
outside the limits of their sect. But, as a Church, Rome curses and
condgns to damnation the whole Protestant world. The good and
great Bishop Hall says : f " The Protestant or Evangelical churches
* Hanc veram catholicam fldem, extra quam nemo salvus esse potest,
quam in preesenti sponte profiteer et veraciter teneo. — Bulla Super Forma
Juram. Profess. Kd., p. 228., Canones et Decreta Conc Trid.
\ "Practical Works," vol. ii. pp. 51-2. London, 1808.

388 BISHOP HALL ON CATHOLIC INTOLERANCE.
of our European world do justly cry out of the high injustice of
Rome in excluding them from the communion of the truly Catholic
Church of Christ, What presumptuous violence is this 1 What
a proud uncharitableness ! They have both gone from themselves
and abandoned us ; had they continued what they once were,
they had been ours, we had been thdrs ; and both had been
Ctrut't."

THE MASS IN LATIN;
THE WORD "LATIN" IN THE GREEK TONGUE CONTAINS Tl^E
NUMBER OF THE BEAST
John tells us of a ferocious beast, or antichristian system, that
should make war upon the saints of God, and overcome them ;
that should perform great wonders ; that should exercise dominion
over all kindreds, tongues and nations, and receive worship from
all that dwell upon the earth whose names are not written in
the book of life, and that should deceive by his pretended
miracles. The number of the beast is given by John, Rev, xiii, 18.
Ireneus, commenting on the number six hundred and sixty-six
says : "As matters are thus, and the number is found in all the
genuine and ancient copies, and as they who saw John attest,
reason itself shows that the number of the name of the beast is
indicated by the Gi-eek letters which it contains ; " and he then shows
80 1 300 6 10 50 70 200
that the requisite number is found in Kat i i v o $ (Lateinos);*
and he fixes upon this name because the Latin government was
destined, as he supposed, to be the last of all. Ireneus lived very
near John's time, and made a remarkable guess. It was natural
to suppose that the Greek tongue should be selected to find the
numeral letters, for John wrote in it, and so did Roman authors in
his day, and Ireneus himself used it. Eusebius alludes to this
exposition of the number of the beast by Ireneus, sho^wing that
the saying attributed to him is authentic, and that it excited gene
ral interest in the fourth century.f

* Ireneus, adv. Hseret., lib. v. cap. xxx.
t Eusebius, lib. v. cap. viii. 389

390 the latin language in the catholic church.
It is a singular circumstance, in connection with the word Latin,
or Lateinos, that though from thirty to seventy nations are said to
have been represented in the Vatican Council of 1870, the discus
sions, speeches, and canons and decrees of that assembly were all
in the Latin language.
It is also a notable fact that Pope Vitalian was the first to ordain
that public worship should be celebrated in the Latin tongue, in the
year six hundred and sixty-six, the year with the same number as
the beast.*
The principal service of the Catholic Church is the mass ; ever}'
other part of her worship is a mere ornament or appendage of
that imaginary sacrifice, and throughout the world THE
MASS MUST BE CELEBRATED IN LATIN. The
Council of Trent declares that, "although the mass contains
much instruction for the faithful, yet it does not seem expedient
to the fathers that it should be performed everywhere in the
vulgar tongue." f And in all lands the great oblation of Rome
is offered up in the language of Horace and Virgil, of Cicero
and Sallust.
The " Latin Church " is one of the proper names of the mighty
papal sect, just as the " Greek Church " describes a great Eastern
lenomination. This is an extraordinary name in view of John's
6east with his number. And yet it is one of the common desig
nations of the Catholic world.
The whole public documents of the popes ; and of the Roman
court, intended for the ecclesiastical authorities of all lands, have
been ¦written in Latin from the earliest times ; and are still com
municated in the same grand old tongue. The Word of God, in
the original Hebrew and Greek languages, was open to the popes.
And yet, strange to say, the Council of Trent, passing the original
Scriptures by, gave its solemn approval to the Vulgate Bible, a
version in the Latin tongue. And from that time, the revision
and translation of the Monk Jerome has been the only Bible of

* " Rise and Fall of the Papacy," by Fleming, p. 10. Philada., 1860.
t Etsi missa magnam contineat populi fldelis eruditionem, non tamen
expedire visum est patribus, ut vulgari passim lingua celebraretur.—
Canones et Decreta. Conc. Trid., sess. xxii., Sacr. Mis., cap. viii. p. 120.
Lipsise, 1863,

THE LATIN LANGUAGE IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, 391
the Catholics, If in any land there is a Romish translation, it
is from the Latin Vulgate, not fi'om the inspired Greek and
Hebrew, In view of these very remarkable facts, it seems morally
certain that the Latin papacy is the beast of John which
should perform prodigies of iniquitous deeds against God and his
saints.

THE SINCERITY OF CATHOLIC PRIESTS.
Among Protestants there is a universal conviction that Romish
priests are too well educated to believe in transubstantiation ; the
legendary stories of the saints, the fires of purgatory ; and the
delusive powers which they claim to exercise in absolving men
from their sins. Perhaps no impression in the world is more firmly
rooted than this. And among the masses who reject the Church
of the Dark Ages, this opinion is as surely true as a text of Scrip
ture, No doctrine could be more baseless. It would be impossi
ble for an intelligent Protestant, who understands his Bible, to
receive the monstrous dogma of transubstantiation, and similar
papal dreams and follies. But the priest had not a Protestant
education ; did not know his Bible ; and did not exercise his in
telligence. Commonly, he has been brought up from childhood to
believe everything the Church of Rome teaches ; to regard it as
exceedingly ¦wicked to doubt anything for which she demands
faith; and to suppiess every exercise of his judgment adverse to
the Holy Mother, He has been nurtured on miracles, super
natural appearances, and lying wonders from his first conscious
moments. These have been communicated to him by the lips of
a loving mother, who assured him of their truth, or of some
revered priest who came from the presence of God when he stated
them ; and they were believed by all the kindred and associates
of the ftiture priest. In childhood he is assured that Protestants
sprung from a rebellious German monk who had many interviews
with the devil ; and a licentious English King, who wanted, in
spite of the holy father, to disgrace and remove his good wife, and
elevate his low-born mistress to her place ; that their worship is
iniquity, and that they shall all be damned. He grows up to
regard them, their books, and their religion with horror; and as
392

EARNESTNESS OF PRIESTS. 393
he knows little, if anything, about their pure Christ-honoring
doctrines, there is not much ground for surprise that he clings to
the creed of childhood.
In the sacerdotal education of a priest he is brought in contact
with nothing Protestant ; nothing to shake his faith in the con-
¦victions of early days. When he reaches eighty years, his opin
ions are but the teachings of his mother, and his first spiritual
director. He never examined any other creed.
Why would her priests remain in the Church of Rome if they
were hypocrites? Threatenings might keep the timid in their
old places, but they could not keep all. There is nothing so very
attractive in the home of a priest, with no virtuous wife, no lov
ing children, and no real friend ; in the confessional where he
becomes the pool into which a thousand streams of filth and
horror run ; nor in his daily life, in which he is the mark for
Protestant dislike, and, unless times are changed, for some Catho
lic suspicion. If he does not believe his doctrines, why does he
not come out and follow some worldly calling? Protestant
clergymen frequently give up the ministry ; Catholic priests
hardly ever tum away into secular life. The priests of Roman
ism arefuU of eamedness as a class. They have their hypocrites,
as all systems have. But the trouble is, there are far too many of
them frill of zeal for their Church. Are not these priests planning
and building churches, seminaries, convents, schools and orphans'
homes all over the land ? It is not the Catholic laity who are in
the van of these enterprises, but the clergy ; and at this moment
they are moving every energy, and working with untiring zeal in
our o^wn and other countries, to build and prop the tottering
walls of the papacy,
Luther wished his Parents Dead while he was in Rome, that he
might offer up Masses there for them.
As he went up and down the Eternal City a delighted pilgrim,
believing all the fables he heard, visiting all the famous churches,
gathering rich treasures of merit from his devout exercises and holy
deeds, and very happy in his fresh stock of spiritual wealth, he
learned how easily he could take souls out of purgatory by masses
said ia particular places in Rome, He loved his parents ; he was

894 EARNESTNESS OF PRIESTS,
ardently attached to his mother : " Oh, how I could like to make
my mother happy ! " said he. And yet soon after he said : "How
much I regret that my father and mother are still alive. What
delight I should have in delivering them from the fire of purga
toty, by my masses, my prayers, and many other admirable
works ! " At the fountain head of priestly power he felt that he
had an opportunity to relieve his father and mother from the
pains of purgatory which might never return ; and he wished his
loving parents in their long home, that he might send them imme
diately to Paradise. How intensely earnest Luther was ! And
what reason have we to suppose that priests to-day, moulded and
nurtured under the same influences, are less conscientious ? *
A Modern Miracle.
While Seymour, a few years ago, was conversing ¦with some
Jesuits at Rome, he tried to prove the unreliability of Catholic
miracles by relating the case of a priest who took a whole tribe of
Indians to one of our western rivers, and there, without any in
struction, baptized them ; after which he suspended a little cross
around the neck of each by a string, and informing them that
they were now Christians, he left them. The missionary priest
was at Rome on a visit when Seymour was there, and had in
formed his Jesuit friend himself of the Indian conversion. Two
years after the baptism of the natives the priest visited them
again, aud was greatly surprised to find that none of them had
any sins to confess. There was not a single sin committed by
one in the tribe since his baptism ; it was a miracle the Jesuit
insisted. While the priest was administering the communion to
these Indians, one of them was too far off for the priest to put
the host into his mouth, but he was kneeling -with devout awe,
and as the priest was observing him, " The host flew out of his
fingers, flew over to the poor Indian, and flew into his mouth,"
"Oh !" the Jesuit added, in a tone of the most reverential devo
tion, "the blessed Jesus so loved that poor savage, that he longed
to enter into his heart, and thus miraculously flew into his
mouth," Seymour says: "There was a fervor, an earnestness, a
• D'Aubigne, vol. i. p. 143. Glasgow, 1846.

EARNESTNESS OF PRIESTS, 395
devotion of manner that showed he fully believed what hj thus
narrated. The personal character of the man was such that I
had no right to doubt him after so solemn a statement,"
There is far less scepticism among Catholics where the Church
still retains her hold than among Protestants, The Protestant
reasons, hears, or reads both sides, discriminates. The good
Catholic receives everything from his Church without scruple,
and he believes it.
Catholic priests as a body are intensely earnest; are just as
conscientious as ourselves ; some of them doubtless, like Luther,
before his avowal of Protestantism, or Staupitz, are converted
men, but the majority rest on another gospel than Christ's, and
are honestly bent on making this Continent their own. Let us
treat them as sincere men, and not as hypocrites ; and let us not
forget that their unquestionable love for their principles gives
them immense power, and calls upon us to put on the whole
armor of Christ, that this goodly land may be Immanuel's, not
the pope's.

HYMNS, AND THOSE WHO COMPOSED THEM.
In the ancient churches psalmody was quite as prominent as it
is in the worship of Christ now ; the praises and gratitude of the
devout worshipper reached heaven in hqjy melodies sung with
fervor and rapture.
Sometimes the psalm was sung by one person alone, the others
only giving their attention ; and sometimes by the whole assembly
together ; sometimes the congregation was divided into two choirs,
one half singing one verse, and the other the next ; sometimes one
person sung the first part of the verse, and all the people united
their voices at its close. The ancient and general practice of the
churches was for the whole people, men, women, and children, as
if with one mouth and one mind, to sing the praises of God.*
Christ and his apostles united in singing the hymn at the last
supper ; and, according to Chtysostom, the first churches followed
this example : "Women and men," says he, "old men and children,
differ in sex and age, but they differ not in the harmony of singing
hymns, for the spirit tempers all their voices together, making one
melody of them all." f
The voice in singing was employed in two distinct styles ; in
the first it received a gentle inflection, an agreeable tum with a
proper accent, not differing much from reading, like the musical
way of reading psalms in cathedral churches. This was the
Alexandrian mode in the time of Athanasius, and the prevailing
custom in Africa in the days of Augustine ; the other system con
formed to art, had a variety of notes for greater sweetness, gave
forth the richest melody, and melted into tears, or elevated to
* Bingham's "Antiquities," book xiv. chap. i. sec. 9.
t Chrysostom, on Psalm cxliv.
396

HYMNS, 397
neaven, those who shared in the enjoyment of this delightful
service.* Singing was extensively used in worship. When the church
of St. Ambrose wa.s beset with Arian soldiers, the people inside
sung psalms the whole night and day.f Psalmody was the exer
cise of the congregation at all times when no other service occu
pied them ; no occasion was regarded as unseasonable to sing holy
psalms and hymns in the church, except during Scripture reading,
preaching, or praying. Monks in their devotions, plowmen in
the fields, and the Church in all her services gloried in the abound
ing use of hymns. Even at funerals this custom was prominent,
Jerome, speaking of such an occasion, says that " the people made
the gilded roof of the temple shake and echo again with their
psalms and hallelujahs," X
Singers did not in early times make religion the chief end of
their melodies. Sometimes the men who conducted church music
took their modes of singing from the practice of the theatre, §
introducing the corruptions and effeminacy of profane music into
the solemn devotions of the sanctuary.
In condemnation of this custom Jerome says : " Let young men
who sing in the church, sing, not with their voice but with their
heart to the Lord ; not like tragedians physically preparing their
throat and mouth, that they may sing after the fashion of the
theatre in the Church."^ Chrysostom, Augustine, and other fathers
urge the same objection against the theatrical music of some
religious assemblies and singers in their day.
Hymns.
In the latter end of the second centuty a defender of the Saviour's
divinity, quoted by Eusebius, attacked Artemon's heresy, and
among other things urged by him to prove its falsehood, he says,
" Whatever psalms and hymns were imitten by the brdhren from
the beginning celebrate Christ the word of God, by asserting his
* Bingham's "Antiquities," book xiv. chap, i. sees. 15, 16.
t Ambrose, Ep, 33, ad Marcellinam Sororem.
X Hieron., Ep. 30, Epitaph Pabiolse.
§ Bingham's "Antiquities," book xiv. chap. i. sec. 18.
T Hieron., in Ephes. v.

398 HYMNS.
livinity." From the first age of the Gospel the bretlu-en had
numan compositions in praise of Jesus as God. *
In A. D. 270 the Council of Antioch complained of Paul of
Samosata, the heterodox Bishop of Antioch, that he stopped " the
psalms that were sung in honor of our Lord Jesus Christ as the
late compositions of modern men, but in honor of himself he had
prepared women to sing at the great festival in the midst of the
church." t From this statement it is again affirmed that unin-
spired hymns and psalms in honor of Jesus were in use in the
churches at a very early day.
In the beginning of the second centuty, the celebrated Pliny, in
giving the Emperor Trajan an account of the Christians, says :
" They were accustomed to meet on a certain day before it was
light and sing a hymn alternately to Christ as God," J This
hymn could not be one of David's Psalms, as they are not
addressed to " Christ as God," It is undeniable that in the in
fancy of the Church, as Cave says : " It was usual for any persons
to compose divine songs in honor of Christ, and to sing them in
the public assemblies," § These compositions were commonly
fragments of Scripture, with slight additions.
The Doxology was the first Hymn.
In its most ancient form it read : " Glory be to the Father, and
to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen,"
The words, " As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall
be," were added somewhat later than the first use of the song.
The followers of Arius would only sing the doxology thus :
" Glory be to the Father, by the Son, and by the Holy Spirit,"
It was used at the end of nearly every portion of public worship.
Another change in its words occurred not long after the first en
largement, then it read : " To Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be
all glory, worship, thanksgiving, honor, and adoration, now and
forever, throughout all ages, world without end, Amen."|| An
other vety ancient hymn is called " The Angelical Hymn, or Great
* Eusebius, lib. v. cap. xxviii. t Id., lib. vii. cap. xxx. X Plmy, lib. x. ep. 97.
§ Cave's " Primitive Christianity," p. 134. Oxford, 1840,
I Singham's "Antiquities," book xiv- chap. ii. sec. 1.

HYMNS, 399
Doxology." It was basetl on the words of the angels at the
Saviour's birth : " Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace
to men of good will ; " the reading often aceepted in early times.*
This was a very popular hymn.
The Trisagion (thrice holy), or cherubical hymn, is among the
earliest songs of the Church. Its first form was : " Holy, holy,
holy. Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory,
who ai-t blessed forever. Amen." It, too, had many changes,
and continued for centuries to hold a leading place in the worship
of the early Christians.
The " Hallelujah," which was understood to mean, " Praise ye
the Lord," was sung with the greatest fervor, publicly and
privately. It was the call for monks to come to their assemblies,
when one of their number went around singing it,
Paulinus says : " The whole sheepfold of Christ sings Halle
lujah." t
Another early hymn was called " Benedicite," or the song of
the three children in the burning fiery furnace. Chrysostom says
of this hymn, " that it was sung in all places throughout the
world, and would continue to be sung in future generations." J
The Magnificat, or song of Mary : " My soul doth magnify the
Lord," etc., was publicly sung in the churches of France, as early
as A. D. 506, §
Clement of Alexandria, || about the end of the second centuty,
or beginning of the third, ¦wrote some beautiful hymns, which ars
still extant, though not used. And Gregory of Nazianzen, who
died in the end of the fourth century, was celebrated as an author
of hymns,
Hilary of Poictiers, who died A. D, 368, is regarded as one of
the first writers who composed hymns for use iu public worship
in the West. ^ Jerome says, ** that Hilary composed a book of
hymns, and such was the merit of these songs that they were
ratified and confirmed by the fourth Council of Toledo. But no
* Bingham's "Antiquities," book xiv. chap. ii. sec. 2.
t Id., book xiv. chap. ii. sec. 4. X I^., book xiv. chap. ii. sec. 6.
§ Id. , book xiv. chap. ii. sec. 7.
] Riddle's "Christ. Antiq.," p. 388. London, 1843.
T Neander, ii. 818. Boston, 1868. ** Hieron. de Script. Eccl., cap. ex.

400 HYMNS,
one of them is extant except a hymn prefixed to his works and
sent with an epistle to his daughter Abra, *
Hymns of Ambrose,
Ambrose is better known as an author of hymns than any
Christian before his day. He composed thirty, which were used
in the churches. He wrote the " Deus Creator omnium," etc, ;
and one on " The repentance of Peter after the crowing of the
Cock," which were greatly prized in public worship. But the
Te Deum was his masterpiece (if it was really his). This hymn
is usually ascribed to Ambrose,t and with good reason ; though
Stillingfleet says : J "It was composed by Nicettus, about one hun
dred years after the death of Ambrose," and the learned Bingham
holds the same ¦view.
For fourteen or fifteen centuries, the Te Deum has bome to the
shining heights of Paradise the thanks of grateful millions over
an abounding harvest; or the jubilant praises of a triumphant
nation whose foes have been put to flight, or destroyed. It was
probably the chanting of that very hymn which melted young
Augustine to tears, as he sat in the church of the ex-governor.
Bishop Ambrose, and listened to the finest music in the whole
West, The following is the common Catholic version and copy of
The Te Deum.%
" We praise thee O God : we acknowledge thee to be the Lord,
All the earth doth worship thee : the Father everlasting.
To thee all angels cry aloud : the heavens and all the powers
therein. To thee cherubim and seraphim : continually do Cty :
Holy, holy, holy. Lord God of Sabaoth,
¦* Hilar., Epist. ad fll. Abram.
t Milman's " Hist, of Christianity," p. 497. N. Y., 1841.
t Stillingfleet, Origi. Brit., chap. iv. p. 222.
§ Te Deum laudamus ; te Dominum confltemur.
Te SBternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur.
Tibi omnes angeli, tibi coeli, et universes potestates,
Tibi cherubim, et seraphim, incessabiU voce proclamant :
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus, Sabaot.

