sins,* or that they are applications of the super"fluous merits of Christ and the saints." The first of these assertions is contradictory to the Catholic creed; the second is an opinion which has been maintained by speculative and ingenious men; but it forms no part of the Catholic faith, and may, without danger of censure, be believed or disbelieved according to the judgment of each individual. Before I conclude this subject, I may be allowed to ask, how the clergyman will prove that the doctrine of the Catholic is more indulgent to the sinner than the doctrine of the Protestant church. According to the latter, as far as I can learn, all that is required for the remission of sin, is a hearty sorrow for the offence, and a fixed determination to amend. Now all this the popes require in their bulls, and besides this, confession and the performance of some good work. Our indulgences considered in this light, cannot be more subversive of morality than the practices of the established church. If the purity of our doctrine has sometimes been polluted by the vices of its teachers, it ought not to be matter of surprise. Avarice could infect one of the apostles of Jesus: can we wonder if, at different periods, it infected some of their successors? It could even creep into the church of England, a society small in comparison, and but recently established to put down the errors and corruptions of * When these expressions peccatorum indulgentia or remissio occurin grants of indulgences, they are perfectly understood by Catholics, though not in the sense of the Durham clergyman. As an indispensible condition, it is required that the sinner shall have previously performed whatever the Catholic Church considers necessary for the remission of sin; and then only she grants him a remission of the canonical penance, or temporal punishment, to which he ought to be subjected Hence it is evident that an indulgence cannot be a pardon for sin, since the sin is supposed to have been already pardoned. As to the ingenious comment on attrition in page 37, it is founded on a mistake. No Catholic divine ever taught that the sinner could be reconciled to God without a firm resolution of amendment; neither did the council assert that attrition sufficed, but that it disposed the sinner to obtain the remission of his offences. Sess. 14, c. 4, popery: can we wonder, if it has sometimes found its way into a body infinitely more numerous, and which has subsisted through a long succession of ages? Catholics have lamented these abuses as much as Protestants can do: and if my opponent will consult the acts of the councils during the two centuries preceding the reformation, he will find in them canons as severe and apposite, as any which, for a similar purpose, have been enacted by the present church of England. Should it then be asked, why these abuses were not abolished before the council of Trent, the clergyman cannot be at a loss for an answer. He must be well aware of the common defect of all religious establishments. "When abuses have once crept into them, " which will ever attend every government and every "institution administered by men, the want of that quick discernment of faults, which is oftener found "in enemies than in friends, prevents many disorders "from being rectified, many abuses from being re"formed, and many spirited, yet salutary, measures "from being carried into execution. This truth * See an elegant and instructive tract, An enquiry into the moral and political tendency of the religion called Roman Catholic, printed for Robinsons and Faulder, 1790, p. 27. As the Remarker is indebted to the Durham clergyman for an indulgence published by Gregory VIII., I hope he will accept in return one or two Protestant indulgences. The first was published by the pious Luther, and contains a perpetual indulgence for the commission of adultery in certain circumstances. That it may be concealed from the eye of the profane, I shall transcribe it in the original language. "Ut non est in meis viri"bus situm, ut vir non sim, tam non est etiam mei juris, ut absque mu"liere sim. Rursum ut in tua manu non est, ut femina non sis, sic nec "in te est, ut absque viro degas...... Tertia ratio divortii est, ubi alter "alteri se subduxerit, ut debitam benevolentiam persolvere nolit, aut "habitare cum eo renuerit.-Hic opportunum est, ut maritus dicat: Si “tu nolueris, altera volet: Si domina nolit, adveniat ancilla." Oper. Luth. Ed. Wirt. tom. v. fol. 119, 123. The second was an indulgence granted by Luther and seven other divines, to Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, to have two wives at the same time. For the edification of the public I shall extract a few passages, and translate them into English. The bull itself may be seen in the original Latin, in Bossuet's Variations, 1. vi. In his declaration to Luther and Melancthon, the Landgrave had informed them, that he had never loved his wife, that he had not been faithful to her more than three weeks, and that he could has been fully exemplified in the reformed church of England. On the celebration of the liturgy in an unknown tongue, the clergyman is content with referring his adversary to I Cor. xiv. which he considers a positive condemnation of the Catholic practice. I have read the whole chapter with great attention, and the consequence is a conviction in my mind, that our intellects have been cast in two very different moulds. Of that which he sees so clearly, I have been unable to discover the faintest trace. I do not observe that the apostle ever mentions the liturgy, or so much as refers to it all his animadversions seem to be directed against the vanity or insubordination of the converts, who were eager to display, in the assembly of the faithful, the graces which they had