which that Church may well feel to be pre-eminently dangerous. Not only is an account of a Protestant Synod proscribed ; but the Histories of the Council of Trent by two Roman Catholics, Fra. Paolo, and Dupin 3, and an account of, I believe, the latest synod in the Church of Rome, that of Pistoia under Scipio Ricci, its Bishop, who wished to reform its abuses, are alike condemned. Even the very epitaph of Fra. Paolo, whether copied in MS. or in print, is prohibited ; and so is a justification of him printed 150 years after his death. Any thing relating to John

1

5

4

Synod of Dort. Decr. 22 Octobris, 1619, et 16 Martii, 1621. Ind. p. 95, and p. 160. See, again, Halesius, Historia Concilii Dordraceni. Decr. 11 Sept. 1750. Ind. p. 137.

2 FRA. PAOLO. Decr. 22. Novemb. 1619. Ind. p. 293. Courayer's translation is condemned, Brevi Clement XII. 26 Januarii, 1740. Ind. p. 79.

3 DUPIN. Histoire du Concile de Trente. Decr. 4 Decemb. 1725. Ind. p. 97.

• Atti e Decreti del Concilio Diocesane di Pistoia del anno 1786. In Pistoia par atto Bracali Stampatore Vescovile. Bulla: "auctorem Fidei" SS. D.N. Pii Papæ Sexti. 28 Augusti, 1794. Ind. p. 19. See also Decr. 10 Julii, 1797. Ind. p. 10. et Decr. 30 Sept. 1817. Ind. p. 267; and Decr. 31 Martii, 1788. Ind. p. 73.

5

Epitaphium factum sepulchro Fr. Pauli Servitæ, incipiens "Paulus Venetus Servitarum Ordinis Theologus, ita prudens, integer, sapiens," &c. Tam impressum quam manuscriptum. Decr. 3 Julii, 1623. Ind. p. 104.

Nave Giusto. Fra Paolo Sarpi Justificato. Decr. 11 Martii, 1754. Ind. p. 252. See also another work on the same subject by Griselini. Decr. 1 Febr. 1762. Ind. p. 133. See again

Huss and Jerome of Prague is forbidden'. All Jansenists are of course given up; but even a Jesuit, one of the most learned of his order, is not spared when he attempts to relate the history of a conclave 9.

There is one inference from these prohibitions which I think is peculiarly worthy of the recollection of the House. The Church of Rome, which, with an eye so microscopic and a hand so firm, and a voice so peremptory, has discovered, seized, and prohibited so much, has thereby virtually sanctioned what she has not condemned, in respect at any rate to the works of her own Communion published under her own immediate domination. The writings, therefore, even of individuals, when so published in Roman Catholic countries, and above all in the Papal States, become the standard of the Papal doctrine they are no longer private effusions, for which the authors only, and not the Papal See, ought to be held responsible; they are, and will remain, authentic expositions of the claims and principles of the Church of Rome, until that Church, which has hitherto thought nothing either too minute for her jealousy, or too vast for her grasp, shall formally de

Justification de Fra-Paolo Sarpi Paris, 1811. Decr. 22 Dec. 1817. Index, p. 161. See again, Romano Damiano Apologia. Ind. p. 271.

11 Cl. Ind. Trid.

2 PAPEBROCHIUS (Daniel.) Conatus Chronico-Historicus ad Catalogum Romanorum Pontificum. Pars I. et II. Non permittitur nisi expunctis Historiis Conclavium pro Electione Romanorum Pontificum. Decr. 22 Decemb. 1700, et 13 Junii, 1757. Ind. p. 232.

nounce them. It would be unjust to apply this principle to the publications of a free State and a free Church like our own; and to take the doctrines of our own Establishment from any other standard than its own authorised formularies: but, surely, it is not inconsistent with fair argument, more particularly in respect to the imperial claims of the Church of Rome, to maintain, that, whilst having the like jurisdiction over those who extend and those who narrow her powers, she has condemned every work in defence of the liberties of the Gallican Church', she must, by parity of reason and necessary consequence, be held to sanction and uphold all the works in support of her own ultramontane principles: I in

'It would be quite superfluous to quote proofs of the hostility of the See of Rome to the liberties of the Gallican Church: but it appears that the Church in Austria also had claimed something like freedom; and the Pope, therefore, condemned the Austrian advocate in every version, and edition, of his work. Enchiridion Juris Ecclesiastici Austriaci edidit idiomate Germanico, dein Latinitate donavit, multisque additamentis locupletavit Georgius Rechberger I. B. Cancellarius Episcopalis Licensis. Omnes Editiones et Versiones, Tom. i. ii. Decr. 17 Januar. 1820. Index. Paris Edit. p. 109. It is curious, indeed, that almost all the works quoted by the Committee of the House of Commons (1816) to prove the independence de jure et de facto of different continental Churches as against the See of Rome, are denounced by successive Popes as destitute of all authority. See. App. p. 158-9.