THE TE DEUM. 401
Heaven and earth are full : of the majesty of thy glory.
The glorious choir of the apostles : praise thee.
The admirable company of ihe prophets : praise thee.
The white robed army of the martyrs : praise thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world : doth acknowledge
thee. The Father : of an infinite majesty.
Thy adorable, true : and only Son.
Also the Holy Ghost : the Comforter.
Thou art the King of Gloty : O Christ,
Thou art the everlasting son : of the Father,
When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man : thou didst not
abhor the Virgin's womb.
When thou hadst overcome the sting of death : thou didst open
the kingdom of heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God : in the gloty of the
Father, We believe that thou shalt come : to be our judge.
We pray thee, therefore, to help thy servants : whom thou hast
redeemed ¦with thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with thy saints: in glory everlasting.
O Lord, save thy people : and bless thine inheritance.
Govern them : and lift them up forever,
Pleni sunt coeli et terra, majestatis glorias tuse,
Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus,
Te prophetarum laudabilis numerus,
Te martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.
Te per orbem terrarum sancta confltetur ecclesia.
Patrem immensae majestatis.
Venerandum tuum verum, et unicum Filium.
Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum.
Tu rex glorise, Christe.
Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius.
Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Vlr^nia utenim.
Tu devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti credentibus regna ccelorum.
Tu ad dextram Dei sedes, in gloria Patris.
Judex crederis esse ven turns.
Te ergo qusesumus, tuis famulis subveni, quos pretioso sanguine redemiati
.Sterna fac cum Sanctis tuis, in gloria numerari.
Balvum fac populum tuum, Domine, et benedic hsereditati tuae,
Et rege eos, et extolle illos, usque in seternum,
26

402 HYMNS.
Day by day : we magnify thee.
And we praise thy name forever : yea, forever and ever.
Vouchsafe, O Lord, this day : to keep us without sin.
O Lord have mercy upon us : have mercy upon us,
O Lord, let thy mercy be showed upon us : as we have hoped
in thee,
O Lord, in thee have I hoped: let me not be confounded
forever," Bishop Mant translates another hymn of Ambrose ; of which
the following is a part :
Theirs the flrm faith of holy birth,
The hope that looks above,
And, trampling on the powers of earth,
Their Saviour's perfect love.
In them the heavens exulting own
The father's might revealed.
Thy triumph gained, begotten Son,
The Spirit's influence sealed.
Arius, the founder of the ancient sect bearing his name, had a
talent for composing hymns ; and from the statements of Socrates and
Sozomen, he used it with great success in commending his opinions
and confounding his religious adversaries. The Arians on all
feast days, and times set apart for worship, gathered in bands and
marched through the streets of Constantinople, singing responsive
verses -with such insulting questions in them as : " Where are
they that say : Three things are but one power ? " These musical
warriors would begin their melodious march early in the morning,
and continue it during the greater part of the night.
The great Chrysostom, becoming alarmed at the popularity of
these heterodox songs, had others composed to counteract their in-
Per singulos dies benedicimus te.
Et laudamus nomen tuum in saeculum, et in sseculum ssecnli.
Dignare, Domine, die isto, sine peccato nos custodire.
Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri.
Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos : quemadmodum speravimusin te.
In te, Domine, speravi : non confundar in aeternum."
" Oarden of the Soul," p. 79. London.

HYMNS. 403
fluence. And he too formed processions with splendid silver
crosses and lighted tapers borne in front, in which the Trini
tarian hymns were sung. A tumult was the result, which led
the Emperor to prohibit the Arian hymn chanting in pub
lic : * an act which ¦n^ould have been more just and Christian,
if both parties had been placed on the same footing before the
law, Ephraim the Syrian had respectable gifts as a religious poet. It
is said that he wrote three thousand verses. To controvert the
heresies rendered popular by Harmonius among his countrymen,
he composed hymns in honor of God, and in accordance with the
doctrines of the Church. And such was the popularity of Eph
raim, that from his day the Syrians sang his odes, and followed
the instructions they contained, f
Augustine ¦wrote a hymn to check the errors of the Donatists,
who were making extensive use of newly composed sacred songs
to render their opinions triumphant. J
In Ireland, St, Patrick, about the middle of the fifth century,
led a chief bard, accustomed to celebrate in song the warlike ex
ploits of his countrymen and the glories of their Druidical divini
ties, to the Sa^viour of souls ; and Dubrach MacValubair, drawn
to the Redeemer, immediately began to make hymns in praise of
Christianity, §
Bede's Ecclesiastical History contains a hymn of his, of which
the following is a part :
Hail, Triune Power, who rulest every age,
Assist the numbers which my pen engage.
Let Maro wars in loftier numbers sing,
I sound the praises of our heavenly King.
See from on high the God descends, confined
In Mary's womb, to rescue lost mankind.
Behold, a spotless maid a God brings forth,
A God is bom, who gave even nature birth. |
* Socrates, " Eccl. Hist.," lib. vi. cap. viii. Sozomen, lib. viii. cap. yiil
t Sozomen, lib. iii. cap. xvi.
X Augustine, Ep. 119. cap. xviii., vol. ii. 219. Paris, 1614.
§ Neander, vol. ii. p. 124. Boston, 1868.
I Bohn'a Translation, "Eccl. Hist.," bookiv. chap. xx.

404 HYMNS.
Csedmon, * in the year of our Lord 680, had a species of di
vine inspiration to make hymns, as he asserted, and as his fi'iends
believed. One night after caring for his horses, according to his
office, he fell asleep at the proper time, and a person appeared to
him in his sleep and commanded him to sing ; he refused ; the
command was imperatively repeated, and a subject given him for
versification ; he forthwith began to make beautiful hymns. In
the morning he told his dream and he repeated his hymns. He
was soon after elevated from stableman, in Whitby Abbey, to be
a brother in the convent, by St, Hilda, the Abbess, He made
hymns on creation, the origin of man, the departure of Israel out of
Egypt, and their entrance into Canaan, the incarnation, sufferings,
resurrection, and ascension of the Saviour, the comiog of the
Holy Spirit, the preaching of the apostles, the judgment day, and
the delights of heaven, " Whatever was interpreted to him out
of Scripture, he soon after put into poetical expressions of much
sweetness and humility. By his verses the minds of many were
often excited to despise the world and aspire to heaven. Others
after him in England attempted to compose religious poems, but
none could compare with Csedmon," *
Part af an Andent Hymn attributed to St. Patrick.
This hymn is written in a very old dialect of the Irish Celtic ;
it has no appeals to saints, angels, or the Virgin Mary. If not
the work of St, Patrick, it must have been the composition of
some one who lived near his time. This version was made by
Dr. Todd, a distinguished Irish scholar :
I bind to myself to-day
The strong power of the invocation of the Trinity,
The faith of the Trinity in unity,
The Creator of the elements.
I bind to myself to-day
The power of the incarnation of Christ,
With that of his baptism ;
The power of the crucifixion.
With that of his burial ;

• Bede's " Eccl. Hist.," Ub. iv. cap. xxIt.

HYMNS. 405
The power of the resurrection,
With that of the ascension
The power of the coming
To the sentence of judgment.
I bind to myself to-day
The power of God to guide me.
The might of God to uphold me.
The wisdom of God to teach me.
The eye of God to watch over me,
The ear of God to hear me.
The word of God to give me speech,
The hand of God to protect me.
The way of God to prevent me,
The shield of God to shelter me.
The host of God to defend me.
Of the Lord is salvation,
Christ is salvation,
With us ever be
Thy salvation, 0 Lord. *
Greek Psalmody,
The hymns of the Greek Church are chiefly the composition of
poets who flourished in the eight and ninth centuries, Kosmas,
John of Damascus, Theophanes, Joseph of Constantinople, An
dreas, Bishop of Crete, and Germanus, Bishop of Constanti
nople, t Modem Catholic Psalmody,
A few of the hymns now used in Catholic churches have been
handed down from the earliest times and from the middle ages.
But Romish hjmins are chiefly of modern origin, in their doc
trines, semi-deities, and composition. Peter F, Cunningham, of
Philadelphia, wdth the approval of Bishop Wood, has published a
little book containing 209 hymns. Of these, sixty-five are about
Maty, forty-six about saints and angels, sixty-six about Christ,
sixteen about the Father and the Spirit, and a few others not capa
ble of classification under any of these heads, Csedmon had no

• "St. Patrick and the early Irish Church." Philada., pp. 146-50.
\ Kiddle's " Christian Antiquities," p. 391. London, 1843.

406 HYMNS.
Bong addressed to Maty. There is no early hymn written in her
praise. Several hymns in Cunningham's book, and in the " Mission
Book," are well-known Protestant compositions. Of this class are
" Rock of Ages," by Toplady ; " Soldiers of Christ, Arise," by
Charles Wesley ; " Jesus, Lover of my Soul," by Charles Wesley ;
"Before Jehovah's Awful Throne," by Dr, Watts; "Come Sound
His Praise Abroad," by Dr, Watts ; " Children of the Heavenly
King," by Cennick ; and " Sweet the Moments, rich in Blessing,"
by Allen and Shirley, These Protestant authors would be asto
nished could they know that their hymns were sung in Catholic
churches ; and many of the faithful would be utterly confounded if
they were aware that heretics had made their holy songs. We
present the following as samples of the hymns sung in Catholic
churches, either as praises of, or prayers to creatures ; of course, the
hymns are abridged, ST. ALOYSIUS.*
Charmed with the Deity alone,
Terrestrial pursuits he forsakes.
And ere yet half to manhood grown,
His virgin vows to Mary makes.
Amiable and angelic youth,
Aloysius pray for us.
ST, ROSE OP LIMA,
And while amidst his glories now.
Thou seest him face to face, O deign,
St. Rose, to hear thy suppliants' vow.
That grace and glory we may gain.
ST, AGNES.
O holy martyr, spotless dove.
With joy we celebrate thy day -,
Thou dwellest now in bliss above.
Where tyrants o'er thee have no sway.
Sweet Agnes, let thy pleading voice
For us at Mercy's throne be heard.

' The following stanzas are from Cunningham's Book.

HYMNS. 407
HYMN OF ST. ALPHONSO RODRIGUEZ— A JESUIT.
Chorus. — Hark I hark I the vaults of heaven
Re-echo in joyful lays :
Angels tune their golden harps
To sound the blest Alphonso's praise.
Servant of God, though lowly was thy state
Whilst here on earth, thy labors were great ;
And now, in heaven above the starry skies.
At Mary's feet, thou enjoyest the blissful prize
HYMN TO ST. IGNATIUS.
(Founder of the Order of Jesuits.)
Ye angels now be glad.
And thou exult, O earth 1
Loyola's happy shade,
Rejoice at thy saint's birth.
Ohorut. — Loyola's son all hail,
By angels crowned above ;
Ignatius, father dear.
Accept thy children's love.
Stretched on a bed of pain,
Christ's holy life he reads,
Wliile for his mis-spent youth
His heart now sorely bleeds.
Chorus. — Loyola's son all hail, etc.
HYMN TO BLESSED JOHN BERCHMANS— A JESUIT.
Chorus. — In life's joyous morning,
Aiming for the skies.
See our blessed Berchmane
To perfection rise.

Worthy child of Mary,
Faithful, meek, and pure.
Vain were earth's enticements.
Vain the tempter's lure.

Oh<yru». — In life's joyous morning, etc.
ST. PHILIP NERL
If from earth a fervent prayer,
Up to heaven the angels bear,

408 HYMHB.
Shall hts prayer have less of grace
Who sees Jesus face to face t
Holy Philip, bend thine ear,
Our petition kindly hear.
Ohorua. — Ora pro nobis, ora pro nobit,
Holy Philip, pray for us.
ST, PATRICK.
Hibernia's champion saint, all hail !
With fadeless glory crowned ;
The ofi'spring of your ardent zeal
This day your praise shall sound.
Great and glorious St. Patrick,
Pray for that dear country,
The land of our fathers :
Great and glorious St. Patrick,
Hearken to the prayer of thy children,
MARY.
Hail, queen of heaven, the ocean star,
Guide of the wanderer here below I
Thrown on life's surge we claim thy care :
Save us from peril and from wo.
Ohorua. — Mother of Christ, star of the sea,
Pray for the wanderer, pray for mt.
BLESSED PETER CLAVER.
The slave, the desolate to cheer.
Honors and riches, all most dear.
Gladly, blest Claver, you did leave
Treasure in heaven, to receive.
Our voices are blending,
Our prayers are ascending.
Take us for thy children, we'll honor thy name
Blest Claver, thy love, thy protection we claim.

ROMAN CATHOLICS WHO WERE WORTHY OF ALL
HONOR.
Sir Walter Scott has a reputation which it would be diffi
cult to excel, and a literary position which he honestly earned ; and
yet there is throughout his works a vein of rancorous malignity to
the Scotch Covenanters as mean as it is unjustifiable. He had
political and religious prejudices unlike theirs ; and they were not
perfect ; and he uses their faults murderously magnified, to prove
them sanctified demons. After the battle of Bothwell Bridge, he
describes a few of the leaders of the Presbyterians in a house
brooding over their defeat in solemn grief; and Henry Morton, a
man -with a faith somewhat different, who had fought on their side,
joining their company. The men are all Covenanters, and there
is a general desire among them to murder Morton, as a kind of
sacrifice to God, The person who leads his fellows in this busi
ness is the Reverend Ephraim Macbriar, a preacher of unusual
eloquence ; and the point that settled his doom with Ephraim, was
the repetition of some supplications from the book of Common
Prayer, " There lacked but this," said he, " to root out my carnal
reluctance to see his blood shed," * So after twelve at night,
Morton must die, as a victim sent by Jehovah to atone for the
sms which occasioned the defeat at Bothwell Bridge. It was
Sunday, they were Covenanters, and the deed of blood must not
be executed till the sacred hours of the Lord's day are gone.
But it is planned on the Sabbath, and in heart committed. This
is Sir Walter Scott's charge against an intelligent Presbyterian
minister, and brethren of his, of influence. This is the spirit in
which he generally speaks of these men, A greater injustice never

* Waverley Novels : "Tales of my Landlord," vol. i. p. 93. Philada. : Peterson.
409

410 WORTHY CATHOLICS,
was perpetrated. The Covenanters were not always, nor all
angels, but they wielded an influence for liberty, for God, for in
telligence, immensely surpassing anything ever performed by all
the noble or untitled marauders of the Scottish borders, or their
descendants that ever bore the name of Scott, not excepting the
sage of Abbotsford and Lord Chancellor Eldon, We admire the
life, works, and saintly spirit of the gentle Archbishop Leighton,
and the lives and labors of troops of his episcopal and presbyterial
brothers on the other side of the Tweed ; and we glory in the
heroes of the Scottish covenant as presenting some of the brightest
examples of faith in Christian history ; and the man who paints
them as demons in cruelty, and angels in professions, and lauds as
a valiant hero, John Graham of Claverhouse, their merciless
butcher, is not in these transactions a just man. The sun gathers
crystal globules of water from the pure fountain, and he lifts it
from the stagnant pool ; nor does he pass by one offensive puddle ;
he sends it to the clouds, and it comes down in refreshing sweet
ness. The servants of God as children of the light, should recog
nize worth everywhere, in the foul pool, as well as in the sweet
fountain. The Catholic Church has produced large numbers of distinguished
and good Men.
Alfred the Great was a Romanist, and though the religion of
England in his day was growing very corrupt and superstitious,
it is probable that Alfred was a true Christian, He is commonly
regarded as the author of several of our local institutions, without
which liberty in England and America would be no more real
and abiding than in countries peopled by the Latin race, A
larger-hearted patriot, a braver hero, a leader more worthy to rule
men, never sat on a throne ; and, with a few exceptions, never
wielded the destinies of a republic.
Charlemagne, in the end of the eighth century, was a Romau
Catholic, He abominated the worship of images, and in many
things was more enlightened than the people of his age. He was
a mighty man in valor, and wisdom, and not unlikely in piety.
The eighth century had abundant reason to be proud of him.
Roger Bacon was a monk, and yet a man of a most ingenious

WORTHY CATHOLICS, 411
and philosophical mind. He lived in the thirtetuth century, and
gave a glory to his name and age, which the celebrated Lord
Bacon of a later day could hardly increase even by his famous
" Inductive Philosophy,"
The barons who signed Magna Charta, and compelled the king
to grant it, were all Roman Catliolies. The first charter of liberty
in modern times was extorted from John, king of England, by
his Roman Catholic subjects, with Stephen Langton, the Catholic
Archbishop of Canterbmy, at their head — a charter which ha.s
given liberty to England, and freedom to America; and whieli
has bestowed kindred blessings on other lands. It must be added
however, that Innocent III, suspended Langton for his share in
procuring the charter, and nulKfied the deed of liberty as far as he
could destroy it. But it would not die, even to please an infallible
pope, Matthew Paris, a monk of St, Albans, has left the world under
lasting obligations to him. For carefulness, intelligent selection,
perspicuity of style, and for the extent of time and the mass of
fects of which his work treats, Paris stands without an equal for
centuries. The scholar to-day, in evety land, honors this monk,
William Tell, who kindled the fires of Swiss freedom, which
have blazed and sent their light over frozen mountains and happy
valleys, over sunny Italy and beautiful France, was a Roman
Catholic, Sir William Wallace, the pride of every Scottish heart, one of
the noblest patriots and most valiant heroes that ever struggled
for liberty, or honored the land of his birth, was a Roman
Catholic, Columbus, who gave a new world to the nations of the West,
and a magnificent countty to ourselves — with mighty rivers and
mountain ranges, sublime scenety, and vast metallic treasures, a
land which does not bear a slave and could not endure a despot —
was a Roman Catholic,
John Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, was a Catholic ; and
through his mighty art, the Reformers sent their Bibles and re
ligious works over states and kingdoms, until the empire of the
popes was broken in pieces by the press of the printer of Maintz,
Charles Carrol, of Carrolton, one of the signers of the Declara-

412 WORTHY CATHOLICS.
tion of Independence, was a Catholic, a man of whom no American
need be ashamed, a worthy companion of some of the greatest
patriots to whom human nature ever gave birth.
We might proceed to specify other worthies, but the number is
sufficient. We have known true men among Roman Catholics,
and women of honor and kindness, for whom our respect was
spontaneous, and our friendship real. We have met them in
humble life, and we have seen them elsewhere. And we have
often found them good citizens, and kind friends. Our trouble is
¦with their religious system, not with them ; and with their leaders,
who would use that vast network — the Romish scheme — ^to destroy
the Protestant religion, and the liberties of men.
The world has no greater enemies to political freedom and Bible
truth than the rulers of the Catholic Church. There was not a
breath of liberty in Rome, nor one Protestant church, till the sol
diers of Victor Emmanuel plucked the sceptre and the sword firom
the hands of the crowned priest.

