Monday, December 2nd, 1637, precisely as the clock struck one, the hour at which, for many years, he constantly rose to pay his addresses to heaven*.

Reflection: A consideration of death and judgment to come should influence our thinking, readding, and indeed all our daily pursuits and occupations, and should prevail on us to devote our time and talents to his service who lent them unto us, that we may at last render unto him a just and true account of the uses to which they have been applied. It is a plain rule of scripture, "Do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. x. 31).

HOW SHOULD PROTESTANTS MEET THE AGGRESSION OF ROMANISTS?

A DIALOGUE.

BY THE REV. S. HOBSON, LL.B., Incumbent of Butley, Suffolk.

No. XV.-PART 1.

THE TRIAL OF THE CARDINAL.

Address of Counsel for the Prosecution.

GENTLEMEN,-I am quite willing that the historical evidence which has been laid before you should alone determine your verdict. My learned friend refers to this evidence as most complete and satisfactory in favour of his cause. If you are of the same opinion, you will, of course, acquit Dr. Wiseman. I do not think it necessary to make a single additional remark on the facts which have been adduced. Bear these in mind; and I have not the smallest doubt that your decision will be that the pope, in the early times of the church, had no spiritual supremacy in Britain; but that during a period of darkness and superstition the see of Rome contrived to usurp a jurisdiction which neither law nor reason could countenance. And I cannot help thinking that the learned counsel himself is rather doubtful as to the solidity of the foundation on which he rests his cause. For, had he thought the evidence drawn from the annals of our country sufficient to establish his position, he could scarcely have hazarded an appeal to an authority which his church, for very prudent reasons, forbids her lay members to consult. And I shall not be surprised should my learned friend be doomed by his spiritual director to perform some heavy penance, because he has ventured to refer you to the bible in search of papal supremacy. For you know that his church has decreed that, "if any one shall have the presumption to read or possess it (the bible) without a written permission (of the bishop, priest, or confessor). he shall not receive absolution until he have first delivered up such bible to the ordinary"+. By quoting passages from a book which his church thinks so dangerous, in support of papal supremacy, he obliges the jury, whether protestants or Romanists, to examine the scriptures; but

Dr. Wordsworth's Eccl. Biog, from Dr. Peckard. † Council Trid. Sesa. 4, Decret, de Can, Script.

how can he expect that his co-religionists in the jury-box can obtain such permission? And how does he know but that the very hearing of the passages he has quoted may tempt them to read more than the learned counsel intended? Is he not aware how attractive is the sight of things which are prohibited? Let me remind him of the counsel alleged to have been given to pope Julius III., by the bishops assembled at Bononia: "That as little of the gospel as might be, especially in the vulgar tongue, should be read to the people; and that the little which was in the mass ought to be sufficient; neither should it be permitted to any mortal to read more. For .... in truth, if any one diligently considers it, and compares it with what is done in our church, he will find them very contrary to each other, and our doctrine not only to be very different from it, but repugnant to it"*. Have I not reason, then, gentlemen, to tremble for my learned friend when I think of the sad position in which his daring appeal to the bible may possibly place him? What if his confessor should send him on a pilgrimage to Lough Dergh to perform the round of penances which the pilgrims there undergo? Let me describe the purgatory which will in that case be the doom of my learned friend: "The island (in Lough Dergh) is covered with several modern buildings, fitted up for the most part as places of worship, and each one dedicated to some particular saint. In the vicinity of these are a number of circular stone walls, from one to two feet in height, enclosing broken stone or wooden crosses, and which are called saints'beds. Around these, on the hard and pointed rocks, the penitents pass upon their bare knees, repeating a certain form of prayer at each. They then visit the chapels, where they remain night and day performing certain ceremonies, and saying a prescribed number of prayers, which are in proportion to the amount or degree of crime committed. The pilgrim, while engaged in these rites, which generally occupy several days, is allowed to partake of but one meal of bread and water in the twentyfour hours; and while in the prison, in which the individual continues a day and night previous to quitting the island, food of every description is prohibited. .... The pilgrims are kept awake at night by a man appointed for the purpose, who, with a small switch or rod, gently taps any one he may perceive disposed to slumber". But, should my forebodings be realized, the learned counsel will, at least, have the consolation of not being alone in this penance; for Mr. Inglis states that about 500 pilgrims daily visit the station at Lough Dergh; so that in the ten weeks during which it is open not fewer than 19,000 persons go through this penance, in the hope of abridging "by some thousands of years the term of their purgatory." But, much as the learned counsel has risked by quoting two or three texts from scripture in support of papal supremacy, I do not think that any one who reads and examines the bible will be able to discover in it even Peter's supremacy, far less that of the bishops of Rome. It is a dangerous practice thus to quote isolated passages from scripture in favour of particular notions, without any