"This is not left to a mere silent inference: the faculty of Divinity censures a work: the Pope condemns that censure: is it not an almost necessary consequence that he must be held to approve the original work? See "Censura sacræ Facultatis Theologa Parisiensis in librum cui titulus, La Defense de l'Autorité de N. S. P. le Pape, de nos seigneurs les Cardinaux,

deed would hold that in all other matters the Church of Rome is as much bound by the Council of Lateran as by the Council of Trent; that a claim to depose kings, promulgated by one Pope and one Council, and not renounced and reprobated by a subsequent Pope and a subsequent Council, is, in the history of an infallible Church, a claim which may sleep but is not dead, and which the blast of war might any day rouse again. But upon this subject I will not here enter: it is enough for me in passing to allude to it and to add, that the Church of Rome, which in its vigilance for the truth prohibits

les Archevêques, et Evêques, par Jacques de Vernant."-1665. (Index. p. 59.) Among the works condemned by the last Pope is the following (Index, p. 209.) Della monarchia universale de Papi. From its motto "Respondit Jesus; regnum meum non est de hoc mundo," it is sufficiently clear why it has been placed in the Index. "It appears to me" (says the Rev. Mortimer O'Sullivan) " a very remarkable fact, that the books which directly deny the Pope's Supremacy, are, some of them, (when I say some, I am to observe that my means of obtaining knowledge are very limited, and perhaps other persons who have more opportunities of consulting books, can say a great many) are expressly pronounced to be heretical by this congregation of the Index; and that the works of Bellarmine, the works of Suarez, and the works of other Jesuits, who in direct terms state that the Pope has a deposing power, are not so forbidden or condemned. And, when I find one class of books condemned by the congregation of the Index, and the other class not condemned, the partiality appears to me to furnish a strong presumption, that the tendency of the Church of Rome is at least to encourage the one belief, and to discountenance the other."-Evidence of the Rev. M. O'Sullivan before the Committee of the House of Commons. 1825. p. 472.-See App. p. 171.

the circulation of one Speech on Ecclesiastical affairs in the French Chamber of Peers, must be held to approve the answers to it: that the Church which condemns Lanjuinais', must admit and adopt as her defenders, the Count de Maitre, the Abbé de la Mennais, and the wildest apostolics who in any country may start forth in her cause.

I return, however, to my argument; to shew, how uniformly the Church of Rome prohibits, wherever she has power, the exercise of any freedom of religious thought and inquiry in literature; and this sometimes even in the case of writers whom generally she claims, though often without much reason, as her own. Thus the Homilies of St. Chrysostom, and the Epistles of St. Ignatius, and all the works of Erasmus in which he treats of religion, are equally with the works of Protestants proscribed. It is not surprising, then, that the Alciphron of Berkley, and the Phileleutherus Lip

1

Appreciation du projet de Loi relatif aux Trois Concordats, par I. Lanjuinais (Cte. de Lanjuinais, Pair de France.) Paris, 1817. Decr. 22 Martii, 1819. Ind. p. 15.

The Abbé de

Pradt's Work on the Four Concordats was condemned, 27 Nov. 1820. Index. Paris Edit. p. 77.

24

L'Esprit de Protestantisme (is, says the Abbé de la Mennais,) incompatible avec l'existence de la veritable royaute."

De la religion. 1825, p. 21.

3 Ed. Paris, 1682, Decr. 27 Maii, 1687.

4

Epistolæ Genuinæ S. Ignatii Martyris.

Decr. 2 Julii, 1686. Ind. p. 329.

Ind. p. 146.

Edit. Isa. Vossii.

• Erasmi Opera in quibus de Religione tractat, donec expurgentur. Ind. Trid. Ind. p. 105.

6 Decr. 22 Maii, 1745. Ind. p. 6.