MR. MAGUIRE'S QUOTATIONS.

To the Editor of the Protestant Guardian.

SIR,-Notwithstanding Mr. Maguire's vouching for the accuracy of his harmless quotations, brought forward at the late discussion in Dublin, (see page 14 of the authenticated Report) I have presumed to consult the originals, and did not advance beyond the second quotation, before a most extraordinary specimen of a garbled passage offered itself. Clemens Alexandrinus is referred to, Stromatum, lib. 7, cap. 15, p. 888, vol. 2, edit. Oxon. 1715. To say nothing of beginning the quotation in the middle of a sentence, (a very common practice with Romanists,) between the words "truth" and "clearly" five lines are omitted; and after three more lines being translated, we are again at sea; but two pages onward, p. 890, find some portion of the remainder of the quotation in the middle of a sentence, έτως άνθρωπος είναι τῷ Θεῷ καὶ πιςὸς τῷ κυρίῳ διαμένειν ἀπολώλεκεν ; yet the whole is not even here, but may be descried about the middle of p. 891; and thus much may suffice with regard to the "disjecta membra" of this infallible quotation.

In page 15 of the Report, (authenticated edit.) in the second quotation from Tertullian, (the references to whom are correct,) the word novel seems to be inserted contrary to the original.

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The next quotation to be noticed is from Cyprian de Unitate Ecclesiæ, pp. 105-8. edit. folio Oxon. 1682, in the middle of which several lines are omitted; and upon reference to the original, the reader will see the probable reason. It may be as well just to state, that in the Benedictine edition of this Father, commenced by S. Baluzius, but unhappily finished by unus e Monachis S. Mauri," in folio, Paris, 1726, the passage above referred to is interpolated in the text, contrary to the authority of above thirty manuscripts, and all the earlier editions, and that the notes of Baluzius are cut down to half their quantity by his less scrupulous successor in the editorial office; eight pages being reduced to four, and, to avoid detection from a chasm in the pages and signatures, both are doubled. Romanists are great adepts in this convenient art of putting in and putting out, in order to suit the views of holy mother church.

To assist others, who may be disposed to continue this examination, the quotation from Eusebius Cæs. Promium de Eccl. Theol. will be found at the end of Viger's edition of the Demonstr. Evang. p. 60, folio, Paris, 1628.

The reference in Mr. Pope's speech (page 43, authenticated Report) to Tertullian de Præscrip. adv. Hor. should be to cap. 36, not 14. A somewhat parallel passage occurs in the books against Marcion, lib. 4, c. 5. The passage quoted by Mr. Maguire, p. 123, from the same Father, de corona Militum, will be found in cap. 3, and that in page 125 from Arnobius, is in lib. 4, cap. 36, edit. Orellii, Læipsiæ, 1816. This edition is the last, is in convenient octavo, and possesses the advantage of a division into chapters. In the quarto variorum edition, Lug. Bat. 1651, it is page 152.

As the Fathers are likely to be put in requisition from these discussions, would it not be a desirable thing, if the Universities would reprint some of them in octavo with the best notes? Neither Irenæus, nor Clemens Alex., nor Tertullian, have appeared in octavo, with notes; and the same might be said of many others, both Greek and Latin. So scarce do they appear to be in Ireland in any shape, that Mr. Maguire talks of going to Manchester for a sight of them, which, if I mistake not, is no great distance from Stonyhurst.

REVIEW.

An account of the Indexes, both Prohibitory and Expurgatory, of the Church of Rome. BY THE REV. JOSEPH MENDHAM, M. A. London, 1826. 8vo. pp. 187.

It is a matter of no small interest, to investigate the various methods

which have been adopted by the Church of Rome, to retain her members in her own communion. In them, perhaps even more than in the means employed for making proselytes, we see the most consummate policy exercised with infinite zeal and diligence, and suiting itself to the exigency of circumstances, with surprising ease and address. Some account of all these various methods, we hope that we may be able in the course of time, to lay before our readers; but it must, from the very nature of our work, be done piece-meal, and therefore, without the advantage of being able to exhibit their union and co-operation— that dove-tailing which is one of the most curious parts of the systemthat real unity of the Church of Rome, which has never existed in the faith, or practice, of her members; and which is only to be found in the motive and purpose of all her measures, and in their concentric tendency to support and aggrandize her own hierarchy. For the present, therefore, we confine ourselves to the single point brought before us by the interesting work of Mr. Mendham, and speak only of those catalogues which were designed to prevent the printing and circulating of doctrines offensive to the Romish See.