THE INQUISITION.
In the early pai't of the thirteenth centuty the people of Tou
louse in France rebelled against the popes to show their obedience
to Jesus, The head of the Church was alarmed, and proclaimed
a crusade against these servants of God, War, waged by the most
ferocious men that ever were enlisted in human slaughter, scourged
these early Protestants ; but as they would not all come boldly
out to be slain, it was necessary to search for them that they might
be destroyed, and a new system for this object was adopted, and
it was called THE HOLY INQUISITION,
This institution was established about A, D. 1215,* It began
under Innocent III, Dominic, a Spaniard, was its founder. He
was a man of fiety zeal, considerable genius, some eloquence, a
stubborn will, boundless hatred, a superstitious heart ; and of an
activity which left nothing possible undone.
His mother, before his birth, dreamt that her offspring should
be a whelp, carrying in his mouth a lighted torch ; that after he
was born he should put the world in an uproar by his fierce bark
ings ; and set it on fire by his torch. His followers interpreted the
dream of his doctrine which gave light to the world.
The standard of the inquisition of Goa bears a picture of Dominic,
with a sword in one hand and an olive branch in the other ; at his
feet are a globe bearing a crucifix, and a dog with the end of a
fiety torch in his mouth, pouring its flames upon the globe ; and
•tbove his head is the motto : " misericordia et justitia," mercy and
justice. Of Dominic's mercy the world has seen little; of the
» Limborch's " History of the Inquisition," p. 94-5. London, 1816.
Mosheim's " Ecclesiastical History," pp. 476-7, note. London, 1848.
413

414 LAWS OP THE INQUISITION.
justice of his inquisition the Omniscient eye never detected one
bright ray. THE SPANISH INQUISITION.
Nowhere in Catholic Christendom did the Holy Office attain such
power, or practice such shocking barbarities, as in Spain,
Though it existed in that land before 1478,* only in that year
was it evetywhere established ; and placed in a position so com
manding, that for centuries it was the great fact in Spanish life
and history. Aims of the Inquisition,
Its professed object was the destruction of heresy, Mohammed
anism and Judaism in Spain, But Llorente declares that the
true motive for the establishment of the inquisition by Ferdinand
V, was to carry on a rigorous system of confiscation against the
Jews, so that their wealth might be seized for the royal treasury,f
Sixtus IV, sanctioned the measure, to gain the point dearest to
the court of Rome : an increase of domination, Covetousness, papa-
ambition, and superstition united their efforts in the erection of the
most formidable and WICKED TRIBUNAL that ever terrified
mankind. Some of the Laws of the Inquisition.
The Holy Office, with a few restrictions on its modes of proce
dure, could tty any ecclesiastic in Spain, however exalted his rank.
The laymen of the nation were entirely at its mercy, from the hum
blest peasant to the most illustrious noble or prince. Its victims
might be boys in their eleventh and girls in their tenth year ; X
even children so young might be tortured and executed with the
usual cruelties. No Charge ever Exhibited to the Prisoner.
A victim of the Holy Office never saw the accusation preferred
against him ; was never confronted with the witnesses ; nor were
their names ever communicated to him directly or indirectly ;
everything that could give him the slightest clue to his denouncers
was artfully concealed. He was invited to confess his sins from
* Llorente's " History of the Inquisition," p.l9. Philada., 1843.
tld.,p.5. X Limborch's " History of the Inquisition," p. 270. London, 1816.

LAWS OF THE INQUISITION. 416
his earliest yeai-s ; to relate anything he had ever said against
Holy Mother Cluiroh; and any ac^t he had ever performed
against religiou ; and if he would confess nothing under the per
suasions of terror and torture, he was then examined in reference
to the charges brought against him. The object of this strange
procedure w;is to obtain a knowledge of other offences than those
upon which the accusation was based.
Lawyers of the Holy Office.
There were advocates in the inquisition who belonged to that
dread tribunal,* These pleaders were sworn to secrecy ; and they
were bound to use every effort to make their clients confess. They
never saw a prisoner except in the presence of an inquisitor. A
notorious heretic was forbidden the services of these lawyers ; nor
were they permitted to give any advice to a sufferer if they
believed he had departed from the faith.
Everything transpiring in the Holy Office must be kept Secret %
its Officers and Prisoners.
No one outside of its walls could be safely informed about the
number or names of the incarcerated ; their crimes, their health,
or their affairs. Nothing was to be communicated except such
matters as the inquisitors themselves saw fit to publish. The
unwilling inmates were to be regarded as dead, as far as relatives
and friends were concerned. And if by a rare accident they should
emerge from their living tomb, no hint must be given of the hidden
horrors of St. Dominic's tribunal.
Juan, n^ Sotomayer,f a native of Murcia in Spain, was con
demned to do penance as a suspected Jew by the inquisition ; he
conversed with several about his confession and trial after his liber
ation ; for this indiscretion he was arrested again, and sentenced
to receive two hundred lashes, and to be imprisoned for life.
The Sentence is never known by a Prisoner till the day of Execution.
Weary months may roll past before the coming of an Auto da
F^ ; he may be tormented by the most dreadful apprehensions,
* Rule's "History of the Inquisition," p. 53. London, 1868.
+ Llorente's " History of the Inquisition," p. 96. Philada., 1848.

416 LAWS OP THE INQUISITION,
but a hint of his approaching fate never reaches him until he
reads it in the figures on his dress, or in his place in the procession
as he marches forth in the Ad of Faith.
In the Dungeons of the Inquidtion no Prisoner mud make the
slightest Noise.
No pains of heart, of racked limbs, or of disease must occasion
any disturbance in the silent cells of the Holy Office,* It is said
that once a poor prisoner coughed, the jailers admonished him to
be quiet ; they commanded him a second time to desist ; and be
cause he could not, they stripped him and beat him very severely;
and as he continued to cough they repeated their violence until he
died under their hands. There must be no psalms or hymns
sung, no prayers offered to God in an audible voice, no conversation
between prisoners on any occasion. A jailer, f in the exercise of
almost unexampled compassion, permitted a mother and her two
daughters, who were imprisoned in different cells, to spend half an
hour together ; for this Peter ab Herara was thrown into prison,
and subjected to such cruelties that his mind became disordered ;
then after a year spent in his own dungeons, he was led out with
a halter about his neck as if he had been an odious malefactor ;
and he was ordered to receive two hundred lashes through the
city, and to be sent to the galleys for six years.
The Prisoners are excluded from all religious Rites.
Mass is never celebrated for the prisoners of the Holy Office,
nor is there any privilege of Catholic worship granted them.
No Prisoner becomes acquainted with his Fdlow-sufferer though
he may be in the next Cell.
Near relatives have been in the same inquisition for years with
out knowing it till they met at an Auto da F6,
Prisoners recdve no Tidings of the outside World.
Their dearest ones may be dying, or may have yielded to the
Last Enemy ; revolutions or wasting wars may be filling their

* Limborch, 247. f Id., 357,

LAWS OP THE INQUISITION. 417
country with desolation and carnage, but they can know notliiiig
of what is passing. "Soon after my imprisonment," says Da
Costa, "1 hoard an alarm of fire, and I asked one of the guards,
who was a little more kind than the rest, where it had taken
place, and if it had eaused much damage? I was told that the
prisoners of the inquisition were not to busy themselves with
anything that occurred outside." * What a scene of silent horror,
ven when instruments of bodily torture were not applied, awaited
victim of the inquisition!
The Moment a Man is imprisoned by tlie Holy Office it sdzes
all his Property.
If his goods are perishable they are forthwith sold ; otherwise
the inquisition takes possession of all its prisoners own until their
cases are decided ; when, if a man is declared innocent, he has to
pay the expenses of his support, and prosecution ; and if he is
condemned, the Holy Office claims his estate.
Every one is bound on Pain of Excommunication to accuse a
Herdic to the Inquidtion.
The husband must inform on the wife, the son on the father,
and brothers upon each other. The holiest ties to which affection
has given birth, or which nature has joined, are to be rudely dis
regarded ; and loved ones are to hasten before " those despicable
scholastic theologians too ignorant and prejudiced to be able to
ascertain the truth between the doctrines of Luther and those of
Roman Catholicism," who are called Lords Inquisitors, and give
them information which will quickly prompt them to inflict the
most atrocious outrages ever suffered out of the abyss.
The Inquidtors use the greatest Hypocrisy ta secure Confesdons
from thdr Prisoners on the Strength of which they may burn
them.
They will pretend friendship for the accused, and even compas
sion, and say to them : " You did believe these sort of persons,
who taught such and such things, to be good men, you willingly
• Da Costa's Narr., vol. i. 73.
27

418 LAWS OP THE INQUISITION,
heard them and gave them somewhat of your substance ; or re
ceived them sometimes into your house because you were a simple
man and loved them." * If any prisoner admitted such acts, he
was sure to be burned. Fox tells about a lady, who with her
two daughters and a niece was apprehended at Seville for heresy ;
they were tortured without betraying Jesus.f When it was over
one of the inquisitors sent for the youngest daughter, and pretend
ing great compassion for her in her sufferings, he bound himself
with a solemn oath not to betray her if she would disclose all to
him ; and to secure the release of her mother and sister and cousin
and of herself, made confident by his oath, she revealed all the
tenets of their faith ; when the perjured wretch ordered her to be
put to the rack that he might compel her to reveal other matters ;
but she firmly refused, and they were all burned at the next Auto
daFd, The Dead who have departed in Heresy are to be Tried.
Ferdinand Valdes, Archbishop of Seville and Inquisitor-General
in 1561, among eight-one rules for the Holy Office, issued the
following : J " When sufficient proof exists to authorize proceed
ings against the memory and property of a deceased person, ac
cording to the ancient instruction, the accusation of the fiscal shall
be signified to the children, the heirs or other interested persons,
each of whom shall receive a copy of the notification. If no per
son presents himself to defend the memory of the accused, or to
appeal against the seizure of his goods, the inquisitors shall ap
point a defender and pursue the trial, considering him as a party.
If any one interested appears, his rights shall be respected. Until
the affair is terminated, the sequestration of the property cannot
take place, because it has passed into other hands, yet the possessors
shall be deprived of it if the deceased is found guilty." And, as an
illustration of the character of such a plundering law, § Eleonora de
Vibero, who had been some time dead and buried without any
doubt of her piety, was accused of Lutheranism by the fiscal of
the inquisition ; a manifest slander, as she had received the sacra-
• Limborch, 380. f "Book of Martyrs." p. 118,
X Llorente, p 92. % Llorente, p. 76.

LAWS OP THE INQUISITION, 41 £
ments and the eucharist at her death. The fiscal supported his
charge by several witnesses, who had been tortured or threatened,
and she was condemned. Her body was dug up and burned, with
her effigy ; her property was confiscated, her house torn down, and
a decree was issued forbidding it to be rebuilt ; and a monument,
with an inscription commemorating the deed of vengeance, was
erected upon its site. Truly it was a serious thing to live in the
land of these inquisitors, and an awkward business to die in it, if
one had property or descendants.
The Prisoner is tortured in the Inquidtion because there is not
Evidence to convict him.
Limborch says : * " They never proceed to torture unless there
is a lack of other proofs ; when the prisoner cannot make his inno
cence appear plainly to the judge, and at the same time he cannot
be fully convicted by witnesses or the evidence of the thing." If
there is no testimony to convict a prisoner, and the inquisitor either
suspect him or covet his property, then he may tear him on the
rack until he terrifies him into some confession, which will justify
the dainty conscience of the inquisitor in sending him to the fag
gots or the galleys and seizing his estate. What room such a law
gave to torture the innocent ! to rack, plunder, scourge and burn
as good Catholics as any of the demon-hearted followers of fierce
St. Dominic ! And hosts of the faithful children of Rome did suffer
these enormous wrongs prepared for her enemies. Every work
on the inquisition describes the story of Maria de Bohorques and
her sister Jane, daughters of a gentleman in Seville. Maria was
a girl of cultivated mind, of great courage, of unwavering faith in
Jesus, the God of the New Testament, which she loved. She
was thrown into the inquisition, and then confessed her love for
Christ and his word ; she nobly defended her faith against the
cunning wild beasts in human shape who were surely dragging her
to a death which, had it been worse, they themselves richly de
served. When on the rack they made her say that her sister Jane
had not reproved her for the opinions she entertained. As her
body was chained to the stake, they bade her recite the Creed,

* Limborch, p. 408,

420 LAWS OF THE INQUISITION.
which she did readily, and immediately began to explain it in a
Protestant sense, .showing a soul sustained by the strength of the
Almighty, To stop her, they strangled her and pitched her body
into the flames. Her sister was immediately imprisoned on the
flimsy pretext that she had not reproved Maria. As they found
she was soon to become a mother, they allowed her to remain in
a superior cell until the birth of her child, eight days after which
it was removed, and she was forthwith transferred to a low dungeon.
On the fifteenth day after her confinement, she appeared before the
inquisitors,* when charges were made which she could not dis
prove, which amounted to nothing ; and as they had not testimony
to convict her, even according to their own barbarous code, they
took this young mother and dislocated her joints, gashed her arms
and ankles with ropes which cut to the bone ; " Passed a cord over
her breast thinking to add new pangs, and by an additional out
rage of decency as well as humanity, extort some cry that might
serve to criminate husband or friend. But when the tormentor
weighed down the bar, her frame gave way, the ribs crushed in
wards ; blood flowed from her mouth and nostrils ; she was carried
io her cell, where she lingered for another week, and then the God
of pity took her to himself." In process of time, the Holy Office
declared her innocent. Surely the self-confessed murderers of this
young mother deserve the maledictions of the whole human race,
and especially of all Catholics, for wickedly killing such a blame
less and worthy member of their Church,
The Holy Office could not put any erne to Death.
This law governed every department of the Church of Rome,
even in her most blood-thirsty days. The inquisition tried a
prisoner, and handed him over to the secular judge for sentence
and execution ; and, with a hypocrisy worthy of "the harlot
drunken with the blood of saints," entreated him to deal very ten
derly with the erring one, and not to injure him. But if he paid the
least attention to this customary and false appeal, he would be the
* Limborch's " History of the Inquisition," p. 410. London, 1816. Llo
rente's "History of the Inquisition," p. 85. Philada., 1843. Rule's " Historj
of the Inquisition," p. 164. London, 1868.

TORTURES, 421
next victim to be disU>eated, burned and tortured, till his life
would be worth little. This praetiee is tiie foundation of a famous
and false saying current in some Catholic circles, that " the Church
of Rome never persecuted any one." If the first Napoleon were
living and said : " I never fought a battle, I never killed a man ;
it was cruel soldiers who performed these horrid deeds," he would
tell the truth, as Rome does about tiie history of her atrocious and
countless murders. Tortures.
The room in which the engines of anguish were used was
lined with thick quilting, to cover evety crevice and deaden the
sound. Sometimes the prisoner had hard, small ropes placed around
each naked arm and leg, in two different parts of each limb ; these
were suddenly drawn tight with great force by several men, and
the poor victim was cut to the bone in eight distinct places.
This dreadful infliction was repeated on the same person three or
four times in succession, as soon as he was able to .bear it.
By a cunning process of twisting the arms behind the back, such
a violent contortion was produced as dislocated both shoulders,
and resulted in the discharge of a considerable quantity of blood
from the mouth. The shoulders were carefully set, and the same
torture renewed several times.
And in these violent dislocations and wounds, according to the
testimony of the author of the " Book of Martyrs," the unhappy
females who fell into the hands of the inquisitors, had not the
least favor shown them on account of the softness of their sex or
the prohibitions of decency.
Sometimes the prisoner had a rope passed under his arms,*
which were tied behind his back, by which he was drawn up into
the air with a pulley, and left to swing for a time ; then suddenly
he is let down near the ground, and by the shock of the jerking
fe,ll, all his joints are dislocated.
In another torture, the feet were smeared with grease, and the
soles placed close to a hot fire, and there are left to burn till the
victim would confess.
• Mosheim's " Ecclesiastical History," p. 477, note. London, 1848.

422 TORTURES.
Dr. Wylie, the author of " The Papacy," in 1847, was in a dis
mantled inquisition, nearly surrounded by the waters of Lake
Leman, called the Castle of Chillon, describing which he says : *
" We entered one apartment which was evidently the hall of tor
ture ; for there, with the rust of centuries upon it, stood the gaunt
apparatus of the inquisition ; the corda, queen of torments, was
used there. The person who endured the corda had his arms tied
behind his back, then a rope was attached to them ; a heavy iron
weight was hung at his feet. When all was ready, the executioners
suddenly hoisted him up to the ceiling by means of the rope which
passed through a pulley in the top of the beam ; the arms were
painfully wrenched backwards, and the weight of the body, in
creased by the weight attached to the feet, in most cases sufficed to
tear the arms from their sockets. If he refused to confess, he was
suddenly let down with a jerk which completed the dislocation.
While suspended, the prisoner was sometimes whipped, or had a
hot iron thrust into various parts of his body, his tormentors ad
monishing him all the while to speak the truth. At each of the
four corners of the room was a pulley fixed, showing that the
apartment had been fitted up for the vbglia. The veglia re
sembled a smith's anvil with a spike on the top, ending in an iron
die. Through the pulleys in the four corners of the room ran four
ropes ; these were tied to the naked arms and legs of the sufferer,
and twisted so as to cut to the bone. He was lifted up and set
down exactly with his back-bone on the die, which, as the whole
weight of the body rested on it, wrought by degrees into the bone.
This torture, which was excruciating, was to last eleven hours if
the prisoner did not confess,
" In a small adjoining apartment was shown a recess in the wall,
with a trap-door below it. In that recess, said the guide, stood an
image of the Virgin, The prisoner accused of heresy was brought
and made to kneel upon the trap-door, and, in the presence of the
Virgin, to abjure heresy. To prevent his apostasy, the moment
he made his confession the bolt was drawn, and the man lay a
mangled corpse on the rocks below."
Elizabeth Vasconellos was brought into the hall of torture-
* " The Papacy," p. 453. Edinburgh, 1853.

punishments, 423
her back was stripped, and she was whipped with a scourge of
knotted cords for some time. Soon after, with a red hot iron the
executioner burned her on the breast in three places, and sent h*'r to
prison without any application for the painful sores. A month
later she was scourged with the same brutal formalities as on the
previous occa.sion. At a subsequent audience one of her shoes
was removed and a red hot iron slipper was placed upon her foot,
which burned her to the bone, and made her faint away.*
Llorente, formerly secretary of the inquisition, and chancellor
of the University of Toledo in Spain, says :t " I shall not describe
the different modes of torture employed by the inquisition, as that
has been done by many historians already ; I shall only say that
NONE OF THEINI CAN BE ACCUSED OF EXAGGE
RATION." Here is a witness with the records of the inquisi
tion before him ; with a full knowledge of the horrors ascribed to
its torture-chambers by the writers of the world, and he declares
that none of these authors can be accused of exaggeration. Little
wonder that Spanish mobs would aid the familiars of the inquisi
tion in dragging a prisoner to its cells ; or that Spanish parents
would not lift a finger to hinder the same officials from hurrying
off a manly son or a lovely daughter to their frightful tribunal.
The Holy Office had terrified the nation out of its manhood.
Neither the Almighty nor the Wicked One was half so much
dreaded as the inquisition.
Ordinary Punishments of the Inquisition.
Its mildest penalties were imprisonment, confinement on the
galleys, or several hundred lashes administered on the public
streets. The Sanbenito.
This article was prominent in the punishments inflicted by the
inquisitors. It was a woollen garment of a yellow color, descend
ing to the knees, with crosses on it. Sometimes a prisoner was
released and ordered to wear it for years. And wherever he
appeared he was frowned upon, hooted, greeted with oaths, regarded
* Limborch's "History of the Inquisition," pp. 497-8. London, 181G.
f Llorente's " History of the Inquisition," p. 30. Philada., 1843.