received, and, by their extemporary discourses, frequently disturbed the harmony of the service. Still the apostle indulges them in the use of unknown tongues, but under certain limitations, to prevent disedification and scandal; 66 66 not abandon the dissolute state of life in which he lived. For these reasons he begs a dispensation to have two wives. In their answer, after some preliminary observations, they proceed thus:-" But if your highness do not abstain from an impure life, because you say it is "impossible for you to do so, we should wish that your highness were "in a better state before God.....But if your highness be fully re"solved to take another wife, we judge that it ought to be done secretly, ،، as we have said above with respect to the dispensation; that is to say, "that none but the lady herself, and a few trusty persons obliged to secrecy under the seal of confession, kuow any thing of the matter. "Hence it will not be attended with any important contradiction or "scandal. For it is not unusual for princes to keep mistresses; and though the vulgar should be scandalized, the more prudent would "understand this moderate method of life, and would prefer it to adultery, or other brutal and foul actions. There is no need of being "much concerned for what men will say, provided all go right with ،، conscience. . . . . Your highness hath therefore not only the approhation of us all, in a case of necessity, but also the considerations which we ،، have made thereupon. . . . . We are most ready to serve your highness. "Dated at Wittemberg, the Wednesday after the feast of St. Nicho"las, 1539. 66 ،، MARTIN LUTHER, ، PHILIP MELANCTHON, “ MARTIN BUCER, “ ANTHONY CORVIN, ADAM, JOHN LENINGue, and I hope that those who so forcibly urge against Catholics the obligation of complying with the command of St. Paul, will not refuse to give us the example by following it themselves. We will suppose, for a moment, that my reverend adversary has assented to this proposition; then the service in his church will be arranged in the following very edifying manner. As soon as the clergyman shall have read the liturgy according to the book of common prayer, one of his parishioners (whether clerk or layman is no matter) will rise, and, in a most impressive manner, harangue the audience in some foreign language, perhaps in High Dutch. The moment he is silent, a second preacher will succeed in Arabic; and he will be followed by a third in Chinese. After the orators, the apostle commands the interpreter to explain; and the clergyman must take this difficult office on himself, unless he chance to be assisted by the learned Messrs. Faber and Granville Sharpe, the enlightened expositors of the book of Revelations. Prophesying will close the service; and every man who can persuade himself that he feels the impulse of the Holy Spirit, will claim a right to groan out the yearnings of his soul into the ears of his brethren. In this place, however, I am sorry to inform the ladies, that, though the female tongue appears to be far better adapted to the office of prophesying than that of the other sex, yet the apostle is positive in his prohibition. They must be content to sit in silence, and listen with deference to the lectures of the male prophets.* This is a picture of the system of divine service, which the imprudence of the converts compelled the apostle to sanction with his approbation. But it is evident that *If any speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two or at most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret. Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the others judge. If any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace. For ye may all prophesy one by one. Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak. 1 Cor. xiv. 27, 29, 30, 31, 34. both his approbation and censure were confined to a temporary object; and that, at the cessation of miraculous gifts, they became a dead letter, the mere testimony of disorders which once had existed, and were never likely to be revived. Sometimes, when I have amused myself with looking into the book of common prayer, I have found it difficult to persuade myself that I was not reading an unknown tongue. I will instance a passage or two for the instruction and edification of my readers. "Let them not see the sun. Or ever your pots be "made hot with thorns; so let indignation vex him "even as a thing that is raw.* Judah is my lawgiver. "Moab is my wash-pot. Over Edom will I cast my "shoe. Philistia, be thou glad of me. Though ye “have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the "wings of a dove; that is, covered with silver wings, “and her feathers like gold. And the hill of Basan, "so is God's hill; even an high hill, as the hill of "Basan. Why hop ye so high, ye high hills?" Nor is this unknown tongue confined to the book of common prayer: it is extended even to the book of homilies, that model of pastoral eloquence, which the church of England proposes to her clergy. What female of the present day could understand the following elegant apostrophe?" O thou woman, not a "christian, but worse than a panim, thou minister of "the devil, why pamperest thou that carrion flesh so 66 high, which sometimes doth stink on the earth as "thou goest? Howsoever thou perfumest thyself, thy "beastliness cannot be hidden, or overcome with thy "smells and savours: but, perchance, some dainty "dame will say, and answer me," &c. On the vulgate translation of the scriptures, the clergyman has been sparing of his comments: I shall beg leave to be more diffuse. It is a subject, respecting which much misrepresentation was formerly circulated, and which has been treated with no * 11th day, morning prayer. 13th day, morning prayer. + Same day, evening prayer. |