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be subject to other penalties according to the nature of the offence, after the pleasure of the said bishop. The regular clergy may not read or buy them without the permission of their prelates."

Now observe, the law of the Church of Rome as laid down there is, that you may have the Scriptures, but upon certain declared conditions.

Now these conditions are, the authority of the confessor, of the bishop, the ordinary, or the inquisitor. But if any Roman Catholic has got at the Bible without such permission, he has a smuggled article, and is liable to all the consequences of having contraband goods-he has no more right to the possession of the Bible in the vulgar tongue, without actual permission, than any one in England has to have eau de Cologne, or any other perfume or spirit introduced from France, that has not paid the duty. You therefore clearly understand now, that Roman Catholics are not forbidden to have the Bible; they are allowed to have the Bible, and the Bible in the vulgar tongue, but on the conditions and with the limitations to which I have now referred. But after all, this is the fact, that the Roman Catholic Church has waged, I may call it, an exterminating war, notwithstanding all this, against the perusal of the Scriptures by the people in the tongue they can understand, and there is no device, however ingenious, to which she has not had recourse in order to neutralize all the benefit that may be derived from the perusal of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, and to render the grant of that inestimable blessing a bane rather than a blessing to those who have it.

I have here a letter issued by Pope Gregory XVI. just before he died. Many of you must have heard of that document. I quoted it myself at a Meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society, in which the Pope, addressing all patriarchs, primates, bishops and archbishops, in the year 1844, blames the Bible Society for making the Bible intelligible to all sorts of persons, and especially to old men and loquacious women.

Such then, is the statement of the late Pope in 1844, and he then refers

to Rule IV. of the Index of the Council of Trent to prove the correctness of his judgment; after that he refers to the Bull Unigenitus and other Bulls.

Now this Bull Unigenitus, let me explain to you, was a document issued by Clement XI., and circulated over the whole Church, and at this moment binding and obligatory law in every portion of the Romish Church: it was issued by Clement XI. in 1713. The origin of the Bull was this. (I may here mention the nature of its binding: the Pope issues a Bull, and if that Bull be not protested against by the bishops of the country in which it is read, for ten or twelve years, it becomes the binding and permanent law of the Church.) This Bull, then, was issued upwards of a century ago, and is quoted by Gregory XVI. in the year 1844, as part of the canon law and of the Church Universal. I am not quoting it because it is a Bull, but because Gregory XVI., in the year 1844 refers to the Bull Unigenitus, quotes it as the decision of the Church Universal, and sustains his own verdict by extracts from it.

Now the origin of the Bull was this. The celebrated Quesnel, and his associate in sentiment and sympathy, Pascal, were found Christians in the midst of the Church of Rome,— Protestants while subscribing to the doctrines of the Papal Church. They were afterwards expelled from that Church as Jansenists. Quesnel drew up some commentaries on the New Testament Scriptures, and in these commentaries Quesnel made the following beautiful remarks upon Acts viii. 28:"The reading of the Holy Scriptures is for all men." "The obscurity of the holy Word of God is no reason why the laity should dispense themselves from reading it." These are propositions to which we should all heartily subscribe. They seem to us pious, holy, transparent, and it is wondrous that any one possessed of the Bible, and assuming the name of Christian, should think otherwise.

But what did Pope Clement XI. say to these propositions? After quoting 101 similar to those we have now read in your hearing, so beautiful

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and so scriptural that all in this assembly would heartily subscribe to them; Clement XI. condemns them as false, captious, ill-sounding, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, pernicious, rash, injurious to the Church and its usages," and so on. The Bull concludes with invoking the aid of the secular arm for their suppression.

I will show the perfect harmony that subsists between the Popes on this matter (for I admit that harmony exists among them in evil, while there is discord in much that is true). Pope Pius IX.-the present Pope-a very clever Pope, a very reforming Pope, politically Liberal-religiously is as bigoted and superstitious as Hildebrand himself. Some have a notion that Popery only plays into the hands of the despot; but it has the power to be very liberal. It can play the Radical reformer and the Latitudinarian-it exists in the Congress of America, and it exists in the cabinet of kings. It can arrange the ballot box one day, and it can give support to despotic power the next; it can blow the trumpet of sedition on the one day, and minister to the support of tottering thrones the next. It can adapt itself to any circumstances, drink of any spring, breathe in any atmosphere, live under any régime, but only to promote the great objects, to consummate the purposes, and to administer to the support of the most dreadful system of tyranny.