424 punishments,
with horror, shunned by all as quickly as his badge of inquisito
rial vengeance was recognized. If he laid it aside his doom was
appalling, aud if he continued to wear it the famishings of hunger,
the daggers of hate, and the execrations of a whole commu
nity drove him to despair and the grave. Those condemned to
the stake had their likenesses painted on the sanbenito, surrounded
by flames, and by devils described in hideous attitudes. The san-
benitos of all who were put to death, and of those who were con
demned to wear them for a term of years, as a punishment, with
the names of their owners, their crimes and punishments, painted
upon them, were hung in the churches in which they once wor
shipped, that their memories might be held in everlasting detesta
tion, and that eternal infamy might rest upon their relatives
and friends.
The Inquidtion punishes the Descendants of its Vidims for two
Generations.
The children and grand-children of those whom it has con
demned are prohibited from following any honorable employ
ment ; they must not wear any garment of silk or fine wool, oi
any ornament of gold, silver, or precious stones. Surely the
children might be innocent if the father was worthy of the flames ;
and the grand-children, in most cases unborn, might have been
spared a penalty, which justice never inflicted, and which only
INIQUITY in a state of rampant rage could have suggested.
By this law the hosts whose parents and grand-parents had
incurred the wrath of the Holy Office were stigmatized ; driven
from respectable callings ; and placed at the mercy of rapacious
informers and sacerdotal tyrants.
The flames ended the earthly lives of those condemned to death
by the inquisition ; unless when, as a special favor, they were
strangled, before their bodies were consumed,
THE auto da FE — THE ACT OP FAITH,
The name for such an exhibition is curious, it ought to ha^ j
been called : The Act of Burning Love. But the nomenclatuie
of the inquisition is peculiar. The Holy Office, for instance, is a

punishments. 425
remarkable desigi>ation for such an institution. Governed by
example, it is probable that Satan calls his hottest furnace. The
Arctic Freezer ; or his temptation to the assassin who commits some
murder marked by fiendish barbarity. Benevolent Suggestions.
An Auto da F^ was one of the grandest entertainments given in
Catholic countries ; it was arranged with special magnificence ; the
court, nobility, foreign embassadors, and all the dignitaries of the
Church were there ; the people thronged to behold it in multitudes ;
and learned in time to be delighted by its barbarities.
The mode of conducting an Auto da V6 in Portugal was atro
cious. Thf: prisoners are seized by the secular magistrates in
presence of the inquisitors and loaded with chains; they are
removed for a short time to a public prison, and there they are
taken before the chief justice, who, without making a single inquiry
into their crime asks them separately : In what faith they intend
to die ? K they answer : In the Catholic ; they are immediately
senteu'^d to be strangled, and their bodies are commanded to be
burned to ashes ; if they say they will die in another faith than
the R'^mish, they are condemned to die by the flames. At the
place of execution a stake twelve feet high is erected for each suf
ferer ; half a yard from the top a little seat is made for the mar
tyr. A quantity of dry furze surrounds the stake. The negative
and relapsed are first strangled and their bodies are given to the
flames ; afterwards the others go up a ladder between two Jesuits,
who exhort them to be reconciled to the Church ; failing to heed
which the executioner ascending places them upon their seats, and
chains them close to the stake. Again the Jesuits admonish them,
and if the response is unfavorable they withdraw, giving them the
cheering information that. The devil is standing at their elbow
to receive them, and carry them with him into hell fire. Upon
this a great shout is raised : Let the dogs' beards be made, which
is done by thrasting burning fiirzes fastened on long poles against
their faces. This cruel act is repeated until their faces are fright
fully scorched arid blackened ; and it is always accompanied by
jubilant shouts. The furze is then kindled at the bottom of the
stake, the flame of which scarcely reaches higher than '.he seats
occupied by the saints of God ; and if they are exposed to the
wind it seldom aseends to their knees. In a calm day they will

426 AN AUTO DA PE,
be dead in thirty minutes ; in boisterous weather their sufferings
may extend over two hours.
An eye witness quoted by Limborch, says : * " Heytor Dias
and Maria Pinteyra were burned alive : the woman expired in
half an hour, and the man in twice that time. The king and his
brothers were seated in a window so near as to be addressed m
very moving terms for a considerable time, by the man as he was
burning. But though he only sought a few more faggots, the
favor was refused. The wind being fresh, and the man being
twelve feet above the ground, six feet higher than the fuel, his
back was completely wasted, and as he turned himself his ribs
opened before he ceased speaking. All his entreaties could not
secure him a larger allowance of wood to shorten his tm-ments and
despatch him."
At an Auto da F^ held in Madrid, f June 30th, 1680, in the
presence of the king, queen, and court, a young Jewish girl was
consigned to the flames. No charge was alleged agamst her except
her race and her religion. She was just entering on her seventeenth
year, and she possessed remarkable beauty. At the stake she ap
pealed for mercy to the queen in words which ought to have moved
a heart of marble : " Great queen," she cried, " is not your pres
ence able to bring me some comfort under my misery ? Consider
my youth, and that I am condemned for a religion which I nursed
in with my mother's milk." The queen turned away declaring
that she pitied the miserable creature, but she did not dare to in
tercede for her. Any wonder that the blight of heaven should
shrivel up the prosperity of a nation that permitted such murders?
that it should be stripped of its wealth and greatness, and become
the halting cripple, the chattering dotard of earthly states ?
Dr. Claudius Buchanan, vice-provost of the college of Fort
William, Bengal, visited the inquisition of Goa in the East Indies
in 1808, and was the guest of the second inquisitor during his
stay. He found the institution in full blast ; and his host, in ad
mitting the truthfulness of the narative of Dellon, a former pris
oner of the Holy Office in Goa, confirmed the common reputation
* Limborch, 480-1. Rule's " History of the Inquisition," p. 370.
] L-mborch, p. 461.

THE INQUISITION OP PIUS IX. 42"?
of the inquisition as the most dreadful scourge that cursed any
people. * Though the inquisition was abolished by Napoleon in
Spain, it was re-established by Ferdinand VII., July 21st 1814,
when for many years it continued to perform its odious work.
The Inquisition in Rome in 1848.
When the doors of this diabolical institution were forced in
1849, t Father Gavazzi, the well known chaplain general to the
Roman army, says that, " He found in one of its prisons a furnace
and the remains of a woman's dress ; that everything combined to
persuade him that it was used for horrible deaths, and to consume
the bodies of victims of inquisitorial hate. He saw between the
great hall of judgment and the apartment of the chief jailer a
deep trap, a shaft opening into the vaults under the inquisition.
As soon as the prisoner confessed his offence, he was sent to the
Father Commissary to receive a relaxation of his punishment.
With the hope of pardon he approached the apartment of the
holy inquisitor, but in the act of setting his foot at the entrance,
the trap opened, and the world of the living heard no more of
him. He examined some of the matter in the pit below this trap ;
and he found it to be composed of common earth, rottenness, ashes,
and human hair, fetid to the smell and horrible to the sight of the
beholder. He says popular fury reached its greatest height at the
cells of St. Pius V. To reach them you must descend into the vaults
by very narrow stairs, and along a corridor, equally cramped, you
approach the separate cells, which for smallness and stench, are a
hundred times more horrible than the dens of lions and tigers in
the Colosseum. Looking around he discovered a cell full of
skeletons without skulls, buried in lime. The skulls detached
from the bodies, had been collected in a hamper by the visitors.
These persons never died a natural death ; they were doubtless
immersed in a bath of slaked lime gradually filled up to their
necks, the lime, by little and little, enclosed the sufferers or walled
them up all alive. The torment was extreme but slow. As the
lime rose higher and higher, the respiration of the victims became

» " Christian Researches in Asia," p. 91. Philada., 1813.
t Rule's " History of the Inqui=iition," pp. 430, 431.

428 PIUS IX. CANONIZES AN INQUISITOR,
more and more painful, because more difficult. So that with the
suffocation of the smoke, and the anguish of a compressed breath
ing, they died in a manner most horrible and desperate. Some
time after death the heads would naturally separate from their
bodies and roll away into the hollows left by the shrinking of the
lime. So great, says he, are the atrocities of the inquisition, that
they would more than suffice to arouse the detestation of a thou
sand worlds. He adds : " The Roman inquisition is under the
shadow of the Vatican palace, and its prefect is the pope in per
son." Pius IX., lauded for his liberality and fatherly benevolence,
kept this accursed institution at work until chased from Rome by
his enraged subjects ; and he left victims in it when he fled.
Under the liberal sway of Victor Emmanuel, the inquisition is
dead in Rome beyond the hope of resurrection. The reign of his
son in Spain will render its existence impossible in that country.
We suspect that the destruction of the inquisition arose from
jealousy — the jealousy of Satan, He cannot bear the supeiiority
of another. And when he saw that the Holy Office far surjiassed
him in cunning, malignity, and all the other attributes of dcvU-
hood, he was mortified, indignant, and bent on mischief. Ho first
tried to overtake the Holy Office in its career of cunning, cruel
wickedness ; but thoroughly beaten on his own ground, and in his
ovm budness ; and convinced of the hopelessness of such efforts, he
resolved to destroy the favorite instrument of St. Dominic, Je
hovah, who for wise reasons permitted its monstrous birth, for pur
poses of love ordained its destruction. And Satan was allowed to
extinguish his rival ; and to stand for the future unequalled in
atrocious deeds.
Pius IX. canonizes one of the most barbarous of all the Inquisitms.
On the 14th of September, 1485, Pedro Arbues, an inquisitor
in Spain, went to the cathedral of Saragossa to attend matins,* He
liad a steel skullcap under his hat, and a coat of mail beneath his
robes ; he carried a lantern and a club, the one rendered needfril
by the darkness, and the other by his ferocious cruelties. As he
knelt, he grasped his weapon. Two Spaniards were soon on their

' Rule's "History of the Inquisition," p. 103.

Many CATHOLICS UNFRIENDLY TO THE INQUISITION. 429
knees beside him, and Pedro, not watching, as was his common
custom when praying, uuexpeetedly received a few vigorous blows,
which quickly sent him from judging in an earthly tribunal to
stand as a crimson offender at the bar of a holy God. The world
seldom rejoiced in the death of a more brutal tyrant.
In 1866, Pius IX. canonized this execrable wretch, and thereby
elevated him to the highest rank among Catholic saints. Pedro
now is a prayer-hearing intercessor, and is doubtless addressed by
large numbers in their supplications. And as Pius IX. is infalli
ble, he must know the crimes which this felon committed ; the
h'deous miquities for which his honest Catholic neighbors slaugh
tered him as they would have killed a wild beast; and if he is really
unerring, he approves of miscreants like Pedro Arbues; and of the
bloody deeds by which outraged men have been stirred up to slay
them. In its early Days many Catholics resisted the Inquisition.
In Parma the inhabitants rescued a woman from the stake, dis
persed the executioners, sacked the Franciscan convent, and lashed
every friar whom they could catch, belonging to the Holy Office,
The whole people were shocked at the thought of burning their
fellow citizens, " The hatred," says Llorente,* " which the office
of an inquisitor everywhere inspired in the first ages of the Holy
Office, caused the death of a great number of Dominicans, and some
Cordeliers." The most violent and barbarous laws were made by
many princes to sustain the inquisition, but as in after ages, so at
the beginning, the inquisitors were generally inhuman, impious,
ignorant, fanatical, envious, and rash, and they and their Holy
Office were driven from a great number of places by the populace ;
and their lives sacrificed as if they had been bandits or pirates ; and
this not commonly the work of Protestants, but of true men of
their own &ith. It is well to remember that the inquisition was
the creation of priests, and though Charles V,, Philip II,, and
Frederic II, gave it all the holy and accursed aid which powerful
rulers could render any institution, for a long while the Catholic
masses regarded it as a wicked scourge,
* Llorente's " History of the Inquisition," p. 14. Philada. 1848.

130 INDUSTRY OF THE HOLY OFFICE,
No other Inquisition ever existed.
You will search in vain among the musty records of the past,
>ver all the lands and all the ages, for another inquisition. The
Romish Church stands alone in having a legal tribunal expressly
Established to torture, and if desirable, to kill her enemies, Mo
hammedanism has persecuted Christians at times, but never as
Rome has done ; and at no period had it a tribunal, with a staff
of officers, suits of prisons, and codes of laws devoted exclusively
to the enemies of their prophet. The ten persecutions of pagan
Rome were very violent, but they were spasmodic, temporary,
based in some instances upon falsehoods which persecution ex
ploded ; and they could not well have been protracted longer than
the period which they cursed. But Nero and Domitian had no
holy office, devoted to the work of discovering and destroying
heretics. It is doubtful if heathen Rome could have furnished
enough men of the kind, out of which inquisitors, familiars, and
the other servants of the Holy Office were made, to man an inquisi
tion of the papal order for twenty successive years. It is more
than probable that no system of idolatry, and no form of Chri' ti-
anity, could have produced and engineered such a prodigy of
wickedness. While the papal Church has had gifted and noble
men in her sacerdotal ranks ; among her monks, and sometimes in
the list of her pontiffs, she has had a Dominic and a Carraffa (Paul
IV,), men who seemed to possess something additional to human
nature, and that increase most evidently did not come from heaven.
And of this class of extra-ordinary mortals, she had enough to
work the Holy Office for centuries. We could wish that the race
was extinct. Industry of the Holy Office.
The inquisition in Spain moved in its operations with unbounded
vigor. Every night its armies of familiars scoured the households
of the nation, taking large numbers out of their beds, just aroused
out of sleep, to the dismal dens of the Holy Office. Every
day the inquisitors were engrossed with the audience room, the
torture chamber, or an Auto da F6. Every hour the spies of the
inquisition were dogging the steps of those whom the/ wished to

BENEFtTS CONFERRED BY THE INQUISITION, 431
entrap ; watching unfortunate Jews, Moons, and their descendants;
they were earrying off fans and snuff-boxes, bearing pictures of
heathen classic gods, Hebrew Bibles, and Greek Testaments, and
literary books deemed heretical, because the inquisition and its
menials were commonly too ignorant to distinguish between the
sinless creations of genius and wicked works only filled with the
sufferings and love of Jesus. In the six hundred years of its exist
ence, tiie inquisition in Spain and in other countries sacrificed my
riads of lives with the most atrocious cruelties ; it has racked many
millions more, and the torture was generally applied to the very
utmost verge of life, the physician hired by the Holy Office
holding the patient by the wrist to discover the exact amount of
agou}' he could bear without destroying existence. It has crip
pled milKons whom it set at liberty, some of whom it declared
innocent after planting its pains all over their bodies; it has
robbed its victims of property, for the sake of which exclusively
prosecutions frequently began, too great to be represented by
figm-es. And when we try to conceive the woes of its lonely victims
in their dark cells ; the anguished hearts of loved ones who could
hear nothing of them ; the terror and pain of the hall of tortures ;
the slavery of the galleys ; the whipping through the streets ; the
infamy of wearing the sanbenito ; the penury and insults heaped
on the children and grandchildren of victims — the aggregate im
perfectly imagined, shocks and horrifies us, and we are aston
ished that a column of fire from heaven did not burn up each
Holy Office and its wicked tyrants the moment persecution was
proposed. Advantages of the Holy Office.
The inquisition accomplished some good. Of an irritable man,
a certain person said to his enemy : " Do not be too severe with
him, he is useful for one thing, he is capital for trying patience
and strengthening it, and finding out where there is any." bu
the inquisition has exhibited some of the finest specimens of
Christian heroism in the annals of earth or the records of heaven.
In its court room and torture hall, and at its executions, lights
were uncovered that have flashed over Christendom ; that shall
flood all time ; lights which blinded the eyes of inquisitors and

432 BENEFITS CONFERRED BY THE INQUISITION.
executioners, and which have enabled timid Christians to see their
Master's blood, love and power, and read their title clear to man
sions in the skies. Thousands, and tens of thousands of the saints
of Jesus, like Maria Bohorques, showed the utmost contempt for
suffering ; the most extraordinary love for the crucified One ; the
possession of a heaven-given faith which bone-breaking racks
could not crush, nor blazing faggots waste. Like the swimming
cork, which fioats on the brook a few inches deep, and upon the
crest of the greatest wave that ever rode in angry majesty over
ocean beds, too deep for a created fathoming line ; so in the light
displayed by the woes of the inquisition, the Christian sees a
faith that will float him over the shallow waters of common trou
bles, and on the highest peak of the mightiest mountain billow of
distress that ever rolled in threatening fiiry over the ocean of life.
But in view of its horrors may we not well ask :
Where was thine arm, O vengeance ? where the rod
That smote the foes of Zion and of God ?
That crushed proud Ammon when his iron car
Was yoked in wrath, and thundered from afar.

THE SCRIPTURES.
The early Christians cherished the Bible next to the Saviour;
nd they used extreme caution to protect it from uninspired addi
tions. Their jealousy on this account prevented them, for a consider
able period, from receiving the Second Epistle of Peter,* the Second
and Third Epistles of John, the Epistle of Jude, the book of
Revelations, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, as parts of the
inspired writings. Not a few forged documents, claiming divine
authority, compelled the primitive Church to be very careful about
the works, regarded as the Word of Jehovah. But neither the
Apocrjrpha of the Old Testament, nor the pretended Gospels and
Epistles of the New, found a place in the Bible of the early
Church, The Saered Canon.
Josephus gives the Old Testament books, regarded as inspired
in the Saviour's day. According to his testimony they are : f
" The five books of Moses, which contain his laws and the tradi
tions of the origin of mankind, till his death. This interval of
time was Kttle short of three thousand years. But as to the time
from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes, King of
Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets who were after
Moses wrote down what was done, in their times, in thirteen
books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God and
precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true our history has
been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but has not been
esteemed of like authority with the former by our forefathers, because
there has not been an exact succession of prophets since that time,"
These are substantially the Old Testament and the apocrypha of

• Eusebius, lib. iii. cap. xxv. t Josephus, vol. ii. book i. 8.
28 *33

434 CIRCULATION OF THE SCRIPTURES,
Protestants; the former worthy of all reverence, the latter aa
Josephus intimates, uninspired,
Melito, Bishop of Sardis,* in the second century, has the same
books in his Old Testament canon, which we have, except Nehe-
miah, Esther, and Lamentations; the two first of which, he
probably included in Ezra, and the last in Jeremiah, The cata
logue of Origen is almost the same, f
About the beginning of the fifth century the New Testament as
it is now, and the Old, with a little hesitation about one or two
apocryphal books, were received by the churches everywhere.
Scripture Circulation.
Scarcely had the Saviour entered heaven, when his disciples
began the work of Scripture translation and circulation. And
when we consider their limited means, and the absence of organ
ized effort among them, their success is astonishing. In the first
century the Syrian version, known as the Peshito, was made for the
Jews of Palestine, About the same time a Latin translation was
made for the people of Italy, And versions in the tongue of Old
Rome followed each other with such rapidity that Augustine says :
" Those who have translated the Bible into Greek can be num
bered, but not so the Latin versions, for in the first ages of the
Church whoever got hold of a Greek codex ventured to translate
it into Latin, however slight his knowledge of either language," J
Jerome, in the latter part of the fourth century, at the request
of many prominent men, undertook to correct the most popular
Latin versions of the New Testament, and to make a new trans
lation of the Old, His work is known as the Latin Vulgate, and
was made in the mother tongue of the people for whom it was
intended. A translation was made into the Coptic tongue for the people
of Egypt in the third century.
A version was prepared in the fourth century, in the sacred
language of the ^Ethiopians, called the Gees.
A Persian translation was completed about the same time,
* Eusebius, lib. iv. cap. xxvi. f W., lib. vi. cap. xxv,
X De Doct. Christ., ii. 11.

NEWBORN HATRED TO THE WORD OP GOD, 435
Ulfila, after inventing the Gothic alphabet, A. D. 375, translated
the Scriptures into the language of that nation.*
Pantaeus, a distinguished Christian, on a visit to India, found
disciples in that country with the gospel of Matthew in Hebrew, f
The Bible was given, in their own tongue, to Georgians, in the
sixth century, and to the Armenians a little later.
The early Christians, when a portion of any nation received the
Gospel, immediately made a translation of the Scriptures into their
language ; so that the Divine Word, as early as the fourth century,
was circulated through all nations, " Greek and barbarian, and
studied by them as the oracles of God." J No age of Bible distri
bution has ever exceeded the first four centuries, if it has ever
equalled them, taking their disadvantages into account.
Alcuin, at the request of Charlemagne, corrected the Vulgate
for use in his empire ; and, by presenting him with a copy on the
anniversaty of his accession to the throne. A, D, 801, gave him ex
quisite delight, §
Holy Bede translated John into English in the eighth century
for the benefit of his counttymen, ||
Hatred of tlie Bible.
Passiag over centuries of gross and ever-growing darkness in
the churches. East and West, when Christ was obscured by the
glories of Mary, we meet another kind of Christians who dislike
the Bible,
In Toulouse, the sacred writings began to enjoy .some circulation
and much love, in the early part of the thirteenth century. The
clergy took the alarm, and, at a council held there a. d. 1229, in
the fourteenth canon, they " prohibited laymen to have the books
of the Old or New Testament, unless a Psalter, a Breviary, and a
Rosary, and they forbade their translation in the vulgar tongue." %
Possibly, a majority of the ecclesiastics at the synod supposed that
the Breviaty and Rosaty, as well as the Psalter, were inspired
writings.

