have been stained with persecution, at one period or other of their history. They have all persecuted Catholics, whenever and wherever they had the power to do so; and almost all of them have likewise been guilty of the glaring inconsistency of persecuting brother Protestants, for daring, in the exercise of the conceded right of private judgment, to think differently from themselves! But who would infer from this undoubted fact, that Protestants generally hold it as a doctrine, that all who dissent from their particular views should be put down by fire and sword? Such a conclusion would be clearly illogical and grievously unjust. Now we claim the application of the same equitable principle to the charge of persecution brought against our Church; and surely our claim is not unreasonable. But the Catholic Church professes to be infallible and unchangeable, whereas the Protestant sects admit that they are liable to err, and have often erred in times past. We freely grant the latter proposition; in regard to the former, our adversaries lose sight of a very obvious distinction, which truth demands should be made. The Catholic Church is unchangeable in doctrine, but not in discipline. The latter may and does vary in its details, according to times, places, and circumstances. So that, even if our opponents should prove that our Church had, at any period of her history, adopted persecution as a line of conduct under particular circumstances, or as a general discipline, they would not still make good their position. But have they established even this proposition? We believe not; and to show how inconclusive are their arguments, on a point which does not directly touch the real matter at issue, we will briefly refer to a few of their specifications.

They allege, with an air of triumph, the third Canon of the fourth Council of Lateran,' which excommunicated heretics, and ordered that they should be delivered up for punishment to the secular power. Our answer is obvious. In the first place, it is manifest that no doctrine is promulgated by this canon, but that only a rule of action is laid down for a particular case. 2. We may observe, that Mathew Paris, a weighty cotemporary historian, denies that this and the other canons were the acts of the council itself; and that the English Protestant church historian, Collier, declares his belief that the third canon in particular is not genuine. 3. But, waiving this, and admitting the genuineness of the canon, every reader of Church History knows that it was enacted with the full concurrence, and probably on the positive demand, of the

I Held A. D. 1215.

2

2 Math. Paris - ad annum 1215, apud Milner-Letters to a Prebendary.

8 Collier, Ecclesiastical History; vol. i, p. 424: quoted ibid.

3

temporal sovereigns of Christendom, who were nearly all of them present at the council, either personally, or by their ambassadors. Some of the provisions of the canon could not, in fact, have been enacted, much less, carried into execution, but with the consent and co-operation of the temporal sovereigns; especially of those who were chiefly concerned. It may here be remarked, in general, that many of the councils held during the middle ages were not exclusively ecclesiastical conventions, but rather congresses of all Christendom, representing the temporal as well as the spiritual power. 4. The severe provisions of this canon were directed against the Albigenses, who then infested the south of France, than whom a more pestilent sect probably never existed. They were the sworn foes of all religion, of all decency, and of all social order. Wherever they appeared, desolation and ruin followed in their pathway. They were the Jacobins and Sans-culottes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; and they were, if possible, even more truculent and bloody than the Jacobins themselves. They were the enemies of both God and man. Worse than our modern Mormons, they condemned marriage altogether, and gave a free rein to every brutal passion and appetite. Had they succeeded in establishing their principles, all order and all civilization would have been at an end. Is it any wonder then, that all Christendom the State no less than the Church rose up in mass to put down, even by force, a sect so monstrous? Is it not plain also, that, such being the facts, the severe measures sanctioned by the council constitute an exceptional case, which should not be alleged as evidence of a general rule? And for the truth of this picture, we appeal with confidence to all cotemporary history. We may safely apply to them what the learned. Protestant church historian Mosheim candidly says of a cognate sectthe Brethren of the Free Spirit:

4

"Certain writers, who have accustomed themselves to entertain a high idea of the sanctity of all those who, in the middle ages, separated themselves from the Church of Rome, suspect the inquisitors of having falsely attributed impious doctrines to the Brethren of the Free Spirit.

1 There were thus present at this council the emperors of Germany and Constantinople, the kings of France, England, Aragon, Sicily, Hungary, Jerusalem, and Cyprus; besides several minor Sovereigns.