Pope Gregory the XVI., and after him the present Pope,-who is a very liberal Pope, who will vote for vote by ballot, and for democracy or Republicanism,—what he wants is the supremacy of his own Church,-he has not abandoned any one of the principles of that Church, he is not ashamed to avow those principles. Roman Catholics are never ashamed of their creed, like some Protestants. Pope Pius IX. makes war on Bible Societies just the same as his predecessors had done: he says, "Such is the object of these most crafty Bible Societies." Now, I wonder, what is the craft of Bible Societies ?"these crafty Bible Societies, which reviving an old device of the heretics, do not cease to put forth an immense num

ber of the copies of the books of the sacred Scriptures, printed in various vulgar tongues, and often filled with false and perverse interpretations, contrary to the rules of the Holy Church, which they continually circulate at an immense expense."

Now here the Pope is not very infallible as to that point. He has forgotten his infallibility. If he had looked into the rules of the Bible Society, or opened any one of its Bibles, and had not fallen into the very popular practice of condemning what he had never read, he would never have said, "that their Bibles are filled with false and perverse interpretations." For it is one of our very first rules, that we should circulate the Scriptures without note or comment. He then goes on, 66 contrary to the rules of the Holy Church, they continually circulate at an immense expense." It is true, and I rejoice at it, that immense expense has been incurred in circulating the Scriptures, and that expense is the free-will offering of the people, not got by the fear of purgatory or collected as the price of pardon; "and force upon all sorts of persons, even of the rudest sort, with a view that, rejecting the Divine tradition, the teaching of the fathers, and the authority of the Church, they should all interpret for themselves, and by their own private judgment, the Word of God, and so perverting the sense, be led into grievous errors--which Societies Gregory XVI., in whose place (though most unworthy) we are now placed, emulating the example of his predecessors, most vehemently condemned in his apostolic letters, and we desire to join as eagerly in their reprobation."

Now here, you perceive, is a continuous chain of proscriptions and anathemas against the reading of God's most blessed word. The Council of Toulouse, in the thirteenth century (1229), but not recognised as a General Council, though a Council of some authority, forbad the reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue altogether. The Council of Trent declared that the Scriptures were to be read in the vulgar tongue, only by the express permission of the inquisi

tor or bishop, which permission must be had in writing.

The Bull Unigenitus, issued by Clement XI. in 1713, expressly condemns the reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue altogether. Pope Gregory XVI., in 1844, quotes the Bull Unigenitus, gives it the imprimatur and the sanction of his own Pontifical authority, and declares it to be binding on the Church Universal; and Pope Pius IX., the present liberal Pope, who closes his letter with prayer to the Virgin Mary, confirms this system of proscription against the Word of God, and quotes his predecessor, Gregory XVI., and previous Bulls and constitutions, as bearing him out in his proscription and anathema of the perusal of the Bible in the vulgar tongue. Am I not, then, warranted by these repeated declarations, declarations that no Roman Catholic can protest against, without, so far at least, becoming a Protestant, and so far ceasing to be a Roman Catholic am I not warranted in drawing this inference, that that Church does indeed prohibit the Scriptures wholly from the people, or so fetters and hampers them with restrictions, that practically and substantially it amounts to the prohibition of them, as to any useful purpose?

And to show now, still further, that the Church of Rome does so treat the Scriptures, suppose I were to grant that all the Bulls and constitutions that I have quoted are utterly null and void, and of no authority whatever, there will be the Creed, to which every convert to the Roman Church must subscribe, and I will show you from it that Roman Catholics may not have the Bible unfettered.

Now when any one intends to join the Roman Catholic Church, the first thing he does on joining that Church is to repeat the creed of Pius IV.-a creed drawn up in 1564, and therefore the document of a Pope at the head of a General Council, and therefore the most authoritative document that can be adduced in the whole compass of Roman Catholic theology.

