possible that any man of education could have believed them; while yet, we have no doubt, they are generally received as true by the Papists among whom they are circulated. No Protestant works of any popu larity could be mentioned, in which Popery is so grossly misrepresented as Protestantism is in the two we have named.

The common allegation, then, of Romanists, that Protestants misrepresent the Church of Rome, and ascribe to her doctrines which she has never sanctioned, is unfounded; while, like almost every other accusation which they adduce against us, it admits of being justly retorted upon themselves. The views given of the Church of Rome in Protestant works, and even in Exeter Hall speeches, which it is the fashion in some quarters to affect to despise, are, generally speaking, correct, and can be proved to be so by unanswerable evidence, while the common Popish accounts of Protestantism are utterly unworthy of credit.

In conducting this periodical, we shall take care to guard against all misrepresentation of Popery and Papists. We shall ascribe to the Church of Rome no doctrines or practices, which we are not prepared to prove that she has promulgated or sanctioned. We shall derive our accounts of the general sentiments and arguments of Papists from the works of their own approved authors. We cannot, indeed, trust implicitly to Popish writers giving an accurate view of the tenets of their own Church, for it has been no uncommon thing for them to deny, when it served any controversial purpose, doctrines, which, it could be proved, the Church of Rome had solemnly sanctioned. But there is a higher authority than that of individual authors in determining what doctrines and practices the Church of Rome is pledged to, viz., the decisions of the Church itself; and, keeping these before us, we shall give such representations of what Popery is, as Papists will not be able to convict of inaccuracy or unfairness.

"OUT OF THINE OWN MOUTH WILL I JUDGE THEE, THOU WICKED SERVANT."

POPERY and the Bible can never "walk together," because they are "not agreed." The signs of entire discrepancy between the two lie on every side, and the triumph of the one must be the total destruction of the other. Rome shews her instinctive consciousness of this. Witness her dread of a general diffusion and reading of the Scripture: "Since it is manifest by experience," she declares in the Council of Trent, "that if the Holy Bibles in the vulgar language are permitted to be read everywhere without discrimination, more harm than good arises, let the judgment of the Bishop or Inquisitor be abided by in this particular." "Whosoever shall presume to read these Bibles, or have them in possession, without such faculty, (a written permission from the Bishop or Inquisitor,) shall not be capable of receiving absolution of their sing unless they first give up their Bibles to the ordinary." This plainly proves that the Romish Church knows well that "her craft is in danger" if men "search the Scriptures ;" and no wonder, then, that she should be stimulated by the authority of her own solemn decree to engage strenuously in the conflict to which she is committed. Thus, in the early part of the present century, Pope Pius VII. issued two briefs to the members

of his Church in Poland and Russia, in which he denounces the Bible Society in the following terms :- "We have been truly shocked at this most crafty device, by which the very foundations of religion are undermined." To remedy" this pestilence... this defilement of the faith, most dangerous to souls... we again and again exhort you, that whatever you can achieve by power, provide by counsel, or effect by authority, you will daily execute with the utmost earnestness." Still more recently, Pope Leo XII., in his famous encyclical letter, follows in the same course of malignant opposition to the circulation of the Bible :— "You are aware, venerable brethren, that a certain Society, commonly called the Bible Society, strolls with effrontery through the world; which Society, contemning the Traditions of the Holy Fathers, and contrary to the well-known decree of the Council of Trent, labours with all its might, and by every means, to translate, or rather to pervert the Holy Bible into the vulgar language of every nation; from which proceeding it is greatly to be feared, that what is ascertained to have happened as to some passages may occur with regard to others, to wit, that by a perverse interpretation the Gospel of Christ be turned into a human Gospel, or what is still worse, into the Gospel of the Devil (!). . . We also, venerable brethren, in conformity with our apostolic duty, exhort you to turn away your flocks, by all means, from these poisonous pastures."

But Rome knows full well, that in spite of all her Decrees and Bulls she cannot keep the sword of the Spirit always in the scabbard, and therefore, lest its keen edge should do damage to herself, she plunges it into a corrosive mixture of her own. She introduces the Apocrypha into the Canon of the Old Testament, and dares to "add" her own Traditions, "relating as well to faith as to morals," to the New. And having done this, she thunders forth her decree ::- -"But if any one shall not receive, as sacred and canonical, those entire books, (the Apocryphal with the rest,) with all their parts, so as they are usually read in the Catholic Church, and contained in the ancient Vulgate edition, or shall knowingly and designedly contemn the aforesaid Traditions, let him be accursed. Let all men therefore understand . . . what testimonies and authorities this Synod chiefly intends to use for the confirmation of doctrines, and the establishment of morals in the Church.”—(Council of Trent.)

66

But even this tampering with the Word does not allay her wellgrounded fear of its power. She must needs "take from," as well as "add to" the Scripture. Thus, in Bellarmine's Catechism, authenticated by Papal Bulls, and in general use in the schools of the mystic Babylon," when the ten commandments are given, the sponge is freely applied to the second, and it vanishes; while to save appearances, the tenth is divided into two! And concentrating on one point her twofold crime of mutilation and addition, in this same catechism she strikes out with one hand the whole of the fourth commandment, and with the other fills up the dark corner she has made by the following miserable substitute of her own:- 66 Keep holy the Festivals."

