exalted, and the faireft opportunities afforded them of fowing fedition, hatching plots and fecret confpiracies; they are at the fame time prohibited by the rules of their religion from difcovering any defigns or practices, however prejudicial to the fate or dangerous to princes*, which may have been imparted to them in this channel, ་ The from the neceffity of doing good works: Bellarmine faith, that " papal pardons " ན་ *The feal of confeffion is fo close and inviolable that none may prefume to open it except perhaps the Pope by the plentitude of his power, whereby he may discover what is tranfacted or in agitation in the utmost ends of the earth, and may render himself master of the most important fecrets of princes and courts. But what paffes in confeffion may be revealed to none other under any pretence whatever let it be a purpose of murder or affaffination, or treafon. ❝ There can be no evil fo great," fays Eudemon Johannes," as to war"rant the betraying of confeffion for the fake of avoiding or preventing it." It must be remembered, fays Talet, that the obligation of the feal is fuch, "that on no account whatever, not even for faving a perfon's own life, nor yet for the prefervation of the whole commonwealth, can a confeffor reveal "the fin of his penitent."-Yea Binet roundly afferts, "that it were better "all kings were flain, than that one confeffion fhould be revealed, because "confeffion is by divine law, but the power of princes by human law." So ་་ likewife The Popish religion farther endangers the interefts of morality and civil fociety by establishing it as a maxim, that a blind attachment and obedience to the Romish church, and unbounded zeal for its faith, conftitute the first, the highest and almost the only duty of a good Catholic *, to which likewife Emmanuel Sa and Suarez. And the practices of Romanifts have in this respect been agreeable to their principles. When the gun-powder treafon was forming in England they lavished dispensations and abfolutions upon the confpirators to encourage and confirm them in their treafon; and made their facrament of confeffion to be a lock and key to let in and keep out whom they pleased.-Garnet the provincial of the Jefuits, acknowledged at his trial, that Greenwell had informed him of all the particulars of the plot, but that it was under the feal of confeffion, and therefore he could not reveal it.-Joanville, who attempted the life of William Prince of Orange, was confeffed by a Jacobin friar, who fo far from difclofing or discountenancing his infernal purpose, ftrongly fortified him in it, per uading him that he should go invisible, for which end he gave him fome characters in paper, frogs bones, and other magical charms: after which he accompanied the villain to the prince's court, and at the foot of the ftair gave him his bleffing. In the time of the league in France rebellion was nourished and propagated under the fame mafk; and the zealous Catholics went the length of denying absolution to all who refused to take arms against their fovereign. The canons and chapters of Rheims fet forth a mandate through the whole diocefe, forbidding all curates and vicars under the pain of excommunication and fufpenfion to admit to abfolution, or to the facrament of the altar those who would not oblige themselves by oath to renounce the service of the king, and fign the league. Cotton the Jefuit, confeffor, to Henry the Great, was interrogated one day by the king what he thought of the maxim attributed to his order, that when any one had devised the death of a king, he to whom it might be revealed in confeffion, ought to keep the fecret inviolably; he answered that it was a good and Christian doctrine. The king then asked him what he would do, if one fhould difcover to him a confpiracy against his perfon, if he could not prevail upon the guilty perfon to defift from it by his counfels; he replied, "that he would "place his own body between the king and the blow, and fave him at the expence of his life." What a pity that the fawning Jefuit, was not at hand, and as good as his word, when Ravaillac gave the mortal fab!, Eud. Fo. in Anticott. cap. 13. Tolet de inftr. facerd. l. iii. ch. 16. Emman. Sa Aph. Suar. de panit. difp. xxxiii. § 1. Einet ap. Caufab. in epift. ad Eud. Jo. Memor. to Prot. p. 49. Cla. Martyr. Hift. de l' edit de Nantes tome ii. p. 11, et 230. *Bernard, in one of his epiftles to Pope Innocent, writes, that it was the common complaint that juftice was perished in the church, and that the power of Bishops was become contemptible, and that they were unable to punish offenders or correct disorders," because offenders," faith he, " appeal to you " and gree which all others must be fubordinate, and give place: thefe are fufficient to compenfate for the want of every good quality, to atone for every bad, without which the highest deof human excellence is accounted as nothing. These alone can conduct a perfon by the short and fureft road to honour, and in fpite of ignorance, folly, injuftice, deceit, lies, perjury, cruelty, and murder, will infallibly inrol his name among Rome's faints, heroes, or martyrs. The number of holidays, injoined by the laws of that religion, have alfo a moft baneful influence. The church of Rome hath confecrated fuch a variety of thefe, that a devout obferver of them will scarcely find time for any thing. elfe. What with fafts and feftivals together, fixed or moveable, more folemn and lefs folemn, double, femidouble or fimple, " and to the Roman court, and what the bishops determine with juftice you “cancel and repeal, and what they forbid you determine and appoint; and if "there be men either of the laity, eiergy, or religious, who are more wicked " and profligate than other men, they run to the court of Rome, and they have "fanctuary and protection; and, having fuch defenders, they return and in"fult over thofe who pretend to correct them."" I have always been fur"prized," fays Bayle," at the ftrange difference made between errors and "vices, and to fee the spirit of the Catholic religion much more contrary to "the opinions which