We will say at once, that we have no quarrel with the principle on which the Church of Rome professed to act in the matter. We belong not to that liberal school who stake all on the innate energy of truth, and tell us that christian charity requires us to give fair play to blasphemy. When ignorant and unprincipled quacks are administering hemlock and arsenic, we feel it to be the duty of a christian legislature to restrain their murders, and stamp "poison" on their drugs, and not to sit looking calmly at the perdition of thousands, because they are satisfied that the cheat must ultimately be discovered. We have nothing, therefore, to object to the principle which prohibited or branded heretical books, if it had been acted upon in good faith, and with the single object of informing Christians what books a church, believing itself to be gifted with infallibility, considered to be either useful or pernicious. But while we so far vindicate the principle on which such works might have been published, let it not be imagined that we are defending either the motive, or the means of the Romish Church. The main design of the Indexes was obviously not the recommendation of truth, the suppression of error, the promotion of christian knowledge, or any good and laudable end, but the aggrandizement of the Romish See; and the means, instead of lucid exposure and fair argument, were fraud and force. The use of these unwarrantable means, is sufficiently obvious in the whole history of the Indexes, and that the design of them was to promote and maintain the power of Rome, is manifest from the fact that notwithstanding the numerous and bitter attacks which were made on the Church of Rome, by its own members before that time, nothing like an Index, in the modern sense of the term, appeared, until the Reformation had begun. "The truth is," says Mr. Mendham, "that the Church of Rome cared nothing about the infamy while her dominion was safe, but when Luther and his adherents endangered that dominion, the case was altered." This is true, and perhaps it may be added, that in those days when there had not been all the hair-splitting which modern jesu

itism has introduced respecting Infallibility, it was a difficult matter to know how to notice the reproaches of a devoted and obedient son of the church. In fact, (to borrow the language of Bossuet as translated by Mr. Butler)" there were then two different sorts of people who demanded a reformation; one, the truly peaceable and true children of the church, without bitterness, bewailed her grievances; and with respect, proposed a reformation of them, and in humility bore with a delay. And, so far from desiring that this might be procured by schism, on the contrary, they looked upon a schism as by far the greatest of all evils. In the midst of these abuses, they admired the providence of God, who, according to his promises, knew how to preserve the church's faith; and though a reformation of manners seemed denied them, free from all sourness and passion, they held themselves happy enough that nothing hindered them from beginning at home, and perfectly reforming there. These were the strong ones of the church, whose faith no temptation could shake, or make them swerve from unity."* There were others, however, who though they did not desire to " swerve from unity," did not consider "a schism as BY FAR THE GREATEST OF ALL EVILS." They thought that they perceived still greater evils in a church which (whether right or wrong) they believed to be guilty of idolatry and blasphemy. Such persons formed the other class, and such were the Vaudois and Albigenses, John Wickliffe, John Huss, and Martin Luther. When the successive efforts of these, had produced what Bossuet calls "the most violent rupture and the greatest apostacy," it was time to be stirring. When his Holiness was thus openly attacked by a Saxon monk, and heard, while a captive in his own city, the shouts of "Long live Pope Luther," it was plain that all was at stake. He might well ask

Quid ego nunc faciam? quid refert me fecisse regibus
Ut mihi obedirent, si hic hodie umbraticus deriserit?

He might look back with regret to the days when the Albigensian heresy had been washed out with blood, but the times were altered, and even the merciless sword of Simon de Montfort would have been no match for the pen of Luther, supported, as it was, by a press which defied or eluded papal censure; and rendered still more-infinitely more, tremendous by the spirit of inquiry which was rising through all Christendom. The first thing to be done then, obviously was, as far as possible to prevent the faithful from reading his books, because it avoided at once the delay and the risk of answering them. Accordingly, what may perhaps be considered as the first specimen of an Index, was directed against Luther and his fellow-labourers.