2 As during the period in question, society was struggling into form, and there were no standing armies to repel strongly organized and wide-spread aggressions upon social order, expeditions of a general character for the defense of society were decided on in co uncils of the European sovereigns; and when the enemies of order were likewise the foes of religion, these expeditions were called crusades. 3 For facts and details on this subject, we beg to refer to "The Primacy," by Archhbishop Kenrick, sup. cit.

4 During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a great part of Europe was infested with pernicious sects, which revived under different forms the anti-social errors of the ancient Maincheans. They were all alike, though they bore the different names of Turlupins, Begards, Brethren of the Free Spirit, and Albigenses. The Petro-Brusians were a kindred sect.

But this suspicion is entirely groundless, &c. . . . Their shocking violation of decency was a consequence of their pernicious system. They looked upon decency and modesty as marks of inward corruption.

Certain enthusiasts amongst them maintained, that the believer could not sin, let his conduct be ever so horrible or atrocious." '

But what have we to say on the Inquisition, especially the Spanish Inquisition; which, with the alleged sanction of the Church, filled Christendom with so many horrors for ages? What explanation are we to give of what occurred at the Council of Constance, which, contrary to plighted faith, consigned John Huss and Jerome of Prague to the flames? Satisfactory answers on both these points could be easily given; and they have been given a hundred times already. But as we devote special Essays to these subjects in the following pages, we must refer the candid reader to them for details; and we do so with entire confidence, that all who will take the trouble to read these papers, will rise from the perusal with the conviction, that even those darker passages in the Church's history do not make out the case of persecution against her, even as a point of discipline.

2

Come we now to times nearer our own day. What are the statistics. of persecution during the last three centuries, since the dawn of what has been called by its friends the reformation? And how stands the case at present in Europe, and in America? No candid man who has read history aright will deny, that during this period, and especially at present, we have been, and are now, much more sinned against than sinning in the matter of persecution. Catholics who speak the English language, in particular, have been for three hundred years, almost without intermission, the victims of the most ruthless intolerance. Robbed of their church and often of their personal property; slandered in their reputation; hunted down by the myrmidons of a persecuting government; branded as traitors and outlaws in their own country and that of their fathers before them such has been their treatment in Protestant England up to a comparatively recent period; ever since the fatal day when the tyrant Henry VIII.- the Nero of modern times-quarreled with the Pope, and violently severed the unity of the Church, because she could not and would not sanction his headlong passions, to the injury of a virtuous wife! In Ireland, the fate of the Catholics was still harder, and of longer continuance."

1 Eccles. History, vol. iii. p. 284; Maclain's translation-quoted by Milner.

2 See the Articles on the Spanish Inquisition, and on John Huss and the Hussites; pp. 213, 191 seqq..

3 See the third Article on Church History p. 57 seqq, for farther details on the reformation in England.

4 In the Article on Ireland and the Irish-p. 506 seqq., we have sketched the sufferings of Catholi Ireland under English persecution.

We go even farther, and state, as a fact which no one will deny, who retains the least regard for historic truth, that in every country in Europe where the reformation succeeded, Catholics were invariably persecuted, almost as atrociously and for nearly as long a time, as in England and Ireland. Robbery, sacrilege, slander, civil commotions and bloodshed, were everywhere the arms with which incipient Protestantism assailed those, whose only crime was their honest wish to adhere to the faith, and worship at the altars of their forefathers, and of the forefathers of those very men too who were engaged in persecuting them! Perhaps in Switzerland, an old Catholic republic with some remains of the ancient Catholic freedom, the persecuting spirit was less rampant than elsewhere; but even in Switzerland, with its glowing Catholic memories of William Tell, Furst, and Melchtal, we find no exception to the remark just made. Even there the fiercely intolerant spirit of the early reformers was not softened. This we establish, by abundant evidence, in a special Essay on the Reformation in Switzerland.'