agree not with her decifions, qu'à la vie dereglée, than "to a wicked life. No difficulty is made to inter in the churches a man kill“ed in a duel, notoriously guilty of a thousand debaucheries. If a great lord " ftealing by night into the house of another great lord, pour coucher avec fa femme, be killed by the domeftics, he will nevertheless make his appearance "in a fuperb chapel, honoured with an epitaph. But fhould a worthy divine, "diftinguished by his good actions, have had the misfortune to refuse confeffion "in his last fick nefs, he would be a man regarded with horror, and would be "carried forth to the highways or ditches after his death. Should a man con"fefs that he did not believe that it was lawful to invoke the faints, he would run a greater hazard of being difmiffed without abfolution, than if he had "confeffed murder, theft, or adultery. In Spain, where an infinity of immo'ral and fcandalous propofitions may be vented with impunity, should one af"fert, that the body of St. James was not in Galicia, that the virgin is not the queen of the world, and that she was not carried to heaven body and soul, he “would be dragged that inftant to the prisons of the holy office, from whence “he would never depart." Bern. Ep. 178. Penfeés diverfes fur la Comate, tem? ii. § 199. fcarce fcarce one day is left free from the beginning of the year to the end of it, wherein a man may labour and do all his worké as if mankind were formed to live, like the chamelion, upon air, or were to be fed miraculously, by the favour of thefe tutelar faints and angels, to whom fo many prayers are offered up, and fo many vigils, feafts, and revels, kept; as if they had nothing elfe to do but read or hear legends, run about in proceffions after images, and roar, caper, and get drunk in honour of an idol. Besides the fuperftition and idolatry inseparable from the observation of these days, and the hurt they do to public and private families by marring industry, rendering perfons liftlefs to the ordinary bufinefs of life, by increasing idleness and its attendant, poverty, -they also relax and corrupt the manners of the people, and habituate them to nothing but diffipation and criminal licence; as may be clearly difcerned in every Catholic country, where these festivals are fo devoutly obferved. Never were greater disorders and extravagances feen in the Lupercalia, or feasts of Flora, among the Bacchanals or Corybantes, than are still practifed upon the great Romish festi vals, if we except only a certain facred rite, a very edifying operation performed by the priests of Cybile, which would be no less needful and becoming to be inflicted upon the priests and shaved votaries of the virgin, feeing they cautiously, decline performing it voluntarily upon themselves when they take their vows. During Carnival time, all perfons abandon themselves to pleafure and diverfions; nothing is to be heard but mufic and mirth, vociferated oaths and blafphemies; nothing to be feen but farces, comedies, mafques, harlequin dances, gaming, fighting, riot, and lewdnefs. The religious in their cloifters feel the facred fury, and participate in the common merriment. Convents, as well as streets and private houfes, are converted into theatres: núns appear in fantastic dreffes, and monks ftroll about in the character of buffoons and fcaramouches; bufinefs is at a • Lettres Juives, let. 65. I ftand, fland, the hop and work-houfe deferted, public offices Thut up, courts of judicature fufpended; and all virtue, fobriety, and common fenfe banished. No wonder the foberer Turks, when refiding in Europe, and beholding the behaviour of the inhabitants at thofe times, while ftrangers to their language and religion, have been obliged to afcribe thefe effects to a kind of periodical madnefs, wherewith they believed Chriftians to be every year feized, of which they are cured again by putting fome afhes upon their heads; which is done with like devotion on Ember week, when the fad and füllen fit regularly begins to fucceed the merry, and the patient, kept under ecclefiaftical regimen, must relinquish deadly roaft-beef and mutton, and content himself with cod and delicious turbot, unless the fpiritual phyfician and caterer, who can change the effential properties of things, be pleafed otherwife to allow t. Bufbequius. Miffon, voyage, &c. Indeed "The institution of Lent was founded upon our Saviour's fast of forty days in the wilderness; as if weak impotent mortals, could imitate the omni"potent Son of God in works done by divine power only! They might as well pretend to walk upon the fea once a-year, or to raise the dead at all times: befides, our Saviour performed this faft but once, and his apostles never, as "far as we know. Once a twelvemonth you must keep Lent, is not a gospel precept. The Popish priests know well, that it is entirely impoffible that all "men fhould comply with this their difcipline of hunger; and perhaps that " very impoffibility is their best reafon for maintaining it. It is certain that "from hence they draw vast gain, by hiring out dispensations for eating on the "days of fafting; and the lucre which they make by breaking the canon, is an "unanswerable argument for defending it. No man is denied the privilege of "breaking Lent, who can pay for breaking it. He who cannot fast at all, may, for a competent fee, eat fish, which is a more luxurious diet than flesh; " and he who cannot faft upon fish, may, for a more competent fee, faft upon a bellyful of roast beef, which, though a chafter fort of food than fish, is "more strictly forbidden by that church.-Indeed, fuch are the vaft fees arifing to the Popish church from licences for a liberty to eat when it is a duty to "faft, that the whole inftitution of fafting there, feems only a religious rogue 66 ry, defigned for starving the people, to feed the priests.-Even the Proteftant "priests, long fince the Reformation, have known how to make the right ufe "of this power. I myself have feen several formal difpenfations, figned by Archbishop Shelton, under the archiepifcopal feal, to licence the eating of |