"In 1520," says Mr. Mendham, "Cardinal Wolsey, in consequence of the Brief of Leo X, dated 13 Kal. Julii of that year, directed the English Bishops to require that all the books and writings of one Martin Luther (cujusdam M. L.) should be brought in and delivered up to them, from all persons whatsoever possessing them, under pain of the greater excommunication. This, however, refers simply to the writings of Luther, and does not even enumerate any specific articles. In 1526, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Warham, sent a mandate to Voysey, Bishop of Exeter, or his Vicar-General in spirituals, to inquire after English translations full of heretical pravity, whether with or without notes, that they might be condemned to the flames. The names of books condemned, with the New Testament, to the number of eighteen, being some of Tindal, Huss, Zuingle, Luther, are subjoined. In 1529, a convocation of the clergy in the province of Canterbury, and, as appears in the following year a provincial council, was held, by authority of which was published a much more extensive catalogue of prohibited books to the number of nearly seventy, consisting exclusively of the English, German, and Helvetic reformers. There was likewise a petition of the synod of Canterbury, in 1534, to the King, to restrain or punish the publication of suspected books and translations of the Scriptures." p. 15.

These facts give to our country, as Mr. Mendham observes, "the credit, such as it is, of first endeavouring to repel the attack in a literary

Book of the Church, 2d Edition, p. 164.

way;" but the original, which is to be traced to Rome, may be dated somewhat earlier.

"In the Council of Lateran," says Mr. Mendham, "assembled in 1511, in the tenth session, 1515, Leo X. then filling the pontifical chair, an ordinance of his was confirmed, with only one dissentient voice in favour of ancient writers, that no book should be printed until examined by the Master of the Sacred Palace, or the Inquisitor of the place. Nothing like a formal Index of condemned books appeared from this quarter until the year 1543, when as Peignot in his Dictionnaire des livres condamnès au feu quotes from Reimann in his Catalogus Bibliothecæ Theologica, there appeared INDEX GENERALIS SCRIPTORUM INTERDICTORUM of that date at Venice." p. 16.

That some such works as these are in existence, most of our readers have heard; though perhaps but few comparatively, have had an opportunity of seeing them, and learning their history; and it may interest them to see some account of these Prohibitory and Expurgatory Indexes. "It is," says Mr. Mendham, "of some importance to distinguish the titles above given, which signify things essentially different, but which are frequently confounded both by papal and early writers, who ought to understand the subject best, and by modern ones very generally.

"The Prohibitory Index specifies and prohibits entire authors or works, whether of known or of unknown authors. This book has been frequently published, with successive enlargements up to the present time, under the express sanction of the reigning Pontiff: it may, indeed, be considered as a kind of periodical publication of the papacy, and no attempt or wish is discoverable to prevent its most extensive publicity.

"The other class of Indexes, the Expurgatory, whether united with the first or not, contains a particular examination of the works occurring in it, and specifies the passages condemned, to be expunged or altered. Such a work, in proportion to the number of works embraced by it, must be, and in the instance of the Spanish Indexes of this kind, is, voluminous. In these, publicity was so little desired, that it was the chief thing guarded against. The earlier editions, in particular, were distributed with the utmost caution, as will incontrovertibly appear in the sequel; and were only intended for the possession and inspection of those, to whom they were necessary for the execution of their provisions. The reason is obvious. It certainly was little desirable that the dishonest dealings of the authors of these censures, should be known to those who are injured by them, and to whom they would afford the opportunity of justifying themselves, or to the world at large, whose judgment they must know would, in many cases, be at variance with their own. And, evidently, it was not their interest to discover, and even officiously (as it were) to point out those very passages in the writings, not only of reputed heretics, but of reputed Catholics, which expose the most vulner. able parts of their own system. These apprehensions are sufficiently proved to have been well founded by the avidity with which the opportunity, whenever it occurred, was seized by Protestants, of re-publishing these curious as well as iniquitous documents. And we can scarcely avoid feeling something like sympathy with the anger and invectives of those who, though frequently themselves smarting under the same lash, and yet the more for that very reason, are indignant that the censures of their own bre. thren by these ecclesiastic critics should no sooner be published at Rome, Paris, or in Spain, than they are sent into the world afresh and every where dispersed by heretical editors, for the direct and most provoking purpose of proving how little unity subsists among self-nominated Catholics." p. 3.

Having given some account of the origin, instead of following Mr. Mendham through the interesting account which he has given of the different editions, and of the variations and even contradictions which are to be found in these works, we shall endeavour to give our readers some general account of the sources from whence they emanated, the method adopted in compiling them, and the means used for rendering them effectual.

On the first of these points, one might suppose, there would be little to say. An authoritative work for the guidance of the church, in matters of faith, we should expect to find issuing from some one centre of infallibility, far above all doubt or suspicion. But here, as every where else, infallibility gives us the slip, and we find these most important documents issuing from various persons and places, who, by the way, manifest occasionally some jealousy of each other, and even carry the matter so far, as solemnly and authoritatively to condemn each other's Indexes, and to place the expurgatory lists of their predecessors, among the books requiring expurgation, in their own.