• Socrates, lib. iv. cap. xxxiii. t Eusebius, lib. v. cap. x.
X Bingham's " Antiquitie,?," book xiii. chap. iv. sec. 5.
§ Neander, iii. 155. J William of Malmesbury, lib. i. cap. iii.
If Du Pin, vol. ii. p. 456. Dublin, 1734.

436 wycliffe's bible.
What a change from the days of Augustine, when he importuned
his friend Jerome to correct the versions in the Latin or vernacu
lar tongue, that the people might have the whole truth as God
gave it !
John Wycliffe, an English priest, gave his countrymen the
Bible in their native language in A, D, 1380, His preaching and
writings produced a profound sensation, and his supporters were
numerous. The soldiers, the knights, the nobles, and the thinkers
of the nation, who had no pecuniary interest in the corrupt state
of the Church, were his sturdy friends. His Bible was productive
of immediate and extensive results. Among the clergy, its ap
pearance excited indignation, A canon of Leicester said : *
" Master John Wycliffe has translated the Gospel out of Latin
into English, which Christ had entrusted to the clergy and doctors
of the Church, that they might minister it to the laity, and the
weaker sort, accordiog to the state of the times and the wants of
men. So that by this means the Gospel is made vulgar, and laid
more open to the laity, and even to women who can read, than it
used to be even to the most learned of the clergy, and those of the
best understanding. And what was before the chief gift of the
clergy and doctors of the Church is made forever common to the
laity." In this spirit the clergy lashed the passions of the people
against Wycliffe, and had not the powerful Duke of Lancaster
and some influential persons protected him, he would have been
slain. But after his death the Council of Constance tried and
condemned him, and issued the following decree : f "Wherefore,
the procurator-fiscal, being urgent, and the edict having been set
forth, for hearing sentence on this day, this holy synod declares.

* Anderson's "Annals of the English Bible," Introd. p. 21. N. Y., 1849.
f Propterea instante procuratore flscali," edictoque proposito ad audien-
dum sententiam ad hanc diem ; hrec sancta synodus declarat, difflnit, et sen-
tentiat, eumdem Joannem Wicklefif fuisse notorium hfereticum pertinacem, ac
in haeresi desessisse, anathematizando ipsum pariter et suam memoriam
condemnando. Decernitque et ordinat, corpus et ejus ossa (si ab aliis iideli-
bus corporibus discerni possunt) exhumari, et procul ab ecclesiae sepultura
jactari, secundum canonicas etlegitimas sanctiones. — Oone. xii. 49, Labb*
and OiBiari. Paris, 1671-3,

THE WORD OF GOD EMBRACES MORE THAN THE BIBLE, 437
defines and records, that the same John Wycliffe was a notorious
and pertinacious heretic, and that he died iu heresy, by anathema
tizing him, and condemning his memory."
And it decrees and ordains " that his body and bones (if they can
be distinguished from the other bodies of the faithful) be dug up
and cad away from the Church's burying place, accordirg to the
canonical aud legitimate appointments." In pursuance of this
decree some time after, the bones of the great translator were dug
up and publidy burned!The Bible of a Pope condemned.
Sixtus v., a pope of formidable powers, published a Bible in
Italian with a bull in the preface recommending its general read
ing, and declaring the advantages which would result from its
perusal. Llorente tells us that after the death of Sixtus it was
solemnly condemned by the Spanish inquisition. Even his in
fallibility could not save it.*
The Coundl of Trent.
This famous ecclesiastical assembly issued decrees about the
materials composing the Word of God, and the manner of treat
ing the Bible unknown to any council ever gathered in Christen
dom. In the CathoKc Church its decisions have received a meas
ure of reverence never accorded to the decrees of any other eccle
siastical convention. It makes the
APOCRYPHA AND ALL THE UNWRITTEN TRADITIONS OP THE
CHURCH OF EQUAL AUTHORITY WITH THE SCRIPTURES,
The following is the decree : " The Holy (Ecumenical and Gen
eral Synod of Trent, lawfully assembled in the Holy Spirit, the
same three legates of the Apostolical See presiding, having always
in view this object, namely, that, all errors being removed, there
might be preserved in the Church the purity of the gospel ; which
was promised before by the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, but
which our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did with his own
mouth first declare, and afterwards order to be preached to every
creature, by his apostles, as the source of al saving truth and
• Llorente's "History of the Inquisition," p, 139. Philada, 1843.

438 CATHOLIC SCRIPTURES.
moral discipline, and perceiving that this truth and discipKne are
contained in wrritten books and in unwritten tradition, which bdng
received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ himself or from
the Holy Spirit dictating to the apostles, has reached even to us, as
though it were transmitted BY HAND, following the examples of
the orthodox fathers, receives and venerates with the same affection
aud reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testa
ment, since one God is the author of both, and also traditions them
selves relating both to faith and morals, which have been, as it were,
orally declared either by Christ or by the Holy Spirit, and preserved
by continual suceesdon in the Catholic Church. Tt has thought fit,
moreover, to annex to this decree a list of the sacred books, that no
doubt may occur to any one as to what are received by the synod.
They are the underwritten : of the Old Testament, five of Moses,
to wit. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy ;
Joshua, Judges, Ruth, four of Kings, two of Chronicles, the first
of Ezra, and the second, which is called Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith,
Esther, Job, the Psalter of David of a hundred and fifty psalms.
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Wisdom, Ecclesiastus,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, with Baruch, Ezekiel, Daniel, twelve lesser
prophets, to wit, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Na-
hum, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah, Malachi, two of
Maccabees, the first and second." The Catholic canon for the
New Testament is the same as our own.
" But if any one shall not receive these books entire, with all
thdr parts, as they are wont to be read in the Catholic Church, and
in the old Latin vulgate edition, for sacred and canonical, and shall
knowingly and intentionally despise the traditions aforesaid; Id him
be accursed." *
Such is the revelation recognized by the Roman Church : The
Holy Scriptures ; and the apochryphal books bridging the chasm
between the New and Old Testaments, not regarded as of divine
authority by Josephus, the Jews, the Saviour, or the early Chris
tians, a batch of writings supposed to have been put in the sacred
canon at Trent to give Catholics something like scriptural autho
rity for making prayers and offerings for the dead. When Judas

• Canones et Decreta Conc. Trid., pp. 15, 16. Lipsise, 1868.

BOME AND THE SCRIPTURES. 439
Maccabeus, the celebrated Jewish captain, came to bury some of
his own men, who had fallen in battle, he found under their coats
things consecrated to idols, and he " made a gathering throughout
the company amounting to the sum of two thousand drachms of
silver, and he sent it to Jerusalem to offer up a sin-offering, doing
therein very well and honestly in that he was mindful of the
resurrection ; for if he had not hoped that they that were slain
would have risen again, it had been suiierfluous and vain to pray
for the dead. Wherefore he made a recondliation for the dead that
they might be ddivered from sin." 2 Maccab. xii. 43-45. Here is
purgatory, and here are prayers and masses for the dead. Little
wonder that " some in the Council of Trent said,* that tradition
ivas the only foundation of the Catholic dodrine," for it or any other
folly can be found in tradition. But no doctrine in which Catho
lics differ from Evangelical Protestants can be found in the Bible,
And not only is the Apocrypha placed on the same footing as the
Bible, but every tradition supposed to have been handed down
from the Saviour or his apostles is placed on the same basis.
We would not believe an " unwritten tradition " that pretended
to come down from Cicero, Horace, or Sallust. The changes which
any statement must undergo, in passing through many hundreds of
men, running over eighteen centuries, without a well known record
to correct and protect it, are immense. Any statement resting
upon such a basis is destitute of the faintest claim upon human
credulity. The Vulgate the only recognized Bible of the Catholic Church.
The decree of the Council of Trent is : f " Moreover the same
Holy Synod decrees and declares, that this same Old Vulgate
edition which has stood the test of so many ages' use in the Church,
in pubUc readings, disputings, preachings and expoundings, be
deemed authentic, and that wo one on any prdence dare or presume
to rqed it,"
* Sarpi's " History of the Council of Trent," p. 150. London, 1629.
t Insuper eadem sacrosancta synodus, statuit et declarat, ut hsec ipsa
vetus et Vulgata editio, quse longo tot saeculorum usu in ipsa ecclesia probata
est in publicis lectionibus, disputationibus, praedicationibus, et expositioni-
bus, pro authentica habeatur, et ut nemo illam rejicere quovis prsetextu
•udeat vet prwsumat. — Oanonea et Decreta, p. 17. Lipsise, 1868,

440 ROME AND THE SCRIPTURES.
When the Council of Trent authenticated the Vulgate it was
full of errors. Neglected for centuries ; handed down by ignorant
copyists, its mistakes were so numerous and glaring that the
council itself, immediately after recognizing its paramount claims,
appointed a committee of six to correct it ; and it urged them to
hasten the work that it might be completed before the synod
adjourned.* By " authentic " the fathers of Trent understood that the Vul
gate was the only Bible which the Church solemnly recognized as
the Word of God. And since the decree of Trent the Romish
denomination has had no Bible but the Vulgate ; translations in
modern languages may receive the approval of individual bishops,
but they are destitute of Church authority. Even the Vatican
codex, confessedly the most valuable copy of the Scriptures in
existence, has no ecclesiastical recognition in the Catholic com
munion. The Church of the Popes prohibits private Judgment, and settles tht
Meaning of every Scripture for all Men.
The decision of the Council of Trent is : "And also for the
restraint of wanton wits, it decrees that in matters of faith and
morals pertaining to the edifying of Christian doctrine, no one
relying on his own prudence shall dare to interprd the Holy Scrip
ture, twisting it to his own meaning against the sense which has
been and is held by Holy Mother Church, to whom it belongs to
judge concerning the true sense and interpretation of Scripture, nor
against the unanimous consent of the fathers, even though such
interpretations should never be published. Let those who shall
act contrary to this decree be denounced by the ordinaries, and
punished with the penalties rightly appointed." f
Truly here is comfort. The whole Christian world, in Bible
reading, are to be bound in soul, in every faculty, and must take
Rome's interpretations of all Scripture, or the dreamy contradic
tions and absurd follies of the fathers. No man on the Bible must
exercise his reason,
• Sarpi's " History of the Council of Trent," p. 159. London, 1639.
t Sess. iv., p. 17 Canones et Decreta Conc. Trid. Lipsiae, 1863.

ROME AND THE SCU1PTURE.S, 441
Ekien a Catholic Bible in the Vulgate Tongue is prohibited without
a Special License.
A large committee of the Council of Trent composed ten " Rulea
for prohibited Books." These laws were confirmed, by Pius IV„
March 24th, 1564, and from them the infamous Index Expurga-
torius derived its authoritative existence. The fourth rule is : *
" Since it is clear from experience, that if the holy Scriptures are
everywhere indiscriminately pei~mitted in the vulgar tongue, more
detriment than profit arises therefrom by reason of the rashness of
men. In this matter let it be at the option of the bishop or in
quisitor, so that with the advice of the parish priest, or the con
fessor, they can permit to them the reading of books translated by
Catholic authors in the vulgar tongue, even to such persons, as in
their judgment would incur no loss, but obtain an increase of
faith and piety from this kind of reading, which power they may
have with respect to the Scriptures, But whomever shall presume
to keep or read them without such power. Id him not be able to
obtain the absolution of his dns until the books are returned to
the ordinary. But the booksellers who shall sell the Bible, written
in the vulgar tongue, to any one not having the aforesaid power,
or who shall grant it in any other way, shall forfeit the price of
the books that it may be converted by the bishop to pious uses ;
and they shall be subject to other punishments at the discretion
of the same bishop, according to the character of the crime. But
* Quum experimento manifestum sit, si sacra biblia vulgari lingua passim
sine discrimine permittantur, plus inde ob hominum temeritatem detrimenti
quam utilitatis oriri, hac in parte judicio episcopi aut inquisitoris stetur, ut
cum consilio parochi vel confessarii bibliorum a catholicis auctoribus verso-
rum lectionem in vulgari lingua eis concedere possint, quos intellexerint ex
huiusmodi lectione non damnum, sed fldei atque pietatis augmentum capere
posse ; quam facultatem in scriptis habeant. Qui autem absque tali facultate
ea legere sen habere prsesumpserit, nisi prius bibliis ordinario redditis pecca
torum absolutionem percipere non possit. Bibliopolse vero qui praedictam
facultatem non habenti biblia idiomate vulgari conscripta vendiderint vel alio
quovis modo concesserint, librorum pretium in usus pios ab episcopo conver-
tendum amittant, aliisque poenis pro delicti qualitate eiusdem episcopi arbi
trio subiaceant. Regulares vero non nisi facultate a praelatis suis habita es
legere aut emere possint. — Begula iv .ie Lib. Prohib,. Conones et Decreta Oone,
2'rid., p. 383. Lipsiae, 1863.

442 ROME AND THE SCRIPTURES.
regulars may not read or buy them unless they have obtamed
authority from those placed over them."
Richard of Mans declared in the Council of Trent, that the
doctrines of faith were now so cleared, that we ought no more to
learn them out of Scripture, which, it is true, wat read heretofore
in the Church for the instruction of the people, whereas, now it is
read in the Church only to pray, and ought to serve every one for
this end only, and not to study. But at the least, the study of
it should be prohibited to every one that is not first confirmed in
school divinity," * One sometimes is inclined, when he examines
such a decree, and such a saying, to ask : Are these the utterances
of the Prince of Darkness and his spirit friends, or the decisions of a
conclave of infidels ? No doctrines more offensive to God could
be broached in any quarter of the universe, however famed for the
antiquity of its rebellion. The Bible in a Catholic translation is a
Protestant and dangerous book in the hands of a Romanist, and
the holy father and his shrewd friends must guard the papal sheep
against such a book at all hazards. Neither layman nor ecclesiastic
in the Church of the Fisherman can be safely entrusted with a
book intended for the perusal of the world ; the first part of
which was written in Hebrew, the vernacular of the Jewish people
when the Spirit gave it ; and the second in Greek, a language un
derstood in Palestine, Syria, Italy and Greece, when it was
penned ; at the time the most extensively spoken language among
the tongues of our race,
A few years since, Mr, Seymour, an English clergyman, the
author of the well-known work, " Mornings among the Jesuits
at Rome," sought to purchase a Bible in the Eternal City, For
this purpose he visited the book-shop belonging to the Propaganda
Fide, the great missionary society of the Catholic Church ; then
he went to that patronized by the pope ; to that connected with the
Collegio Romano, and sustained by the order of Jesuits ; to that
established for the English and other foreigners ; to those who sold
old and second-hand books ; to every bookselling establishment in
Rome; and " I found," says he, "that the Holy Scriptures were not
for sale. And when I asked each bookseller the reason why he had
* Sarpi, pp. 158-9. London, 1639.

ROME AND THE SCRIPTURES, 443
not such an important volume, the answer was : ' It is pro
hibited,' " *
The only Bible he could find in Rome was Martini's, in twenty-
four volumes, at a cost of four pounds, or twenty dollars.
Before the Commissioners of Education appointed by the
Gt)vernment for Ireland, it was stated in evidence, that of the four
hundred students for the priesthood, attending Maynooth College,
only ten had Bibles or Testaments, while everyone had a copy of
he works of the Jesuits Bailey and Delahogue.f
What a strange sight the Church of Christ presents, in banish-
ng the Bible from her schools, colleges, and churches ! This is
not the Church of Jerome, who spent so much time and toil in per
fecting and translating a Bible in the vulgar tongue. Nor of the
early fathers, who made translations for every country where the gos
pel was recdved. The Church of the Bible-haters, which has
burned Bibles and those who translated them, and myriads who
read them, had no representatives in Christ's day, nor for centu
ries afterward,
• Sejrmour's "Mornings among the Jesuits," p. 133.
i " Ireland in 1846-7," by Philip Dixon Hardy, M. R. I. A., p. 88.

THE FOUR GREAT FOUNDERS OF MONKISH
INSTITUTIONS.
It is certain that in the second century some began to accept the
doctrine that to give up business, society, and matrimony, and lead
a solitary life, in meditation and prayer, was the holiest earthly
state. And from that time the conviction spread with amazing
rapidity, and fell, with overpowering force upon the consciences of
men. In the beginning of the fourth century there were many
thousands of monks in the deserts of Egypt, and in the caves
along the banks of the Nile. The life of an Eremite in that day
was regarded as possessing an order of sanctity beyond anything
else in the Church of God,
Antony the Great, of an illustrious family of Coma, near Hera-
clea in Egypt, was the great chief of all the monks in and around
his country in the commencement of the fourth century. His influ
ence over these singular beings was unbounded ; and though they
were under no law to obey him, yet his example and his instructions
had almost the authority of a direct revelation among the entire
unmarried brotherhood. Under his leadership their principles
spread into churches ; seized and hurried off to the caves the
young and frivolous and fashionable ; triumphed over all obsta
cles and habits; over all the countries where Christianity was
supreme ; and over the strongest instincts of human nature itself.
And had it not been for Paphnutius, an Egyptian monkish
bishop in the Council of Nice, Antony's celibacy would have
doomed the whole Christian clergy to a single life,
Antony was left an orphan when young ; he never could read
or write ; he gave his inheritance to his native village ; and his
personal efiects to the poor ; he became acquainted with the most
eminent men of his time, and even the emperor, w^ho had frequently
444

FOUR GRFAT MONKS, 446
heard of his fame, wished to enjoy his society ; his food was bread
and salt ; his drink was water ; and he never breakfasted be(()re
.¦^uuset. He often fa.'^ted for two or three sueees.sive day.s; he
watched most of the night, and continued in prayer till daybreak ;
he sometimes lay upon a mat, but generally upon the floor ; lie
never bathed himself; he never suffered himself to be idle ; he
zealously defended the oppressed, and frequently left the solitude
for the city in their defence ; he could foresee the future ; he was
honored by the whole people wherever he went, but he returned
to the desert as soon as ever he could ; he was accustomed to say
that " as fishes are nourished in the water, so the solitude is the
world prepared for monks." * He ^^'as said to have contended
with devils openly ; he performed many miracles ; Athanasius, of
Trinitarian fame, was his warm friend, and wrote his biography. f
Antony the Great established the monks on a foundation from
which fifteen hundred years, and torrents of their iniquities, have
only partially dislodged them. Antony was the first great leader
in the Christian Church, in the monastic crusade against the
divinely planted instincts of human nature,
BENEDICT OP NURSIA,
This famous father of monks was born in Italy, A, D, 480,
When fourteen, he was sent to Rome for his education, but soon
ran to Sublacum forty miles off, where he lived in a gloomy cave
for three years. The monks of a neighboring convent elected him
their abbot, but soon becoming wearied with the severity of his
discipKne, they made it desirable for him to relinquish the position.
He returned to the cave, where he was speedily joined by many
monks who submitted to his rule ; and in a comparatively short
time, he established twelve monasteries. After twenty-five years
s]jent at Sublacum, he located on Mount Cassino, about fifty miles
from Naples ; here he laid the foundations of an order that soon
spread over all Europe, and carried the name of Benedict to the
extreme limits of western civilization. There were many monks
in the Latin Church before his day, but they were without system
j<nd had no element of permanence in their institutions, Benedict

» Sozomen, lib. i. cao. xiii. t Socrates, lib. 1. cap. xxi

446 POUR GREAT MONKS.
supplied what was lacking, and soon superb houses, filled with his
sons, dotted every centre of Christian population among the west
ern nations, Benedicts Rule.
In the winter, his monks arose at two A, M, and went to the
church, where, after spending some time in vigils, they continued
till morning, committing psalms, reading, and in the exercise of
private meditation. At sunrise, they assembled for matins ; after
which they labored four hours, read two hours, then they dined
and read in private till half-past two, when they met again for
worship ; then they labored till vespers. Their work was agricul
ture, gardening, and various mechanical trades. They ate twice a
day at a common table, first at noon, and then in the evening. To
each was allowed one pound of bread, and a little wine for the day.
On the public table there were two kinds of porridge, but no meat.
Flesh was always allowed to the sick. At meals, conversation was
prohibited, and some one always read aloud. They all served as
cooks and waiters, each discharging the duty for a week at a time.
Their clothing was coarse ; each was furnished with two suits, a
knife, a needle, and other necessaries. They were allowed no con
versation after they retired, nor any jesting at any time. They
had no correspondence with anyone except through the abbot.
They slept in separate beds without undressing, in rooms accom
modating ten or twenty, with a light burning, and an inspector in
each room. These were the leading, though not all the precepts
of St, Benedict's rule. And while it was observed faithfully, his
monks must have been like angels to the reckless, thieving, licen
tious, and even moderately moral people in whose midst they
dwelt, Benedict, according to Gregory the Great, broke a glass with
poison in it, by making the sign of the cross over it ; the poison
being intended by some monks to kill him. He made the iron of
a spade which fell into the water come up again and join the
handle. These are but samples of the prodigies performed by this
wonderful monk,*

Dn Pin, i. 551-580. Mosheim, p. 333. London, 1848,

FOUR GREAT MONKS. 447

ST. DOMINIC.