*This is supposed to be a pasquinade of P. P. Vergerius; but it well describes the policy of Rome.

+ Irish Intelligencer, vol. xi., pp. 119, 120, 125.

economy of the same nature; and he that understood it very well said that Satan was not divided against Satan, because, if he were, his kingdom could not stand. But it hath stood firm and undivided ever since it was first formed, before the sensible creation; it was never yet shaken with intestine divisions. .... And, therefore, I hope bare unity, or want of divisions, will never hereafter pass among considering men for a mark of a truly catholic church. And, as it is among spirits, so it is among men. The Samaritans, who had neither Sadducees, nor Pharisees, nor Essenes, nor Herodians, nor Cabbalists, nor Carraites among them, for that reason had a firmer union among themselves than the church of the Jews had, and yet they were not the true church". To attribute the dissensions which are to be found among protestants to their refusal to acknowledge papal supremacy, and to point to the papacy as the only cure of divisions, is to tell freemen that the excesses into which some of them run are owing to their refusal to be under a despotic power, and that for the abuses of liberty there is no remedy but abject slavery. But even that spiritual despotism, to which the learned counsel would persuade us to submit, has been, and still is, powerless in regard to schisms. Let me remind you of the divisions which prevailed in the Roman church at that period when one party chose Ursinus for their pope, while another party chose Damasus. What riots and battles and slaughter arose from this dispute between rival popes! Let me call your attention to the dangerous tumults which were excited, fifty years afterwards, by the contention of Boniface and Eulalius; when the emperor Honorius, in order to establish peace in the city, drove them both out of Rome. How did the papal mode of settling controversies operate in the year 891, when Formosus and Sergius both claimed the papal chair, and were both supported by numerous adherents? Where was the centre of unity in the year 965, when Benediet V. and Leo VIII. each declared himself to be pope? Where was it A. D. 1080, during the schism between Clement III. and Gregory VII.? Where in the year 1118, when Gregory VIII. and Gelasius II., and afterwards Calixtus II., contended for the bishopric of Rome? To whom did the Christian world look for a decision of controversies in faith from A. D. 1159 to A. D. 1178, when the rival popes, Victor IV. and Alexander III., were contending for what they called St. Peter's chair? Where was this boasted unity from A. D. 1378 to A. D. 1428, during the contests between Urban VI. and Clement VII. and their respective successors? I might refer to many other schisms between rival popes and rival sects in the bosom of the Romish church, particularly between the Molinists and Jansenists, between the Thomists and Scotists and Jesuits but I have surely said enough to show how impolitic it is for the learned counsel to upbraid protestants with their divisions, and how ineffectual is the remedy which he proposes for those

evils.

s;

My learned friend, in common with other popish advocates, has called ours a parliamentary church; as if the mere fact that its doctrines and discipline were sanctioned and established by the Gibson's Preservative, vol. ii. p. 48, edit. 1848.

three estates of the realm proved that it owed its existence to parliament. He ought to be aware that it existed long before parliaments were known, and would continue were they no more to assemble. But, in answer to what Romanists appear to consider so damaging an accusation, I beg to state that one of their popes owed his existence, as pope, to an act of our parliament. In the reign of Richard II. the parliament of England enacted that Urban VI., and not Clement VII., was the true pope. Let me read to you an abridgment of this enactment from sir R. Cotton's Exact Abridgment of the Records: "An act that pope Urban was true and lawful pope, and that the livings of all cardinals, and other rebels to the said pope, shall be seized in the king's hands, and the king to be answered by the profits thereof; and that whosoever within this realm shall procure or obtain any provision, or other instrument, from any other pope than the said Urban, shall be out of the king's protection" *.