Nor does Rome stop here. Once committed to her perilous contest with the Word of Truth she goes through with it. She cannot prevent some translations being made of the Bible, and therefore she superintends these, so as to make them give testimony in favour of her own corruptions. Thus the Douay Bible translates Daniel iv. 27,-" Redeem thou thy sins with alms," in order to support her favourite practice of "purchasing the gift of God with money." And in the Irish edition of

-- "This is

The

the same version, (1816-18,) Ephesians v. 32 is thus given :a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and in the Church." Apostle is speaking of marriage, and of course this translation is intended to sanction the notion of its sacramental character. A schoolboy could discover the utter absurdity of this glaringly false translation. But if in her versions she "handles the Word of God deceitfully," we need not wonder that as a commentator on Scripture, Rome should proceed in a shameless course of perverse interpretation. The Irish edition of the Douay version with the Rhemish notes, above referred to, printed under the patronage of the Irish Roman Catholic Bishops, and recognised by them as containing the Church's infallible doctrine, will furnish a fair sample of her teaching. Here is the note on Luke ix. 54:-" As the act of Elias was not reprehended, neither is the Church, nor are Christian princes, blamed by God, for putting heretics to death." Again, on John x. and Heb. v. 1, we have the following:- "All Protestant clergy are thieves, murderers, and ministers of the Devil." And on Rev. xvii. 6, we find this undeniable note of Antichrist :—“ When Rome puts heretics to death, and allows their punishment in other countries, their blood is not that of the saints, nor is it to be any more accounted of than that of thieves, man-killers, or other malefactors, for the shedding of which, by the order of justice, no commonwealth shall answer." And as a specimen of Rome's Scripture exposition in the gross, turn to the famous Bull, "Unam sanctam,” which concludes thus:— "We declare, define, and pronounce, that it is essential to the salvation of every human being, that he be subject to the Roman Pontiff;" to which was prefixed this guilty and arrogant assumption of Scriptural authority-"Whosoever obeys not, AS THE SCRIPTURE DECLARES, (!!) let him die the death." This is atrocious, but Roman Catholic commentaries are absurd as they are wicked. Some one has recently published a little book, which he calls "Popery in the Germ;" but whc would have thought of discovering Popery in Genesis? Nevertheless we have an infallible Pope, Innocent III., selecting Gen. i. 14, “God made two great lights," as the groundwork of the following remarks:- -"These words signify that God made two dignities, the pontifical and the regal

so that it may be understood that there is as much difference between Popes and kings, as between the sun and the moon." Another Pope, Boniface VIII., thus gravely parodies Jer. i. 10; Luke xxii. 38; Gen. i. 1:—" Here the Almighty is speaking of the Church, to create and to judge the temporal power; and, if the temporal power swerves from its duty, it shall be condemned by the spiritual: and since Peter said to Christ, 'Lord, here are two swords,' therefore the Pope has both the temporal and spiritual swords at his command: and since, also, Moses writes' In principio, God created the heavens and the earth,' not in principiis, therefore there is only one princedom, and that is the Papacy!" Why attempt to harmonize the first verse of the Bible with Geology after this! One other specimen of Romish exposition must suffice. When Wycliffe declared "Monks ought to earn their livelihood by the labour of their hands, and not by begging," the learned doctors of the Council of Constance condemned the proposition as rash and heretical. They vindicated the begging fraternity by quoting the words," Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap;" for, said they, "By the birds thus mentioned, were to be understood the saints who flew towards heaven !!"

Once more, if Rome deals treacherously with God's Word, she also deals blasphemously with it. Thus, in the sixth session of the famous fifth Lateran Council, over which Pope Leo X. presided, and when the Papacy was nearly at the height of its power and splendour, the Bishop of Modrusium exclaimed,-"Is this Jerusalem, that city of perfect beauty, the daughter of Zion, the spouse of Christ? But weep not,

daughter of Zion, for God hath raised up a Saviour for thee. The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath come and shall save thee from all thine enemies. On thee, O most blessed Leo, we have fixed our hopes as the promised Saviour."

And yet, amid all this falsehood, forgery, folly, and blasphemy, Rome sometimes hits upon the truth, "howbeit she meaneth not so.' Some of her medals furnish commentaries under her hand and seal, which cannot be explained away, and which utter home truths. Thus, on one side of the medal struck at Rome to commemorate the massacre of the French Protestants, we have Pope Gregory XIII., and on the other, a woman, representing the Church, with a cross in one hand, and a drawn sword in the other, and the slaughtered victims at her feet. There is no mistaking this stereotyped commentary on the words:-"I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints." On another medal, struck at Rome so recently as 1825, and of which a fac-simile is given below, we have Pope Leo XII. on one side, and on the other, a woman representing the Church, seated on a globe, with the motto "Sedet super universum," and stretching forth her hand with a cup, as in the act of delivering it to some one. Here is a picture to the life of the Apocalyptic woman, whom John saw "sitting on many waters . . . with a golden cup in her hand;" and "the waters . . . are peoples and multitudes, and nations and tongues." "This witness is true," even though it come from the mint of Papal Rome. By her own hand, in the plenitude of her pride, she has revealed the plenitude of her apostasy, as that power "by whose sorceries all nations were deceived, and in whom was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain on the earth."

Such has been for centuries the unwearied conflict which Popery has maintained with the Word of God. Such she continues still to maintain. She seeks now, as she has ever done, to conceal the Truth altogether in "the smoke out of the bottomless pit;" or, failing in this, at least to make the precepts of God void, and his laws inoperative, through her own "deceivableness of unrighteousness." But" strong is the Lord who judgeth her." The issue of the contest is not doubtful. He whom she defies, and whose Truth she corrupts, is preparing to vindicate the honour of His name; and Rome shall have her terrible retribution when she shall "be consumed by the Spirit of His mouth. and destroyed by the brightness of His coming."