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joined the Church of Rome, had to kneel down or stand before the bishop and repeat first the Nicene creed, and then the creed of Pius IV.

Let me just tell you what I discovered in these "Developments." I read that book through from beginning to end. I watched the whole line of reasoning, if such it may be called, that pervades it. It is a book full of splendour and of eloquence, indicating deep, profound and laborious research, but full of flaws and illogical deductions, so gross and palpable that a child might almost detect them. The principle of the work is this, that the apostles, in the first century, did not reveal a complete system of religion, but planted only the seeds or germs of truth: that these seeds or germs were, if I may use the expression, nursed by the Church from century to century, till they grew up and expanded into the full blossom of Catholic truth in the celebrated Council of Trent in 1564. Mr. Newman holds then that the New Testament does not contain a full system of religion, but only the seeds or germs of a system progressively expanded. But his great defect is, that when he comes to relate the history of this supposed expansion, you find that he has mistaken expansion by the laws and processes of nature for accretion by accidental circumstances. For instance, if I plant an acorn in the ground, that acorn germinates and buds, grows into a shoot, then into a sapling, then into a little oak, and, ultimately, into the lofty and towering monarch of the forest, whose roots are entwined about the rocks and whose top reaches to heaven. This is the expansion which Mr. Newman thinks the germ of truth had undergone, but I conceive from reading the history and comparing it with Mr. Newman's conclusions, that the Council of Trent is but the huge snowball which began a little snowball, on the top of Bennevis or Ben-lomond, and rolled down the sides of the mountain, gathering in its course, wood, hay, and stubble. Now that was the real history, if you will just put away Mr. Newman's fallacy of the germ and the acorn, and substitute the snowball, starting

at the top of Ben-lomond, and rolling down until it become a mass of all sorts of materials, then you have got the history of development as it ought to have been illustrated and explained in the course of that eloquent and elaborate book.

I say, when Mr. Newman joined the Church of Rome, he professed Pope Pius the Fourth's Creed. This creed, let me explain to you, is composed of two parts, - the Nicene Creed divided into twelve Articles, that is, that beautiful and scriptural creed which is read every morning in the service of the Anglican Church, and to which any would subscribe. After the convert has repeated this portion of the creed, he then repeats thirteen Articles, which are called Pope Pius the Fourth's Creed, the First and Second Articles of which are,

"I. I most firmly admit and embrace apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions, and all other constitutions and observances of the same Church.

"II. I also admit the sacred Scriptures according to the sense which holy mother Church has held and does hold, to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures, nor will I ever take or interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers."

Then just permit me to explain to you the peculiar character of the Church of Rome. There are persons who say, the Church of Rome holds all the truths that you hold. Not a doubt of it. There is not a truth in the Church of England that the Church of Rome does not, more or less, hold and avow. She holds the doctrine of the Trinity; she holds the doctrine of the atonement; she holds the doctrine of justification by faith (with works added to it); she holds the judgment to come, the eternity of future rewards and punishments, the Personality and Deity of the Holy Spirit,-there is not one of these truths which she does not hold; but there is her character, she holds the truth only for the purpose of immediately destroying it. She unites the Nicene Creed -God's truth-to Pius the Fourth's

Creed, or man's lie. Infidelity is Satan acting the part of the honest devil. Popery is Satan acting like an angel of light. Infidelity is Satan in his own guise. Popery is Satan in the guise of a Christian. Infidelity is Cæsar's brass stamped with Cæsar's superscription. Popery is the brass of Cæsar stamped with the image and the superscription of Jesus. Infidelity is honest,-it acts, at least, the honest part. Popery is dishonest, and destroys by deceiving under the pretension and assumption of the Gospel of Jesus.