We conclude this branch of the subject with an extract from the Edinburg Review an unexceptionable Protestant authority-which candidly places in its true light the character of the self-styled reformers, in the matter of persecution: 2

"Protestant writers, in general, are apt to describe the reformation as a struggle for religious freedom. . . . Now, we humbly apprehend, that the free exercise of private judgment was most heartily abhorred by the first reformers, except only where the persons who assumed it had the good fortune to be exactly of their opinion. . . The martyrdoms of Servetus, in Geneva, and of Joan Bocher, in England, are notable instances of the religious freedom which prevailed in the pure and primitive state of the Protestant churches. It is obvious, also, that the freedom for which our first reformers so strenuously contended, did not, by any means, include a freedom to think as the Catholics thought; that is to say, to think as all Europe had thought for many ages, and as the greatest part of Europe thought at the very time and continue to think to this very day. The complete extirpation of the Catholic Church, not merely as a public establishment, but as a tolerated sect, was the avowed object of our first reformers. In 1560, by an act of the parliament, which established the reformation in Scotland, both the sayers and hearers of Mass, whether in public or in private, were, for the first offense, to suffer confiscation of all their goods, together with corporal punishment, at the discretion of the magistrate; they were to be punished by banishment for the second offense; and by death for the third!. . . . It was not possible for the most bigoted Catholic to inculcate more distinctly the complete extirpation of the opinions and worship of the Protestants, than John Knox inculcated as a most sacred duty, incumbent on the civil government in the first instance, and if the civil government is remiss, incumbens 1 Page 234, seqq.

2 For the intolerant character of the early English reformers, see Article II1, on Church History p. 57 seqq. where we give Macaulay's portrait of Cranmer.

on the people, to extirp..te completely the opinions and worship of the Catholics, and even to massacre the Catholics, man, woman, and child. ... If the government had followed the directions of the clergy, the Catholics would have been extirpated by the sword. . . . In the reigns of Charles the Second, and of his brother, a Protestant prelacy, in alliance with a Protestant administration, outstript the wishes of those arbitrary monarchs in the persecution of their Protestant countrymen. It is needless to weary ourselves or our readers with disgusting details, which the curious in martyrology may find in various publications. Everybody knows that the martyrdoms were both numerous and cruel, but perhaps the comparative mildness of the Catholic Church of Scotland, is not so generally known. Knox has investigated the matter with commendable diligence, but has not been able to muster more than eighteen martyrs who perished by the hand of the executioner, from the year 1500, when heresy first began, till 1559, when the Catholics had no longer the power to persecute. It is, indeed, a horrid list; but far short of the numbers, who, during the twenty-two years immediately previous to the Revolution, were capitally executed in Scotland for the wicked error' of separation from the worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church.”1

While we heartily unite with every lover of freedom in condemning all acts of persecution for conscience sake which have ever been perpetrated, no matter what the alleged motive or pretext, candor will compel even our adversaries to acknowledge, that in the persecution of Catholics by Protestants, there were aggravating circumstances, which were not found in the persecution of the latter by the former. Protestant persecution was purely aggressive; Catholic persecution was mainly defensive: the former sought to rob Catholics of all they held most dear; the latter was directed chiefly towards maintaining the most undoubted and most sacred rights. Catholics were in possession; Protestants aimed at violently ousting them from their firesides and their altars, and taking their place. Catholics sought to preserve the ancient faith and worship, hallowed and rendered dear by a thousand glorious memories; Protestants sought to substitute for it, frequently by violence, new doctrines and new forms, about which they were not themselves agreed, and which they claimed the right of changing as often as they might judge proper.

Waiving all this, however, let us strike evenly the balance of persecu tion in the past; burying whatever is unpleasant in generous oblivion, and forgiving as we hope to be forgiven. Now, how stands the account of religious persecution at the present day? Is all the intolerance on the side of Catholics? Or have not Protestants at least their own full share of the guilt, which they are so free to charge exclusively on others? Let

us see.

The impartial comparison between Catholic and Protestant countries, on

1 Edinburgh Review, Article VIII., entitled " Toleration of the Reformers," No. 53.