But I must notice another assertion of the learned counsel-an assertion so astounding that I could hardly believe him to be serious when he made it, until I reflected that he had what he probably deems almost infallible authority for the statement: "The pope, as well as the bishops, are the true friends of civil and religious liberty"! Hear this and rejoice, ye inhabitants of Spain and Italy! Hear this, ye groaning captives in the dungeons of Rome, in the prisons of Naples, and in the degrading chains of the galleys! Paul Cullen, a legate and favourite of the pope, and invested, of course, with some portion of his Italian sovereign's infallibility, openly and publicly declares that, wherever popery under the name of catholicity prevails, there civil liberty exists"!

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Let us, then, turn our eyes to Italy, and see what kind of liberty is to be found there. At Florence, in August, 1851, the house of Francesco Madiai was searched by the police. Two bibles were found. Madiai and three persons, who were in his house at the time, were taken to prison. One of these, captain Walker, was released after twenty-four hours' imprisonment, on the remonstrances of the hon. E. Bligh, of her majesty's legation at Florence. The others, Alessandro Fantoni and Francesco Manelli, after seven days' imprisonment, were offered their choice of indetinite imprisonment or indefinite banishment. They chose the latter, and are now severally at Geneva and Turin. Their crime was, that they visited Madiai, and afterwards confessed that they were protestants. Madiai and his wife are both confined in separate cells. Their only crime, which they did not deny, was that they read the bible. From May to September, 1851, the following persons were imprisoned or banished for reading the bible, or for having a copy of it in their possession: Conte Piero Guicciardini, Cesare Magnini, Tekeli Betti, Labatini, Bursierí, Carlo Solieri, Guiseppe Guerra, and Angelo Guarducci. These were condemned to six months' banishment from their native land. Their crime, as officially published, was that they were found reading a chapter of the gospel of St. John, in Diodati's edition of the bible. On May 8th Hypoly to Liquozzi's house was searched. No bible was found; but he was im* 2 et 3 Rich. II., c. 6, a. D. 1378.

prisoned on suspicion for eight days. In August Pasquali Cavacci was in prisoned. His house was searched, but no bible was discovered: his own wife, however, acknowledged, at the confessional, that he read the bible; and he remains in prison. The traitress! methinks I hear you say. No, gentlemen, call her rather the unhappy dupe of an accursed system. She was brought up in the belief that in the confessional she must state all she knew on pain of damnation. This is the law of Rome: "That sons are bound to accuse their parents, and parents their children, husbands their wives, and wives their husbands, if they are guilty of heresy"; and it is a great heresy to read the bible. "I promise you," said bishop Gardiner to a person who begged him to allow a woman to see her husband then in prisou for heresy, "I promise you her husband is a great heretic, and bath read more scripture than any man in the realm hath done"*.