On the supposition that the title of Dominic was properly earned
we have sometimes felt that similar deeds required us to confer it
upon a well-known Roman emperor ; and to speak of him as Saint
Nero, Dominic was born A, D, 1170, at Callahorra, in Spain, He
was descended from the illustrious house of Guzman, received his
education in Valencia, and his first appointment was a canoniy in
Osma, Dominic had some mind, untiring activity, fierce cruelty, and
a stern faith in a ferocious God, He gathered around him men of a
spirit like his own, and instituted a new order of monks. Inno
cent III. promised to confirm his fraternity, but died before the
documents were perfected. The papal approbation was given to
Dominic's monks by Honorius III., A. d. 1216. The new fra
ternity had great prosperity. Many learned men have flourished
in its cloisters ; and were it not for the favorite child of Dominic
and his monks, the inquisition, the world would have thought
more favorably of him and his friars,
ST, FRANCIS,
This singular being came of a good family ; when he was con
verted, he renounced his paternal possessions, and laying aside his
shoes, he put on the cowl and sackcloth. According to the monk
Paris, he appeared at Rome, a, d. 1227, to obtain the recognition
of an order of friars which he proposed to establish. Francis at
that time had a sad countenance, untrimmed hair, and a dirty,
overhanging brow. Innocent, if Paris was correctly informed,
said to the fiiture saint : " Go to the pigs, brother, roll with them,
and to them present your rules." Francis rolled with the swine,
until completely covered with dirt, and returning, claimed the
pontiff's approval of his monks, on the ground of his obedience.
The pope astonished at his appearance, and apparently caught by
his reasoning, ordered him to cleanse himself, and soon after he
gave his approval to the new monastic institution,
Francis was a very zealous, if not a very cultivated preacher ;
in Rome, they regarded his oratorical efforts with contempt ; to
rebuke them on one occasion he went to the suburbs of their city

448 POUR GREAT MONKS.
and gathered the " crows, kites, magpies, and some other birds, and
commanded them to keep silent while he proclaimed to them the
Word of the Lord ; and they drew near, and without chirping,
listened to him for half a day." This circumstance, according to
the same authority, gave him immediate and unbounded popularity
in the Eternal City, throughout Italy, and all over Europe.*
St, Francis was twenty-five years of age when he was converted
by a dream. His acts after this change were often like those of a
lunatic. On' one occasion, he broke a fast in his hunger, for which
he had himself dragged naked through the streets and scourged,
the announcement being made as he went along : " See the glutton
who gorged himself with fowl unknown to you," f
Francis had a method in his madness ; and his order soon be
came one of the most powerful instruments in the papal Church,
Antony, Benedict, Dominic, and Francis were the founders and
fathers of all the leading monastic systems in the East, and in the
West, • Matt. Paris, at A. d. 1337.
I Michelet's "History of Prance." voL i, p. 292. N. T., 1869.

THE JESUITS.
N EVBE in the annals of the world has there been a body of
men so small and yet so much dreaded. No warriors, no sect, nc
organized body of similar proportions has been credited with such
numerous and vast undertakings, or greeted with such continued
showers of curses and bitter disHkes. We confess to a sod of ad
miration for the Jesuits ; not for their principles, nor for their
master, nor for their practices, but for their towering intellects,
their audacious effrontery, their unbounded self-denial, and their
unparalleled supremacy in the enunciation of atrocious maxims
under godly names. As Attila, Alexander, or Napoleon stands
forth, with few equals, in the triumphs of butchery, master spirits
impressing men with awe, so the Jesuits appear in the records
of mental and other kinds of warfare, Alexanders, Attilas, Napo
leons, conquerors of sciences, of kings, of nations, of popes ; for
a time the master spirits of the world ; then hurled from power,
suppressed, scattered, sheltered in heretical countries from the
wrath of the pontiff, and finally restored, and seizing supreme
power in that Church which confiscated their possessions, and
branded them with its heavy condemnation,
Ignatius Loyola was the eighth son, and thirteenth child of
Bertram, Lord of Ognez and Loyola in Spain, He was bom a.
D, 1491, He served as a page in the court of Ferdinand and Isa
bella for a short period. He was fond of a life of activity ; his
crowning desire was to reach an excellence in something above
that to which others attained. In his twenty-ninth year he was
an officer in the Spanish army, and a war was raging between his
countty and France ; he was besieged in Pampeluna, and wounded
in both legs, he fell in the breach made in the wall of the citadel.
The French treated him with the greatest courtesy and huma-
29 449

450 THE JESUITS,
nity. He was carefully sent to the home of his childhood, where
loving attentions might soothe pain, and heal wounds.
The broken leg was badly set; and as Ignatius had an excellent
opinion of his handsome appearance, and a princess whose love
he prized, he had it rebroken twice, and each time well set, as was
supposed ; and on one occasion he had a piece of protruding bone
sawed off, that he might be himself again a splendid cavalier.
He wanted novels to entertain his lonely spirit during his long
sufferings, but he found no books except " The Life of Christ,"
and " The Flowers of Sanctity," Ignatius reads and is converted
he sacrifices everything to his new hopes, and with all the un
bending will of a resolute soldier he gives himself up to the
claims of a new ambition. When he is able he goes to the altar
of Our Lady of Montserrat, and there yields himself up to God
as his only master in the future, and Mary as his only mistress.
He hangs up his sword on the wall of the chapel ; and from that
hour, as he viewed his course, he was entering upon a heavenly
warfare where carnal weapons would be useless.
He retired for some time to a secluded cave and gave himself
up to penances, prayers and meditations. Here he had extraordi
nary revelations of the overflowing love of God ; and though he
had been very ignorant of all religious things, in this cave he
was " inspired with the most sublime science, so that he discoursed
upon the great, the unspeakable mysteries of the faith, in terms,
and with a zeal that captivated and astounded the most learned
theologians." And as the same Catholic writer says : " It was
in this retreat that the faithful servant of Jesus and Mary
composed under inspiration (?) the ' Spiritual Exercises,' a work
which Francis de Sales said had converted more sinners than there
were letters in it." *
At thirty-three years of age he went to a Grammar School with
children at Barcelona ; afterwards he studied at Alcala, Salamanca
and Paris. He never reached a respectable grade of scholarship,
and the " Spiritual Exercises " was his only Kteraty production.
Probably about this part of his life he was denounced to the
Inquisition of Valladolid as one of the heretical lUuminati ; and
* Daurignac's " Hist of the Society of Jesus," vol. i. p. 5. Cincin., 1865.

THE JESUITS, 451
had he not fled to France lie might have sluu-ed the cruel fate of
many wiser and infinitely better men.* It does strike us as a
littie absurd tiiat saint Ignatius Loyola should be making quiek
steps and long paces with tiie familiars of the inquisition after him.
But realizing its great advantages, he was ever after an enthasi-
astic admirer of that kind instrument of St. Dominic, designed to
advance the service of the God of Love,
THE SOCIETY OF JESUS.
This order was solemnly confirmed on the 27th of September,
1540, by Paul III. The society at first contained only ten per
sons, and was limited in the bull of confirmation to sixty. The
principal motive which led to their establishment by the pontiff
was the vow of" obedience to the Holy See, with the express obli
gation of going, without remuneration, to whatsoever part of the
world it should please the pope to send them." They are under
the law at this day,
Loyola was elected the fird General of the Jesuits.
After three days spent in prayer, Loyola received every vote but
his own for the generalship ; but pretended that he was too modest
for such vast responsibilities, and he declined it. After other days
of prayer, he was elected again, Ignatius still protested against
the choice. He at last, however, agreed to leave the decision to
his confessor, Father Theodosius,t of the Minor Brethren, by whose
opinion the most cunning Spaniard of his day had an honor forced
upon him, the conferring of which upon any one else would have
broken his aspiring heart.
Women refused Admittance into the Order.
Three ladies insisted on being placed under the oversight of
Loyola as nuns. One of them had been a benefactress of the gene
ral in other days ; but the gallant ex-soldier declared : That the
direction of those three women gave him more trouble than the
» Llorente's "History of the Inquisition," p. 185. Philada., 1848,
+ "Loyola," by Isaac Taylor, p. 154. N. T., 1849,

452 THE JESXnTS.
government of a society which now spread itself over the surface
of Europe. He fasted and prayed to be delivered from this
burden, and then appealed to the Holy Father, who generously
authorized Ignatius to dismiss the Lady Rosella and her two com
panions. * And from that time no nuns have been direcUy con
nected with the Jesuits. But another order, the nuns of the Sacred
Heart, sprung up afterwards, with rules Kke the Jesuits. These
ladies, according to Nicolini, f are now under the absolute direction
of the sons of Loyola.
The Motto of St. Ignatius and his Order,
"Ad majorem Gloriam Dei:" for the greater glory of God.
These words were inscribed by the first Jesuit on everything be
longing to his community, and they occupy the same place in that
order still. Surely, if ever the saying of the celebrated'Frenchman,
that language was but a cloak to conceal the thoughts of men,
was fully verified, it was in the use of such a motto by the Jesuits,
Thdr Initiation and Membership,
The candidate for membership in the order must have a "comely
presence, youth, health, strength, facility of speech, and steadiness
of purpose. Lukewarm devotion, want of learning, and of ability
to acquire it, a dull memory, bodily defects, disease, and advanced
age, render the postulant less acceptable," J
The Novices,
The noviciate lasts two years, but it may be shortened or ex
tended at the general's pleasure. The novice must spend one
month in spiritual exercises, another in one of the hospitals minis
tering to the sick, and another in wandering around, without
money, and in begging from door to door. Novices must discharge
the most servile duties of the house into which they have entered ;
they are required to impart instruction in Christian learning to
* "Loyola," by Isaac Taylor, pp. 168-4. N.T., 1849.
f Nicolini's "Historyof the Jesuits," p. 74. London, 1854,
X Id,, p. 37.

THE JESUITS. 453
boys or ignorant adults ; and when they have made some progress
in these labors, they may preach and hear confessions. Before
they are received into the order, they have to take its vows.
The Scholars.
Learning has ever been the highest ambition of the Jesuit, To
reach this end, the order has schools wherever it exists. In these
institutions the scholars are trained for the service of the society.
The scholars in them are the APPROVED, who have passed
their noviciate, and the RECEIVED, who are still on trial to test
their ability to acquire learning. The Coadjutors,
This class has two sections, the temporal and the spiritual coad
jutors. The temporal coadjutors are never admitted to holy orders.
They are the porters, cooks, stewards, and agents of the society.
The spiritual coadjutors are priests. The rectors of colleges and
the superiors of reKgious houses are chosen from this class. The
coadjutors may assist in the deliberations of a general congregation,
but they have no voice in the election of general.
The coadjutors have to take a solemn obligation on assuming
their place in the society, in which occur the words : "Before you,
most reverend father. General of the Society of Jesus, holding the
place of God, and your successors." The idea being that his voice
is to command the obedience of the coadjutor, as if Jehovah ad
dressed him. The Professed.
The professed are properly the Society of Jesus. These men
must be priests, above twenty-five years of age, and persons of
eminence in learning. Their admission is the immediate act of the
general. They have to take a solemn obligation before the general
and vice-general " holding the place of God." To this class alone
the more important affairs of the order are communicated.
The General.
This officer is elected for Kfe by the general congregation. He
»BU'(t receive a majority of votes. The election is conducted in

454 THE JESUITS.
many respects like the formalities attending the choice of a pope.
When the new general is proclaimed, the brethren fall down on
both knees before him, and kiss his hand.
Four assistants under him, but appointed by the general con
gregation, preside over the four divisions of the Jesuit world.
An admonitor, elected by the same body, watches the general con
tinually ; and if he sees him swerving from duty, it is his business,
after devout prayer, with great humility, to give him wholesome
advice. The general is the most absolute master of his subjects on
earth. There never was a ruler out of the throne of God invested
with such despotical authority, *
Laws for the Jesuits.
The superior appoints a confessor for every Jesuit, to whom, at
stated times, he must reveal the secrets of his heart. And while
compulsory confession is always a crime, in ordinary cases in the
Catholic Church, it is strictly confidential, under the heaviest
penalties ; but, among the Jesuits, the confessor must report to his
superior whatever may touch the reputation of an individual, or
afford an index to his secret disposition, or feelings. For sins
thus confessed there is no absolution till the superior has- decided
the question ; or, if it is of sufficient importance, the general him
self. In this way the devout penitent is kept in suspense and ter
ror about his absolution; by the same means, the most perfect
system of discovering the secrets of the whole order is in constant
operation. For through the supposed wickedness of making a de
fective confession, the conscientious Catholic must tell everything.
And the presumption is that this confessor is appointed from a
knowledge of his special fitness to extract coveted information, f
Tlie Detective System of the Jesuits.
Every Jesuit is bound to report whatever he may know or sus
pect relative to the conduct, the secret habits, or the concealed dis
positions of his brothers. From the highest to the lowest, each
Jesuit is watched by his neighbor, and a report of his observations
* Nicolini's "History of the Jesuits," pp. 46-54. London, 1854.
t " Loyola," by Isaac Taylor, p. 338. New York, 1849.

THE JESUITS. 455
and stirmlses is duly forwarded to his superior. The order is but
% brotherhood of sacred DETECTIVES, with, perhaps, a well-
grounded suspicion that each member needs watching ; and the
society is busy, in this way, destroying confidence, breaking up
peace, and filling every heart in its horrible fraternity with appre
hension, grief, or terror.* Obedience among the Jesuits.
In A. D. 1553, Ignatius addressed a letter on obedience to the
Portuguese Jesuits, which is still an authoritative document in the
society, " Obedience," says he in this epistle, " is to be rendered
to a superior, not on account of his wisdom, goodness, or any other
such quaKties with which he may be endowed, but solely because
he is in God's place, and wields the authority of him who says :
* They that hear you, etc' " How apt the words of the poet :
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text 1
Again : " Take care that you never attempt to bend the will of
your superior, which you should esteem as the will of God, to
your own will."
Again : " Among the heavenly bodies the lesser yield them
selves to the influence of the greater with perfect order and har
mony ; and thus among men (Jesuits), should the inferiors allow
themselves to be carried forward by the will of the superior, so
that the virtue of the upper may permeate the lower spheres."
Again : " You should not see in the person of the superior &
man, liable to errors and to miseries, but Christ himself, who is
wisdom in perfection." f
This spirit of obedience, as if demanded by God himself, in the
main, has governed the Jesuits. When Lainez was offered a car
dinal's hat, by Paul IV,, a distinction which he richly deserved,
for he was the ablest man in his day in the whole Catholic Church,
in obedience to the rules of his order, he refused the greatest honor
in the Roman communion, except the popedom. J
• "Loyola," by Isaac Taylor, p. 340. New York, 1849.
t Id., pp. 272-80. X Id., P. 193.

456 THE JESUITS.
The Objects of the Soddy of Jemis,
Several purposes which the founders of the society cherished
are named in its official documents, but its grand business was TO
FIGHT PROTESTANTISM. Whatever good will or hatred
exists in Romanists towards Protestants, and we have seen both,
the Society of Jesus is the only department in the papal Churcl
existing avowedly to extirpate heresy.
When Paul V. wanted the Jesuits to undertake some choral
service, from which their constitution relieved them, they strongly
protested against such duties, and informed him that "Their
society had been established to repel the injurious efforts of the
heretics, to oppose the infernal stratagems which had been em
ployed to extinguish the light of Catholic truth ; and to resist the
barbarous enemies of Christ, who were besieging the holy edifice
of the Church, undermining it insensibly," * The Jesuit is a papal
detective and warrior, born to fight the hosts of Protestantism,
No system of religion under heaven has a body of ecclesiastical
soldiers expressly intended to fight the enemies of its institutions
except the papacy. But we do not blame it for its miUtary
priests ; what other religious communities do not require the pope
dom may need, Thdr modes of Working.
Schools from the beginning were prime instrumentalities with the
Jesuits, No American citizen regarding education as one of the
chief bulwarks of his country's liberties, could take a livelier
interest in the instruction of the young than the Jesuits. Only
that with the disciples of Loyola, the question was not the ex
tension of knowledge by proper agencies, but by Jesuits. For
education imparted by others they cared not a jot ; but for instrac-
tion imparted in their colleges they had the highest regard. It
placed at their disposal abundant material out of which to select
talented sons for Loyola ; this was the primary cause of their
enthusiasm as teachers. It gave them immense influence over the
whole future of the young nobles and princes, whose culture they
sought and imparted. And in their splendid schools they did, for
• Nicolini's " History of the Jesuits," p. 147.

the JESUITS. 457
s long time, train up a large number of the future rulers of
Europe, who cherished a profound regard for their teachers.
Theu, in their colleges an education was given, surpassing any
Protestant institution accessible to large numbers of that faith ;
and many parents who detested Romanism, on the assurance of
the unctuous fathers that the faith of their sons would receive no
interference, were confiding enough to entrust their dear ones to
the training of men who were Jesuits, that they might fight
Protestantism. They had the Faculty of making everything easy.
They were confessors, and the most popular that ever dealt in
the foul secrets of their neighbors. Nearly evety Catholic prince
and princess in Europe, at one time, had one of these polished
ecclesiastics to hear the record of his or her iniquities. The royal
profligate and his mistress, the highhanded criminal of noble
birth, the walking embodiment of all vices, had the popular con
fessor from the college of Loyola, His master had received in
the cave at the commencement of his holy life the power of
healing troubled consciences, and evety fbllower of Ignatius in
herited the remedy. This balm was nothing else than treating
enormous sins as if they were trifles, and granting absolution for
them on condition that a slight penance should be performed,
Jesuit Quotations in Pascal.
" Henriquez and others of our fathers, quoted by Escobar, say
tliat : It is perfectly right to kill a person who has given us a box
on the ear, although he should run away, provided it is not done
through hatred or revenge  And the reason is, that it is
as lawfril to pursue the thief who has stolen your honor, as the
man that has carried off your property," Duelling was common
when this doctrine was invented,
" Peter Navarre declares that, by the universal consent of the
casuists, it is lawful to kill the calumniator if there be no other
way of averting the affront,"
" Father Baldelle, as quoted by Escobar, says : You may law
fully take the life of another for saying : You have told a lie ; if
there is no other way of shutting his mouth,"

