weight of his arguments in admitting the Romish claims. That no system of acting or reasoning could have been more futile, or more unworthy the mind of such a man as Mr. Pitt, must on calm reflection be admitted by his most ardent supporters. The fatuity of a British Cabinet Minister, of the Protestant faith, asking the heads of Popish Universities, whether their system was one of hypocrisy and fraud, and admitting that he believed them when they said "it is not"-does indeed appear beyond the comprehension of Protestants to credit. In fact he must have known well the answers were not bona fide. With the history of the persecution of Protestants in France-and the perfidy at all times of the Romanists, priests and laymen, to their Protestant brethren in the various cities and towns of that nation, he was well acquainted. He could not but have remembered that before the expulsion of Protestants from that country up to the period at which Louis XIV. sanctioned the horrible massacre of those who made a profession of the Protestant faith, that country was prosperous and triumphant-one of the greatest nations on the face of the globe that in consequence of the industry, morality, and perseverence of the Protestants, commerce and manufactures flourished; but from the time the Protestants were expelled, France continued year after year to retrograde, until it reached its lowest point at the period of the Revolution, when the best blood of the Roman Catholic aristocracy of France deluged the very spots on which the blood of the Protestant martyrs had been shed. He knew well, that on the other hand, from the moment the Protestant exiles of France set foot on British ground, bringing with them their industrious habits and various manufactures, Great Britain prospered and rose in wealth and power; the same thing took place in Holland, into which a considerable number of the Protestant exiles retired. He knew well from the page of history, that whatever Romanists might at any time profess, they never had kept faith with heretics; but, whenever they had the power mercilessly butchered them in cold blood-and yet with all these reminiscences staring him in the face, Mr. Pitt, in order to enable him to carry out some political measures which at that time he considered necessary-pretended to believe the answers returned from the universities-acceded to the request of the Romish Prelates; and thus established an institution calculated to perpetuate and propagate Popery with all its evils throughout Great Britain and Ireland. That he was at the time fully aware that two of the universities referred to had on former occasions given opinions directly the reverse of what they then stated there can scarcely be a doubt. On the issuing of the Bull by Pope Clement VIII. against Queen Elizabeth, the Universities of Salamanca and Valladolid both decreed, "That since the Earl of Tyrone had undertaken the war against the Queen for the sake of religion, and with the Pope's approbation, it was as meritorious to aid him against the heretics, as to fight against the Turks, and that it was a mortal sin to aid the heretics in any way against him, and that those who did so could neither have absolution nor salvation." Also, that the University of Alcala, on the ground that faith was not to be kept with heretics, and that it was lawful to extirpate them, defended the conduct of the Council of Constance, in consigning John Huss to the flames, although he had at the time of his arrest the letter of the Emperor Sigismund, granting him safe conduct to the place to which he was travelling. The reason assigned being, that inasmuch as the civil power was subordinate to the church, the letter of the Emperor was null and void. But Mr. Pitt need not have looked to foreign countries to be informed what the tenets of the Romish religion really are. In the Declaration and Protest of the Roman Catholics of England in 1789, the doctrine of their church is thus stated "If by the words interfering and opposing, is understood interfering by the spiritual right of preaching and teaching, it is unquestionably true, that the Church has a right to interfere with the civil independence, the civil sovereignty, the civil constitution, and the civil Government of this realm." The Rev. Charles Plowden, a Romish priest, residing at Bristol, in a Tract published in London in 1790, "On the Modern Infallibility of the Pope," stated distinctly that "the General Councils are infallible, and that all Roman Catholics must implicitly adhere to them"-while Mr. Francis Plow den, the Roman Catholic historian, and one of their staunchest advocates, in his "Case Stated," published in London, in the year 1791, reiterated the assertion, affirming such to be actually the fact; the entire being authenticated by Dr. Milner, the Romish Vicar Apostolic, in p. 97 of his Ecclesiastical Democracy, also published in London, in 1793; in this he tells his readers that the "Fourth Lateran Council is called the Great Council." In addition to all these authorities, absolutely contradicting the negative of the Professors of the six Universities, to which Mr. Pitt wrote for information, as to the real tenets of the Church of Rome, there was also the celebrated pastoral of the Rev. Dr. Troy, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, published in 1793, in which the same views are distinctly set forth, and mention made in particular of the Fourth Lateran Council as being infallible; in this document he also stated distinctly, that "the religious opinions of Catholics being unchangeable, are applicable at all times:" and he further told the Irish people that they "were implicitly bound to adhere to the decrees of the General Councils of their church,”* these decrees being held by the most eminent divines as of equal authority with the Holy Scriptures; the following are his words "The Church is infallible in her doctrinal decisions and canons on all points of faith and morals; and all Catholics are obliged to adhere implicitly to all decrees and canons which the Church, assembled in General Council declares, and decrees, and which the Pope has affirmed." • Pastoral Address to the People of Ireland, p, 31. C And again he tells his readers, "It is the fundamental article of faith, that the Pope or Bishop of Rome, is successor to St. Peter, Prince of Apostles, and that in the See, he enjoys by divine right, a spiritual and ecclesiastical supremacy, not only of honor and rank, but of real jurisdiction and authority in the universal Church." "Roman Catholics," he goes on to say, "conceive this point as clearly established in the Scriptures, and by the constant tradition of of the Fathers in every age, as it is by the express decrees of the General Councils," Indeed nothing could be more strongly put than the cases given at the time by Romish writers in England and Ireland; they all agree in the opinion that "nothing but the authority that has enacted can annul❞ any of the decrees or canons, and that "that power never having annulled the decrees referred to, all Roman Catholics are obliged implicitly to adhere to them."* Mr. F. Plowden, to whom we have alluded, expressly averred, that "if any one asserts that the modern Catholics who are the The following extracts from a few of the decrees referred to will afford a fair idea of the general bearing of the entire, as regards heretics or Protestants; and which, if the Church of Rome should ever regain her power in these lands, would certainly be enforced. 66 Bishops are empowered to try and condemn Protestants in their respective dioceses; and after the sentence pronounced against them, the mayor, sheriffs, or other officers, who must be present at the execution, are required to take them into their custody, and burn them in some public place.' If, after the death of those who, having once abjured heresy, they shall be found to have relapsed, their bodies shall be dug up, and their bones burnt."† "The temporal lords shall, by the diocesan and inquisitors, be compelled by ecclesiastical censures to dig up the bodies of those who, having abjured heresy, shall have relapsed."+ "If any person whom the archbishop, bishops, and inquisitors, suspect to be guilty of Protestantism, will not undergo canonical purgation, Concil. Alb. Can. 27, page 728. |