But my learned friend denies that the church of Rome has anything to do with such intolerant and cruel acts. He tells us that it was only the civil power which consigned poor heretics to the dungeon, the rack, and the flames; and that, if the paternal exhortations of the pope and his prelates had been heard, no such cruelties would have been perpetrated. And he appeals to a sermon, preached before queen Mary, by a Spanish friar, as evidence that the popish hierarchy were opposed to persecution. I wonder the learned counsel did not also quote the usual recommendation of popish inquisitors on their delivery of heretics, condemned by themselves, to the secular power, "that they would deal gently and humanely with the poor heretics," as additional evidence of the benignant feelings of popish ecclesiastics+. Doubtless they were quite as sincere in their intercession on behalf of heretics as Alphonsus was in his celebrated sermon. He was then in a country where protestants were numerous, and where the cruelties practised upon them were daily exciting disgust and hatred against his master, king Philip; and he therefore concealed his real sentiments-or, at least, the sentiments which his church taught him to hold. What these were you may read in a work written by Alphonsus de Castro, entitled "De justa hæreticorum punitione." In this book, cap. v., p. 98, he says: "There are various punishments which ecclesiastical law sanctioned, and imperial law ordered heretics to be visited with. Some are corporeal, and affect the body. Among the corporeal punishments, one which very much annoys the heretics is the confiscation of their property." Another punishment is the deprival of every sort of pre-eminence, jurisdiction, and government which they had preFox's Acts and Monuments, v., p. 481, &c., edit. 1843. By the canon law no person who has actively concurred in the death or mutilation of any human being-Jew, pagan, or heretic-can be admitted to, or be allowed to exercise holy orders. Hence ecclesiastics, when they condemn heretics to death, and deliver them to the secular arm for execution, are obliged to use this hypocritical language, lest they should incur the penalty stated in the canon law. "Although," says the popish lawyer, Farinacius, "this intercession of the ecclesiastical judge may seem rather a colourable pretence than an effectual intercession, it is still needful; for it serves to acquit the ecclesiastical judge of irregularity"; i. e., enables him to evade the punishment threatened by the eanon law (Op. Crimin., pars viii., De hæres, quæst. 189, § 1, par. 10, p. 244).

viously exercised. This authority is lost by manifest heresy; so that a king, having become a heretic, is ipso jure deprived of his kingdom. "Nor ought any one to wonder," says he, "that the pope, on account of the crime of heresy, deprived a king of his dignity and stripped him of his kingdom; because kings, like other subordinates, are subjects of the sovereign pontiffs" (cap. vii. p. 108). But, surely, you will say this "mild and tolerant friar," as Dr. Lingard calls him, who condemned the burning of heretics in his sermon, must express in his book his disapproval of punishing with death such unfortunate persons. No such thing. He gives many reasons why obstinate heretics should be put to death, and then observes: "In what manner they may be put to death is of very little consequence; for, whatever the way, it is always for the good of the church, because a nuisance is removed which, if alive, he might create, and terror is struck into others."

The learned counsel also adduces four or five popish bishops as being averse to persecution, and these he has to seek out of the multitude of ecclesiastics who lived from the time of Leo the Great, as he is called, to the reign of queen Mary. He has winnowed the produce of more than a thousand acres, and can find only four or five grains of wheat in his immense accumulation of chaff. And this is his evidence in favour of the goodness of the soil! Surely he forgets that a few exceptions only prove the rule. If merely a few influential names in the church of Rome can be adduced as mild and tolerant persons, the natural conclusion is that intolerance is and always has been the badge of the popish church. But what if the most eminent of these few can be proved to have held no such humane opinions as the learned counsel supposes? You will find, on examining the letter of Leo (written A.D. 447) that he commends the emperor Maximus for putting Priscillian and his disciples to death. "That severity" (which the princes of the world exercised against heretics), he says, "has long been profitable to ecclesiastical lenity, which, although content with the sacerdotal judgment it avoids bloody vengeance, is nevertheless assisted by the severe constitutions of Christian princes, since sometimes those who dread corporal punishment have recourse to the spiritual remedy"*. And as to Tertullian, he indeed wrote to a pagan ruler in favour of toleration to Christians; but, when writing of heretics, he says, They should be compelled to duty, not allured”+.

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But De Castro is not the only popish advocate who could publicly declare that the spirit of the church of Rome was mild and tolerant; a learned popish layman, the late Mr. Charles Butler, asserted that, although "individual (Roman) catholics have maintained unjustifiable doctrines, and been guilty of unjustifiable practices," the Roman church cannot be fairly accused of sanctioning them. Let us, then, hear the church speaking by her infallible pontiffs. In the bull Ad abolendam, published by Lucius III. A.D. 1185, the pope commands all heretics to be delivered to the civil power to be put to death, unless they return to the bosom of the church. * Epist. ad Turrib., Op. S. Leon. Mag., tom. i. col, 696. † Ad Scorp, adv. Gnostic, c, ii, p. 592.