458 THE JESUITS.
" Father Lamy says : An ecclesiastic or a monk may warrantably
kill a monk or a defamer, who threatens to publish the scandalous
crimes of his community, or his own crimes, when there is no
other way of stopping him,"
" Father Bauny says : A person asks a soldier to beat his
neighbor, or to set fire to the barn of a man who has injured him.
In the absence of the soldier is the man who employed him bound
to make good the damage ? My opinion is that he is not. For
none can be bound to make restitution where there has been no
violation of justice; and is justice violated by asking another to do
us a favor?"
" Escobar says : Promises are not binding when the person in
making them did not intend to bind himself,"
" Father Bauny says : Absolution may be given even to him
who candidly avows, that the hope of being absolved induced him
to sin with more freedom than he would otherwise have done," *
Many other queer opinions about sin have been expressed by
Jesuits ; the whole body seem necessarily involved in every pub
lication of one member, though we cannot believe that all Jesuits
hold such sentiments. But it is certain that the men from whom
Pascal quotes uttered the statements he presents as theirs. And
it is easily seen that confessors who take away guilt from murder
and falsehood, from lying, and iniquity, from sin in general, would
be extremely welcome to sinners of all grades.
At one period they were the spiritual directors of nearly all
Catholic monarchs, and as a result had boundless influence over
governments and nations. They were very gentle with converts.
In India, Francis Nobili put on the dress and submitted to the
penances endured by a Brahmin, and claimed to be a priest of that
order sent to restore the " Fourth road to truth," long since lost.
Heathen children were often baptized under pretence of giving
them medicine, and their names registered as converts. In other
baptisms they disguised the name of the cross, and the objects of
the Catholic religion ; they allowed the women to wear the image
of the god Taly around their necks, and share in other acts of
idolatty. And so outrageously impious and heathenish did they
» Pascal's "Provincial Letters, ' pp. 161, 162, 166, 178, 200, 213. N. Y., 1850

THE JESUITS. 469
become, that Clement XI, had to send the Patriarch of Antioch
to examine into their proceedings ; who severely condemned their
practices,* Thdr Insinuating Ways.
The true Jesuit is a man of devout aspect. Not gloomy, not
K»rnful, but presenting the appearance of holy and loving sim-
pUcity, The pictures of Loyola, Lainez, Xavier, Aquaviva,
Ricci, La Chaise, and Francis Borgia, are before us. They look
ike saints of unusual spirituality of mind, men living above all
.elfish passions and earthly considerations. Their faces insinuate
an idea of their sanctity and kindness.
Then, when they met sin, their rebukes were gentle; they
spoke kindly to the erring one ; seemed to be deeply interested in
his welfere ; and if he offered any excuses for his sins they were
Instantly accepted. A secular priest or an ordinary monk would
denounce the sinner, foretell the divine wrath, and perhaps show
a Kttle of their own ; but the sons of Loyola had only meek and
loving words and looks for the worst of men, unless they were
heretics. The Protestant idea of a Jesuit is just the reverse of the
impression he leaves on the masses of his CathoKc acquaintances.
To us he is full of ambition, treachery, and hatred ; to some Catho
lics he looks no better ; but to the masses of them he is a celestial
lamb, more Christ-Kke than any other Roman priest. A minister
well known to the writer, was once in conversation with a half in
toxicated CathoKc whom he knew, and he was trying to persuade
him to give up liquor. He spoke to him kindly, " Why," said
the man, " you are a regular Jesuit, you treat me as if I were a
man, as if you did not want to insult me. The secular clergy
would tell me I was going to the pit, and would readily tum away
rom me, but the Jesuit always respects my feelings even though
I am not what I ought to be," This was the course marked out
for the sons of Loyola from the beginnmg.
When the pope sent the Jesuits, SaKneron and Brouet, as his
nuncios into Ireland, Ignatius, then living, gave them tiiis coun
sel : " After having studied the character and manners of each

• Nicolini'g " Hist, of Jesuits," pp. 108, 110, 114-116,

460 THE jEsurrs.
person, endeavor to conform yourself to them as much as duty
will permit. When the Enemy attacks a just man, he does not let
him see his snares, he hides them and assails him indirectly ; he
entices him by degrees, and surprises him in his snares. Thus it
is proper to follow a similar track to extricate men out of sin."
How well the sons of Loyola have taken their father's advice and
imitated the cunning of the Wicked One is so thoroughly known,
that it needs no comment. This pKability of disposition, this
mightiest human development of the power of insinuation, has
ever been a marvellous weapon with the Jesuits.
Under the tyrannical reign of Louis XIV., the Jesuits moved
the king like a puppet, by appearing to yield, by executing a
number of hypocritical performances.
They subscribed the articles of the GalKcan Church to please
the king, though they did not beKeve them. They refused to
publish the bull of excommunication against the firstborn son of
the Roman Church, They persuaded him that he would always
remain a good CathoKc, while they confessed and absolved him.
And for their consummate double dealing they had a fiill license
to persecute the Jansenists and Protestants. *
The Spies of the Jesuits.
The spies are a kind of fifth order, known only to the general
and a few friends. They are men of all ranks, and ladies in all
positions of society. Though bound by no vows, they belong to
the order. They are rewarded by good positions where the Jesuits
have influence, by great liberality in pardoning their sins, or by
money if it is needed. This class, mixing with all conditions of
men, report the affairs of the world to the followers of Ignatius, f
The Jesuit is a man of several characters. The brethren have
been very extensive merchants ; and some of them probably are
still engaged in business,
Possevin, a celebrated Jesuit, thinking that a blow could be
successfully inflicted upon Protestantism in Sweden through the
popish tendencies of John III,, son of the great Gustavus Vasa,

Nicolini's " Hist ^f the Jesuits," p. 268. f Id., p. 40,

the JESUITS. 461
instead of a papal legate, which he really was, entered Sweden
under an assumed name aud as the embassador of the widow of
the Emperor Maximilian.
Christina, the daughter of the renowned Gustavus Adolphus
King of Sweden, was visited in her palace by two handsome young
Italian nobleman, who stated that they were travelling for their
improvement. These aristocratic young men were Jesuits, who
led the apostate and unmarried daughter of a glorious father into
the embraces of Rome.
At the siege of Rome, when Pius IX. fled from his loving chil
dren, one day a fine-looking man with beard and moustache was
observed going from place to place, " praising the soldiers for their
valor, encouraging the citizens not to desert their walls, and curs
ing the French, the Pope, and especially the Jesuits. One day
some national guards perceived a kind of telegraph in a house,
almost over the wall of the city, belonging to the Jesuits, They
burst in and found three men making signals to the enemy. They
were Jesuits, and one of them was the unknown man,"* So
full of apparent patriotism when in the company of the brave men
defending old Rome against the pope and Oudinot, A Jesuit
might be a leading Protestant, a prominent politician, the wife of
a cabinet officer, a servant in a family, as Hogan found one, f
— anything, anywhere. They are everywhere, in evety guise,
judging from the past.
They have not always Prospered.
On the first of September, 1759, the Jesuits were expelled from
Portugal, and sent to Italy on government and other vessels, to
the number of fifteen hundred, to the Holy Father,
On the sixth of August, 1762, the expulsion of the Jesuits
from France was commanded, and the decree was executed two
years later.
On the second of April, 1767, the Jesuits were exiled from
Spain, the home of the inquisition, and the birthplace of Loyola ;

* Nicolini's "Hist, of the Jesuits," p. 171.
t "Auricular Confession and Popiah Nunneries," pp. 99-110. Boston,
1845.

462 the JESUITS.
and six thousand of these holy fathers were soon on the mighty
deep, sent by ungrateful Spain to the pope.
The King of Naples, in November, 1767, drove them out of
his territories.
The Duke of Parma, in 1768, sent them from his country.
On the thirteenth of March, 1820, they were driven out of
Russia by the Emperor Alexander,
In 1835, the order was again suppressed in Spain; the Cortez
and the sovereign uniting in the work.
They were again banished from Portugal by Don Pedro, A, D,
1834, Except Russia, the countries casting forth the Jesuits were aU
intensely Catholic, and yet they could not bear to Kve on the same
soil with these " holy brethren," Perhaps it was on account of
their exceeding piety that their fellow-worshippers of the papal
Church preferred their exile. Perhaps their sufferings and dis
grace were but another illustration of the truth that the righteous
are always persecuted. Possibly it might be only a proof that
the wicked sometimes receive their due, or at any rate a part
of it,
THE JESUITS SUPPRESSED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD BY
CLEMENT XIV,, POPE OF ROME,
If ever a pope acted infallibly right, the above named pontiff
exhibited unerring judgment when on the 21st of July, 1773, he
issued a bull, in which he declared : * " After mature delibe
ration, out of our certain knowledge, and plenitude of power, we
do extinguish and suppress the often mentioned society,"
He had several times been threatened with death if he per
formed this daring act ; he stated when he signed the bull that,
" This suppression would be his death ; " and sometime after a slow
and unusually deadly poison discovered its malignant effects in
his system, and after lingering torments he expired, poisoned, as he
mpposed, by a wafer, and as was generally believed, by a Jesuitf

• Bower's " History of the Popes," iii. p. 382. Philada., 1845,
t Id , p, 868-9. Nicolini's "Hist, of the Jesuits," pp. 419-20.

THE JESUITS. 463
How many of the order were involved in this crime it is impos
sible to tell ; for the honor of human nature we trust the number
was not large. But upon the Society of Jesus that crime rests
with a withering eurse and an indelible infamy.
Immediately after death, the body of Clement turned black ; the
muscles of the spine were detached and decomposed ; the removal
of the pontifical robes from the dead body brought away a great
portion of the skin ; the hair of his head remained on the pillow
where he rested, and, with trifling friction the nails fell off,
Gangauelli was in perfect health before the suppression of the
Jesuits. When the Jesuits fell by the pen of Clement, they had 22,782
members, scattered over the world.
On the 7th of August, 1814, Pius VII. reestablished the Society
of Jesus according to its ancient rules. It exists to-day all over
the nations. And while its power outside the Catholic Church is
not so visible as in former times, inside of that great sect Jesuitism
is triumphant. At no period since Loyola started his order have
his wily children enjoyed such imperial dominion in the Roman
Church, They guide the aged pontiff; they regulate the public
movements of his entire foUowers ; they ruled the late council so
numerously attended in the Eternal City, Their enemies in the
CathoKc Church are numerous, talented, learned, and, in some
cases, truly pious. But they have the priest king, the mastery, and
any amount of audacity, energy, and unscrupulous ambition. They
were never so favored with papal benedictions at any former
period. But God is mighty. He sits upon the foam-crested billow
in its mighty upheavals; he drives and bends the whirlwind, whose
gigantic arms hug the mountain-sides ; from the falling of a sparrow
to the jar that shivers a world, notlung escapes his eye, or Kves
outside the circle of his government. The death-plotting Kttle
spider, surrounded by his intricate and cunning web-trap, is insig
nificant enough to us. The Jesuit, in his schemes of craft, and in
his heartlessnf ss and lust of empire, is just as contemptible in the
sight of God. Chained to his throne, a volume lies.
With all the fates of men.
With every angel's form and size
Drawn by the eternal pen.

464 THE JESUITS,
Here he exalts neglected worms
To sceptres and a crown.
And there the following page he turns.
And treads the monarch down.
Protestants are sometimes in an ocean of terror, pursued, as
they suppose, by the fierce Egyptian warriors of stout old Loyola,
They should always remember at such a time that this is a Red
Sea, through which, for them, Jehovah has made a safe road, and
in which, for the enemies of their Mth, he has prepared a sure
grave. They should remember that beyond these angry waters
and fierce warriors of St. Ignatius, there is a Canaan of rest and
triumph, wide as the world, and populous as the human race, where
their banner of salvation, by grace alone, shall float in serene ma
jesty over every hill and valley, over every continent and ocean,
and over every priest once proud and superstitious, and evety heart
once lost ; and where the hallelujahs of a whole earth redeemed
shall mingle with the jubilant songs of all heaven triumphant in
celebrating the death of paganism, Christian and heathen, and the
victory of Jesus as the Saviour and Lord of Adam's whole
family! All hail the power of Jesus' name,
Let angels prostrate fall ;
Bring forth the royal diadem,
And crown him Lord of all.
Let every kindred, every tribe.
On this terrestrial ball.
To him all majesty ascribe,
And crown him Lord of alL

CONCLUSION.
Romanism never showed such symptoms of approaching dis
solution as it exhibits at this moment. With the exception of
England and the United States, ruin threatens the papal system
everywhere, Irish emigration into Britain gives Catholicism the
appearance of progress in Scotland and England, Germany and
Ireland are rapidly increasing the Romanists in these States, And
yet, what population north and south Britain and the United
States gain, Ireland and Grermany lose. It is but a transfer of
papal forces, and not an augmentation of the army of the pontiff.
So fax from that, evety year emigration sets thousands at liberty
from priestly chains among ourselves, who, had they remained in
the countries of their nativity, would have been bound still. But
in all the world besides, in what a sorry state the infallible Church
is ? The sceptre of the king priest is broken in Italy, and his
triple crown defined for some antiquarian collection. And never
was there a ruler over whose dethronement his subjects had greater
joy. His spiritual authority is barely tolerated in that Italy
where it received adoration for centuries, and where Protestant
churches are now springing up in scores ; and will soon rise up in
thousands. In France the women respect his holiness ; the chil
dren obey him ; and the men smile at his chattering claims to
infallibility ; in Spain, the dominion of the popes has reached the
last stage of decay ; and soon it will utterly perish in the land
which gave birth to St, Dominic of inquisitorial fame ; in Austria,
the House of Hapsburgh has left the Roman bishop to support
his tottering spiritual empire himself; and it has given full per
mission to his enemies to make war upon his ancient and iniquit
ous rule ; in Gijrmany, neither Catholic nor Protestant pays him
the customaty leverence ; and the principles of DolKnger threaten
to snatch from his priestly sovereignty the last section of that
30 465

466 DESTRUOriON op the PAPACY.
mighty nation whose destinies Luther did so much to shape.
The paramount influence of the Jesuits over the pope has weak
ened the bonds by which the great body of liberal priests and
people throughout the world were united to the " Holy Father,
The preposterous dogma of infallibility, known by hosts of priests
to be false in its application to Pius IX,, and known by a smaller
and more learned number to be equally destitute of truth in
I eference to any of his predecessors, is tossing the papal ship
fiiriously ; and will yet open her seams and plunge her beneath
the billows of destruction.
An elderly lady of the Catholic faith, some months since in
Europe, in speaking of the calamities of the poor old pope, told
a gentleman that she intended to leave the Church of Rome,
" For God Almighty was evidently becoming a Protestant." If
he was ever anything else, it is clear that the whole energies of his
government are in that direction now, and that the papaty^ must
soon vanish from the earth.
The Roman bishops have built a mountain of superstitions
upon the gospel ; the mountain is broad as the Catholic world,
and high enough to insult the angels and defy the Almighty ; but
that gospel is volcanic in its nature ; it cannot be kept quiet ;
already the mountain heaves and labors ; and soon the gigantic power
of the cross underneath it will tear the mountain to pieces, scatter it
to the four winds of heaven, and send its doctrines of burning
love all over the earth.
The popes have erected a vast temple, in which they have en
throned the Roman Dagon; it has mighty walls, and many
worshippers ; and TRUTH, like Samson, has been there for ages,
blind, it was supposed, and certainly a prisoner ; but Trath has
now seized the principal pillar of that idol temple, with the
strength of omnipotence ; it totters ; the whole building trembles ;
and soon, amid the songs of angels, the jubilant shouts of holy
men, and the blessings of Immanuel, Tmth will hurl that temple
from its foundations, and fling its fragments into the abyss ; then 
Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Does his successive journeys run,
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

APPENDIX.

THE CREED OF POPE PIUS IV, ; THE FORM OF FAITH BINDING
ON ALL THE CLERGY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH,
In the preface to the bull enjoining this celebrated standard of
doctrine, Pius ordera it to be received by "All who may happen
henceforward to be placed over cathedral and superior churches, or
who may have to take care respecting their dignities, canonries,
and any other ecclesiastical benefices whatsoever, having the cure
of souls ; " and by " all persons who shall have charge of monas
teries, convents, houses, and any other places, of all regular orders,
even of miKtary ones, under whatever name or title."
THE CREED.
" I, N., with steadfast faith, beKeve and profess all and evety
particular contained in the symbol of faith, which the Holy
Roman Church uses, to wit :
" ' I beKeve in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven
and earth, of all things visible and invisible ; and in one Lord
Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and bom of the
Father before all ages, Grod of God, light of light, very God of
very Grod, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father ; by
whom all things were made : who for us men and for our salva
tion came down from heaven, and was incarnated of the Holy
Spirit from the Virgin Mary, and was made man, was crucified
also for us, under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried ; and
rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures, and
ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of the Father, and
467

468 APPENDIX.
will again come with glory to judge the living and the dead, of
whose kingdom there will not be an end ; and in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the
Son ; who, together with the Father and the Son is adored and
glorified ; who spake through the prophets ; and one Catholic and
Apostolic Church, I confess one baptism for the, remisdon of dns,
and I await the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world
to come. Amen,'
" The apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions and the other observ
ances and constitutions of the same Church I most steadfestly
admit and embrace, I likewise admit the Holy Scripture accord
ing to that sense which our Holy Mother Church has held and does
hold, whose province it is to judge of the true sense and interpre
tation of the Sacred Scriptures, Nor will I ever understand or
interpret it except according to the unanimous consent of the holy
fathers." [This doctrine would remove all understanding of
Scripture out of the Catholic Church. J " I also profess that there
are truly and properly seven sacraments of the new law instituted
by our Lord Jesus Christ, and necessary for the salvation of man
kind, though not all necessary for each individual, to wit : Baptism,
confirmation, the eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders
(clerical), and matrimony, and that they confer grace, and that of
these, baptism, confirmation and orders cannot be repeated without
sacrilege. I also receive and admit all the received and approved
ceremonies of the Catholic Church in the solemn administration of
all the above-mentioned sacraments. I embrace and receive all
and everything which in the Holy Synod of Trent has been
defined and declared concerning original sin and justification, I
profess, likewise, that in the mass is offered to God a true, proper,
and propitiatory sacrifice for the tiring and the dead, and that in the
most holy sacrament of the eucharist there is truly, really, and sub
stantially the body and blood, together with the soul and dimnity of
our Lord Jesus Christ, and that there takes place a converdon of
the entire substance of the bread into the body and of the entire sub
stance of the wine into the blood, which conversion the Catholic
Church calls transubstantiation. I also confess that under one
kind alone, Chrid is taken whole and entire, and a true sacrament.
I steadfastly hold that there exists a purgatory, and that the souls

APPENDIX. 469
there detained are assisted by the suffrages of the faithful; in like
manner also that the saints reigning along with Christ are to be
venerated and invoked, and that they offer up prayers for us, and
that their relics are to be venerated. I steadfastly assert that the
images of Christ and of the ever Virgin Mother of God, and in
Kke manner of other saints are to be kept and retained, and that
due honor and veneration are to be awarded to them. I also main
tain that the power of indulgences has been left by Christ in his
Church, and that the use of them is most wholesome to the Christian
people. I recognise the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman
Church as the mother " [several churches were founded earlier] " and
midress of all churches, and I promise and swear true obedience
to the Roman Pontiff, successor of St, Peter prince of apostles,
and vicar of Jesus Christ, All other things also delivered, defined,
and declared by the sacred canons and oecumenical councils, and
particularly by the holy Synod of Trent, I undoubtingly receive
and profess, and at the same time all things contrary, and all here
sies whatsoever condemned by the Church, and rejected and
anathematized I in like manner condemn, reject, and anathematize.
This true Catholic faith, outside of which no one can be saved,
which at present I readily profess and truly hold, I, N,, promise,
vow and swear, that I will most steadfastly retain and confess the
same entire and undefiled to the last breath of life (with God's
help), and that I will take care, as far as shall be in my power,
that it be held, taught, and preached. by my subjects, or those
whose charge shall devolve on me in virtue of my office. So help
me God, and these Holy Gospels of God.
" But we will that the present letter be read according to custom
in our Apostolic Chancery, And that they may the more reaiKly
be open to all, let them be written out in its Quinternum,* and
also be printed.
" Be it, therefore, lawful for no person whatever to infringe this
page of our will and command, or to contravene it by any rash daring.
But if any one shall presume to attempt this, let him know that
he will incur the indignation of Almighty God, and of his blessed
apostles Peter and Paul.
* A volume named after the number of its leaves.