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The more formal and authorised condemnations, however," says Mr. Mendham, "proceeded from the three following sources :---The Congregation of the Inquisition, the Master of the Sacred Palace, and the Congregation of the Index.

"The congregation of the Inquisition, or, in Spain, the Senate, claimed this autho. rity, as originally and naturally belonging to their office, as inquisitors of heretical pravity in general. Van Espen distinguishes between those meetings when the Pope was present and when he was not, his name being mentioned only in the former case. But all the Roman editions come forth with the papal sanction.

"The Master of the Sacred Palace was a kind of domestic chaplain or preacher of the Pope. The famous or infamous Dominic was the first who bare this office; and a part of his jurisdiction referred to the printing of books and the power of prohibiting them." After quoting the testimony of Catalani to the fact that this officer first enjoyed the power of prohibition, Mr. Mendham adds :—

"The same writer has given a volume of the same size with the former, and printed at the same place, and in the same year, Rome, and 1751, de Secretario Sac. Congregationis Indicis, in which he has stated the office of this congregation relative to the examination and prohibition of books. Indeed the Congregation, as its title imports, was established for the express purpose of carrying into execution the decrees of the Council of Trent, respecting the catalogue of prohibited books, which it had decreed.

"Van Espen, in the tract referred to, has pretty satisfactorily evinced, that the censure or condemnation of the books in the Index, is often to be referred to the examina.. tion and judgment of a single consultor, as he is called, one of the operatives in this laudable work. And it is certain that many of the true Romanists, whose works were thus transfixed, made no ceremony of exclaiming against the supposed injustice of the proceeding. But after all, these Indexes, when published, bear upon their front, in brazen letters, the sanction of the Bishop and Church of Rome, and so are venerated by all the true sons of that community.

"But besides these sources of the condemnations referred to, the Pope, by his own authority, as Head of the Church, claimed the right; and it was likewise allowed to, and exercised by all public ecclesiastical bodies, as those of the Universities of the Sorbonne and of Louvain, by individual superior ecclesiastics, and even by the supreme civil magistrate." p.9.

The power which Mr. Mendham mentions as having been allowed to individual superior ecclesiastics, (as distinguished from those officially employed) and Universities, was practically great in their respective spheres; but it does not appear to have been so universally recognised as a legitimate and unquestionable source of general prohibition. The Jesuit Raynaud, in his elaborate and amusing Erotemata, denies the power of Bishops in terms, but those who have studied the spirit and the history of the Church of Rome, will perceive that he restores nearly all that he takes away. It may be a proper compliment to the Pope to say, as he does, that no Bishop can give infallible judgment but the successor of St. Peter, because, for that Apostle alone the prayer was offered that his faith might not fail; and to him alone it was said "feed my sheep;" but to give a Romish Bishop the power of prohibiting, or the power of declaring what the Church has prohibited, though they may seem different things in the schools, are one and the same in real life. The opinion which the same Father expresses of the powers possessed by the Universities, is more pointed and contemptuous. If, he argues, this power resides not in an individual Doctor as such, how can it reside in a collective body of Doctors? If Esop's ass, though in a lion's skin, was still but an ass, would a whole herd of such animals form an assembly of lions ?* What a sad thing it is that Mr. Pitt did not view the matter in this light! We do not mean to deny, what Mr. Mendham has

• "Si sensus sit, Episcopo configente librum, ratione puncti alicujus, quem damnat hæreseos, confixionem illam esse ex fide certam, rejiciendum est, quod Gerso dicit ........nulli Episcopo infra Romanum Pontificem, competit potestas judicandi infallibiliter de fide, aut configendi, quæ sunt falsa, et fidei adversantia, quia de nullo alio singulari Episcopo valet, quod de Romano in Petri persona dictum est Rogavi pro te, &c. ......valebit autem quod a Gersone de inferioribus Episcopis dicitur, si sensus sit, eos habere potestatem proponendi suis subditis, quæ ab Ecclesiæ capite fuerint definita tanquam de fide; eosque in conscientia obligandi ut eis credant, tanquam definitis per Ecclesiæ caput, cujus est eas definitiones cudere....Quod si Doctori cuivis singulari aliud non competet vi Doctoratus, quam quod diximus, debet quoque liquere, non plus etiam toti Doctorum collegio, etiamsi numerosissimo, posse tribui, quod recte VOL. I.

R