The Second Creed runs the sacred

Now then, to show you that the Church of Rome in fact prohibits the reading of the Scriptures, I have supposed all the Bulls and constitutions which I have referred to, to go for nothing. There are Roman Catholics who say, And I have the Bible, and I have a right to read it, and no one has a right to take it away from me. Suppose all that to be perfectly true, I allege that the Roman Catholic is so hampered and restricted in the interpretation of the Bible, that it is of no use to him at all. Article of Pius IV.th's thus: "I admit also Scriptures according to the sense which Holy Mother Church has held and does hold them, to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures; nor will I ever take or interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers." This is the vow of every Roman Catholic. Just see what a course of deception it is. First the Roman Catholic says, "I admit the Holy Scriptures according to the sense which Holy Mother Church has held and does hold them." Now the person reading or repeating this, says, Well, I must not put the meaning upon a single text, until I have ascertained the construction put on it by Holy Mother Church." Now, if you say you are not to put the meaning on one text till you have got at the construction, how is the Roman Catholic to ascertain that the Church of Rome is the Holy Mother Church? He must be perplexed to discover who is the Church. He must take it for granted at the very commence

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ment, that the Church of Rome is the true Church before he can proceed one single step. After the Roman Catholic has found out the Church, and suppose he has found it to be the Church of Rome, he then vows that he will take the Scriptures only in the sense which that Church has held and does hold. Would not every intelligent mind in this assembly instantly suppose that there must be some great standard commentary on the Bible issued by the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, and that to this standard commentary I must refer for the sense which Holy Mother Church holds and has held ? You would suppose so: but you will be very much surprised when I tell you that there is no such commentary in existence. There is not a commentary on a single chapter of the Bible which the Roman Catholic Church, as a Church, will pronounce to be an infallible exposition. Is not this, then, to give a promise to the ear and break it to the hope? But many Roman Catholics will, perhaps, reply, But we have the living Church-the living tribunal, from which you may get the "sense which Holy Mother Church holds and has held." Just let us look at it. First, then, I open my Bible and read that beautiful passage, like one of the tunes and harmonies of heaven, breaking upon the ear of earth like a fragment of heaven itself planted in the bosom of this lower world—the eighth chapter of Romans. I am smitten with its beauty-charmed with its hopesanxious to ascertain its meaning. I desire to treat this chapter as I should treat the whole Bible-namely, to interpret it according to the sense which " Holy Mother Church" has and does hold. I am told to go to the living Church for that sense. I go first of all to the nearest Roman Catholic priest. I say to him, I am anxious to get the sense which the Church holds on this most beautiful and interesting chapter, that I may enjoy all its good. The priest says, I will give you my exposition, that I have no doubt will be a very just one; but if you want any infallible exposition the exposition which the Church holds and has held-I am

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only a fallible priest, and can of course only give you a fallible exposition. I go to the bishop. The bishop says, I am delighted to see you; I will give you my views of the chapter with the greatest pleasure, but you cannot be unaware that I am only an individual bishop. I am fallible just as the priest is; if you don't like the priestly exposition I will give you an episcopal one. If this does not suit me, I will go to the Pope-the very liberal Pope Pius IX., who is always glad to see Englishmen, and who is going to allow English clergymen who go over to his Church to retain their wives. I am introduced to Pope Pius, who is ever happy to see the natives of Great Britain and Ireland, and I tell him all my difficulties. I say, Please your Holiness," (for I will approach him with all possible courtesy, and confer upon him all the titles which belong to him as a sovereign,) "I have gone to the priest and to the bishop, and all in quest of the sense which the Church of which you are the illustrious chief Pontiff holds and has held on the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans." The Pope says, with all the courtesy of which he is capable, "I am delighted to see you in quest of truth. You look the picture of candour itself, and I will treat you as your character seems to be. If you will listen to me I will give you the fullest exposition of the sense that I hold upon the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and, if you please, you may take it down. And now, so long as you keep within the boundaries of Italy, my interpretation will be regarded as absolutely infallible. But the moment you bend your course homewards, and go into France or England, or even into Ireland, it ceases to be infallible, and is regarded as the fallible exposition of a fallible doctor of the Church." I turn round startled and amazed, as I recollect what I have sworn. I say, "Can this be truth? I thought truth was like the source from which it sprung, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. If a comment be infallible amid the sunny plains of Italy, surely it must still be infallible in the colder clime of my own country!

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