470 APPENDIX.
" Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of the incarnation of
our Lord, 1564, on the ides of November, and in the fifth year of
our pontificate.
"Fed. Cardinal Cesius,
" Cob. Glorierius,"'*
THE OATH OF A MODERN CATHOLIC BISHOP AT HIS
CONSECRATION.
" I, N., elected to the church of N., will from this time hence
forth, be faithfiil and obedient to the blessed apostle Peter, and to
the Holy Roman Church and to our lord N., Pope N., and to his
canonical successors. I will not aid by advice or consent or deed,
in any injury to them in life or limb ; or to their arrest, or to any
violence being in any way offered to them ; or any injuries, under
any pretext whatsoever. I will not knowingly reveal to any one,
to their injury, the advice which they shall commit to me by them
selves or their messengers, or by letter. Saving my order, I will
assist in retaining and defending the Roman Papacy, and the
royalties of St, Peter against evetyone, I will honorably deal
with the legate of the Apostolic See in going and returning ; and
will assist him in his need, I will take care to preserve, defend,
increase, and advance the rights, honors, privities, and authority
of the Holy Roman Church, of our lord the pope, and his aforesaid
successors. Nor will I assist by counsel, deed or treaty, in any
machinations against our lord himself, or the same Roman Church,
which may be evil or prejudicial to their persons, right, honor,
state, and power. And if I shall know of any such attempts
being treated of, or set on foot, by any persons whatsoever, I will
hinder them to the utmost of my power ; and as soon as I possi
bly can, will signify it to the same our lord, or to some other who
shall be able to give him information, I will, with all my power,
observe, and cause others to observe the rules of the holy fathers,
the apostolic decrees, ordinances, or dispositions, provisions, and
commands. To the utmost of my power I mil persecute and attack
(pro posse persequar et impugnabo) herdics, schismatics, and rebels
* Canones et Decreta, pp. 226-8. Lipsise, 1863.

APPENDIX. 471
against the same our Imd, and his aforesaid successors. When
called to a synod I will come, unless prevented by some canonical
hindrance. Every three years I will, in my own person, visit the
threshold of the apostles ; and I will give to our lord and his suc
cessors aforesaid an account of my whole pastoral office, and of all
things in any way concerning the state of my church, the disci
pline of the clergy and people, and the -salvation of the souls
which_ are committed to my trust ; and on the other hand I will
humbly receive, and with the utmost diligence obey the apostolic
(papal) commands. But if I shall be detained by lawful hindrance,
I will fulfil all that is above mentioned by an appointed messen
ger, having special charge of this matter, from among my chapter
or some other ecclesiastical dignitary, or person of station ; or in
failure of these, by a priest of the diocese ; and in failure of all
the clergy, by some other presbyter, secular or regular, of respecta
ble honesty and piety, fully instructed in all things aforesaid. But
I will give information concerning any hindrances of this kind,
by lawful proofe to be transmitted by said messenger to the cardi
nal of the Holy Roman Church, who presides in the congregation
of the sacred council.
" I will neither sell nor give, nor pawn the possessions belonging
to my table ; nor will I enfeoff them anew, nor alienate them in
any manner, even with the consent of the chapter of my church,
without the advice of the Roman Pontiff. And if I shall in any
way proceed to alienate them, I am willing in reality to incur the
penalties contained ia a certain constitution passed upon this sub
ject. So help me God, and the Holy Gospels of God," *

• Pontiflcale Romanum, pp. 59-61. Antwerp, 1758,

INDEX.

Abaolntion, form of, ia the early Churoh,
305.
Adamnan, 33.
Adrian IV. and the Emperor, lOt.
Agnes, St., 406.
Aidan, 31.
Alonin, 435.
Alexander, the Mason, 114.
Alexander VI., 341.
Alfred the Great, 410.
Alfnd, 33.
Aloysias, 406.
Amalgaid, 24.
Ambrose, St., 57, 151, 199, 200, 203.
Anglo-Saxons, 16.
Antiooh, 66.
Antony the Great, 444.
Aqninas, St. Thomas, 272.
Arians, 270, 402.
Arias, 39.
Armada, the inrinoible, 128.
Augastine lands in England, 16.
terms to the British Bishops, 17.
miracle, 17.
Angnstine of Hippo, 58, 64, 76, 173, 177,
181, 199, 203, 403, 434,
Anto da FS, 424.
B!,con, Roger, 410.
Bangor, 20.
monks of, 18.
Barons and Magna Charta, 411.
Baptism, 153.
ceremonies of, 154.
effects, 155.
Catechitm of Trent and Canons, 160.

Baptism :
Protestant children baptiied by priests,
163.
Basil, 199.
Bede, 94, 435.
Belisarias, 49.
Benedict IX., 341.
Benedict of Nnrsia, 446.
his Rule, 446,
Beorred, 378.
Berchmans, John, 407,
Berenger, 185.
Bertram, 184.
Bible, 21, 31, 32, 33.
Bishop, nniTersal, 81,
Bishops and presbyters, 53.
Bishops on an equality, 60-9.
Blood of Christ in London, 283.
Bohorques, de, Maria and Jane, 419,
Boniface of Germany, oath of, 28.
Bridius, 28.
Britain, conversion of, 16.
Britons, ancient, church of, 19,
dislike to Saxons, 19.
Cambrensis, Oiraldus, 104.
Canons, apostolical, 66.
Canute, 379.
Cardinals, 229.
Catholics worthy of honor, 409,
Celestine, Pope, 43.
Celibacy of clergy, 245.
in the early Church, 246.
in the Council of Nice, 247
in the Trullo Council, 252.
under Gregory VII., 253. 473

474

INDEX.

Celibacy from the eighth to the eleventh
century, 253.
in Trent, 257.
the Greeks and Maronites, 259.
Chalcedon, Council of, 43.
ninth canon, 46.
twenty-eighth canon, 47.
Chalice, the, at Constance, 193.
Cbalons, Council of, 220.
at Trent, 193.
Charles the Bald, 184.
Charles Carrol, 411.
Charlemagne, 76, 410.
Childeric, 89.
Chillion, Castle of, 422.
Chrysostom, 58, 76, 181, 198, 396, 402.
Claver, Peter, 408.
Clemens Alexandrinus, 180, 399.
Clement, an Irish missionary, 26
Clement VL, 273.
Clothing, clerical, 234.
Cloveshove, council of, 271.
Coleman, 21, 33.
Columba, 22, 30, 31.
Columbanus, 26, 28.
Columbus, 411.
Commandment, the second, removed, 338.
Confessional, unknown in the early Church,
198.
in the middle ages, 206.
the modern, established 1215, 208.
canons, 210.
secrecy and posture, 213.
questions, 214.
deaf confessor, 217.
Confirmation, 165.
description of, 167.
Constance, council of, 436.
Constantine the Great, 36.
Constantine Copronymus, 329,
Constantine Pogonatus, 49.
Constantinople, council of, 41.
see elevated, 42, 51.
another council, 50.
Cornelius, Pope, 61.
Council, the fifth general, 48.
Council, the sixth general, 49.
Cranmer, 59.
Cross, the wood of, in Apamea, Persia,
Constantinople, Rome, England, Franco,
«nd Venice, 2S1.

Crosier, the, 233.
St. Patrick's, 233.
Cullen, Archbishop, 362.
Cyprian, 61, 62, 158, 181.
Cyril, 42.
Da Costa, 417.
Dagan, Bishop, 27.
Damasus, 67.
Demetrianus, 250.
Deynoch, 17, 20,
Dionysius of Alexandria, I7S,
Dioscorus, 45, 71.
Dominic, St., 413, 447.
Du Pin's omission, 63.
Durrow, ancient book of, 31,
Easter, 17,20, 21, 27, 32,
Edgar, 378.
Edred, 378.
Education, 368.
Rome an enemy to, 369,
Naples, 370.
separate schools, 371,
removal of Bible, 372,
two evils, 373,
Egbert, 26.
Eleutherius, 16.
Eligius, St., 376.
Elizabeth, Queen, excommunicated, IZt
deposed, 131.
England, a papal gift, 101,
Ephesus, council of, 43,
Episcopacy, 60.
Equality of the Pope and other Bishops
67.
Ethelbald, 376.
Ethelwulf, 377.
Euphemia, St., church of, 43,
Eusebius, 45, 181,
Eustathius, 37,
Eutyches, 43,
Facundus, 182.
Faster, John the, 68,
Ferriers, de, 146.
Forgeries, donation of Constantine, 96.
decretals, 97.
Francis, St., 447.
Franks, church of, 28.
Frederic, the Emperor deposed, 133.

INDEX.

475

Gavaiii, 427.
Gelasius, Pope, 182, 192.
Gladstone, William E., 370.
Gregory the Great, on equality of Bishops,
68,
on Phocas, 82.
on Benedict of Nursia, 446.
Gregory VIL, 134, 186.
Gregory XVL, 325.
Gutenberg, John, 411.
Harold, 100.
Harun, 84.
Hastings, 101.
Heaven, the key of, 338.
Helena, 280.
Henry IV., the Emperor, deposed, 133,
Henry UI. of England, 380.
Henry VIII. exoommunicated, 123.
no one shall obey him, 125.
no social relations with him, 126.
all warriors must attack him, 127.
the goods of his subjects to be seized,
and if they can be caught they are
to be made slaves, 127.
Herigar, 185.
Hertford, council of, 22.
Hilary of Aries, 68.
HUda, St, 21.
Hincmar, 206.
Honorius, Pope, 27.
a condemned heretic, 49, 345.
Hosius, 37, 39.
Hubert, Archbishop, 109.
Huss, John, 273.
Hymns, 396.
early, 398.
Te Deum, 400.
makers of, 402.
of Bede and St. Prtrick, 403.
Protestant hymns in Romish worship,
406.
to several saints, 406.
Ibas, 49.
Ignatius, 180.
Ignatius Loyola, 407, 450.
Image of the Virgin as a trap, 422.
[mages, 338.
in second Council of Nice, 329.
Charlemagne, 330.
other author ?ies. 301.

Images :
miraculous images, 332.
removal of second command ment, 33&.
Indulgences, 270.
bulls authorizing them, 273.
selling them, 275.
a form, 277.
Trent on indulgences, 278.
Infallibility, 340,
infallible Popes, 341,
rejected by Catholics, 342,
Constance and, 342, 344.
false, 344.
dogma, 346.
results, 347.
Innocent III., 109.
sends John four rings, 110.
proclaims an interdict in England, 111,
absolves John's subjects from allegi
ance, 115.
excommunicates John, 114.
deposes him, 116.
gives England to the King of France,
116.
he orders a orusade against John, 117.
he excommunicates the friends of
Magna Charta, 121.
Inquisition, 413.
its aims, 414.
laws, 414,
hypocrisy, 417.
tortures, 421.
punishments, 423.
in Bome, 1849, 427,
Pius IX. canonizes a wicked inquisi.
tor, 428.
Catholics hated the inquisition, 429.
earth never had another, 430.
its industry and advantages, 431,
Intention, doctrine of, 357.
Interdict, 112.
lona 31.
Ireland, a papal gift, 102.
independence lost through Adrian IV.,
106.
made a kingdom by the Pope, 107,
Ireland, ancient church of, 23.
opposition to Bome, 23, 27, 29, 52.
love for the Bible, 26.
a training school for missionaries,
26, 27.

476

INDEX.

Irene, 328.
Ireneus, 54, 389.
Irishman, the Catholic, 364,
bitter against Protestant worship, 365,
a moral convent, 366.
Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, 207,
Jerome, 67, 67, 182, 227, 397.
Jerome of Prague, 274.
Jesuits, the, 449.
Loyola, 450,
order founded, 451.
motto, 452.
members, 453,
officers, 453.
laws, 454,
modes of working, 456.
Pascal and the Jesuits, 457.
insinuation, 459.
spies, 460,
troubles for the troublers, 461.
re-established, 463.
John Scotus, 184.
John, King of England, 108, 379.
he resigns his kingdoms to the Pope,
118,
John XIL, Pope, 341.
John XXIII., 273.
Jonas, Bishop of Orleans, 220,
Justification, 261.
Justinian, 50,
Kells, book of, 31.
Keys, the, 77,
Lainez, 455,
Lanfranc, 185, 207.
Langton, Stephen, 109.
Latin, the language of the papal Church,
389.
Laurentius' epistle to the Irish, 23.
Laurentius of Novarra, 199.
Legions, city of, 13.
Leo the Great, 44, 71.
Leo IL, Pope, 50.
Leo the Isaurian, 328.
Leo X., 34, 274.
Letters of Cyprian, 63.
of Augustine, 65.
Liberius, Pope^ 39.
Llorente, 423.

Lombards, 90,
Lucentius, 44.
Mabillon, father, 183.
Macedonius, 42.
Magna Charta nullified by the P.>pe, 120,
Marcellus, 40.
Marcian, 43,
Marriage, 236.
prohibitions in early churoh, 236.
the ring, the holy kiss, canons of
Trent, 238.
impediments, 241.
efiects of a difference in religion, 241,
Martin, St., Marquis of, 381.
Martyr, Justin, 155.
Mary, the Virgin, 95.
worship of, 312.
began in Arabia, 313.
she works miracles, 314.
prayers to Mary from Sts. Ephraim,
Bernard, John Damascen, and An
selm, 316.
Litany of the Virgin, 319.
two ladders, 321.
four in Trinity, 322.
Gospel of Mary, 323.
Sixtus IV., 324.
the Saviour and Mary, 328,
hymn to Mary, 408.
Mass, the, the eucharist, 169.
the Scriptures, 170.
offerings in the primitive Church, 171.
consecration, 172.
posture, 173.
fasting, 173.
frequency, 173.
fragments, 174.
no adoration, no altar, 176.
communicants, 175.
carried home, 178.
no private masses, 179.
its nature, 179.
the ordinance real flesh and blood, 183.
the mass first described by transub*
stantiation, 186.
the dogma first adopted, 186.
a sacrifice, 187.
the divinity and body in it, 188,
it is a deity, 189.
carried in procession, 190.

INDEX.

477

Mass, the, half communion, 192.
demands for cup, 194.
Protestant side, 196.
receipt for one, 381.
Melito of Sardis, 434.
Miraoles, Alban, Constanstine, St. Donatus,
Zoaimas, James of Nisibis, a Jewish boy,
Imma, Clovis, Mamertus, St. Swithin,
St. Dunstan, St. Magnus, St. Kenelm, de
Broke, Pope Celestine, Vitalis, a woman,
St. Francis, 297.
Mission Book, 336.
Missions, papal, in England, 85, 86.
in Germany, 87.
Mitre, 233.
Monothelites, 49.
Naitan, King, 33.
Nennius, 24.
Neri, Philip, St., 407.
Nestorius, 43.
Nice, Council of, 36,
sixth canon, 37,
Offa, 91, 376.
Orders, holy, 225.
grades, 226.
decree of Trent, 230.
insignia of the office of Bishops and
Popes, 233.
garments of the olergy, 234.
Oswy, 21, 33.
Pallium, 91.
Pandulph, 117.
John's tribute money, 119,
Panteeus, 436.
Paphnutius, 247,
Paris, Council of, 221,
Paris, Matthew, 411.
Paschasinus, 44.
Patrick, St., a Protestant, his captivity,
conversion, call, 24.
love for the Scriptures, 26.
his three requests, 25.
hymn to, 408.
Paul rv., 107.
Penances in early Churoh, 201.
Penitentiary confessor, 204,
Pepin, 74.
Peter has a successor in cursing, 81.
a deity, 73.
he whips Laurence of Canterbury, 74.

Peter, the rock on which the ohurcb is built,
21, 71.
letter to Pepin, 75.
not the rock, 76.
to feed the lambs, 79.
to bind and loose, 78,
Philip, King of France, 117,
Phocas, 81.
Picts, 30.
Pius IL, 34.
Pius IV., 365, 387.
Popes, in troubles of Bishops, 89.
in royal disputes, 89.
benefits they conferred, 93.
lords of kings, 100.
above all rulers, 132, 133.
Position of the Pope in the 11th century,101.
Press, freedom of, 350.
committee of Trent on it, 361.
ten of their rules upon it, 362.
Priests, sincerity of, 392,
Luther and his parents, 393.
a miracle, 394.
Protestants, no salvation for, 386.
Purgatory, 92.
its location, 264.
returned visitors, 264.
the Greek, 268.
in Trent, 268.
Quini-Sextum, the Council of, 60.
Rabanus Maurus, 184.
Radbert, Paschasius, 183.
Ravenna, Exarchate, 90.
Relics, 280.
the holy lance, likeness and cradle, and
a piece of Christ's manger, the stairs
of Pilate, a garment and the hair of
the Virgin Mary, and the chains of
Peter and his chair, 283-5.
parts of the body of the Baptist, of
Andrew, Luke, Bartholomew, Sam
uel, Januarius, and Alban, 287-8.
of Sergius, Genevieve, St. Martin,
Guthlac, St. Edmund, St. Wereburge,
Aquinas, A'becket, 289, 293.
in the second Council of Nice, and il
Trent, 294, 295.
Ring, a Bishop's, 233.
Rodriguez, Alphonso, 40T.
Romanism dying, 465.

478

INDEX.

Rome, triumph of, at Whitby, 22.
first great assumption of power, 83.
Rose, St., of Lima, 406.
Rufus, William, 379.
Saints, invocation and worship of, 304.
Guthlac, St. Edmund, St. Thomas, St.
Alban, Litany of the Saints, 306.
in Trent, 310.
Sanbenito, 423.
Sardica, Council of, 38, 40.
Scapular, 315.
Scotland, ancient Church of, 30,
pious olergy, 31, 32.
love for the Bible, 32,
not Romanists, 32, 33.
Easter, and tonsure, 33.
Scots, 23.
Scott, Sir Walter, 409.
Scriptures, canon of Old and New Testa
ments, 433.
circulation by early disciples, 434.
versions, 434, 436.
hatred of them in the 13th century, 435.
Trent canonizes apocrypha and unwrit
ten tradition, 437.
authenticates the Vulgate, 439.
forbids private judgment, 440.
prohibits a Catholic version without a
license, 441.
scarcity of Bibles in Rome, and in
Maynooth College, 443,
Severn, 17.
Sicily, 134.
Singing, 397.
Sins removed by gifts, 376,
authorities, 382.
Sixtus v., 437.
Slemish, 24.
Societies, secret, 361.
authorities, 362.
Socrates, 250.
Son of God, substance of, 42,
natures of, 44.
Spirit, Holy, 42.
Spyridion, 251.
Stephen, Pope, 61.
Stillingfleet, 69,
Supererogation, 272,
Supremacy of Popes denied, 48, 51, 63, 68.
Bynesius, Bishop iu Cyrene, 261.

Tell, WiUiam, 411.
Tertullian, 63, 156, 165, 180, 24*.
Tetzel, 275.
Theodore, Archbishop, 22.
Theodore of Mopsuestia, 49.
Theodoret, 77.
Theodosius, 43.
Tiara, 233.
Tonsure, 232,
Toulouse, 361.
Tournan, the Mason, 361.
Transubstantiation adopted 1216, 18&
Trent, Council of, 136.
spirit supposed to be in it, 137.
those invited to it, 139.
its presidents, 140.
tools of the Popes, 142.
one decree, 143.
the cup in it, 144.
one of the speeches in it, 146.
number of Bishops in it, 148.
its influence, 150.
its work, 162.
Catechism of, 351.
Unction, extreme, 219,
adopted in Council of Florence, 223
parts anointed, 222.
mode of application, 224.
Usher, Archbishop, 59.
Valdez, Ferdinand, 418.
Vasconellos, Elizabeth, 422.
Vatican Council of 1870, 343, 345.
Vicentius, 36. Vito, 36.
Victor Emmanuel, 412.
Victor, Pope, 55.
Victories, Mohommedan, 83.
Vigilius, Pope, 49.
Vitalian, 74, 390.
Wallace, Sir William, 411.
Waterford, Synod of, 104.
Whitby, Council of, 20.
Wilfrid, 21.
William the Conqueror, 101, 379.
Winfrid, or Boniface, 87.
he hews the sacred oak of the dtf
mans, 88.
a slave of the Popes, 88,
Wyckliffe, John, 436.
Zachary, Pope, 89.

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