No. CLXXIV.]

F it were possible to fear that the bright lights of improvement could be extinguished by the folly and the fraud of man; if it were possible to believe that there is something at work stronger than the spirit of truth and liberty, the present state of France would excite all the apprehensions and all the alarms of the wise and the good. The great principles of freedom, gathered together out of the mighty wrecks of the Revolution, seemed to have been fully recognized and established on a lasting foundation; but in a moment of false and fatal security they have been undermined, and civil and religious tyranny are already shouting over their ruins.

The reforming spirit had spread through a great part of Christendom, before it was openly proclaimed and honoured by those illustrious advocates whose names are connected with its most splendid early triumphs. In the love of learning, which began to be cultivated in Europe, the Reformation found its mightiest ally. Leo the Xth. scarcely suspected that he was the great patron of those heresies against which he fulminated his loudest anathemas; but we may safely assert, that for one heretic alarmed into recantation by the terrors of his bulls, he made a hundred by his patronage of literature: and while the progress

It is not a part of my plan to go into the historical question, in order to shew how much the interests of pure Christianity have been advanced by the spread of literature; but there are a number of little facts scattered up and down the records of past time on which I should willingly linger: for instance, I often think with peculiar pleasure on the tradition of the Italians, that St. Paul was an enthusiastic admirer of Virgil. Down to the fifteenth century the custom was preserved at Mantua of singing a hymn in honour of their great bard on St. Paul's day. They pretend that the apostle wept over the tomb of the poet,

VOL. XV.

2 U

Vol. XV.]

of civilization on the one hand broke the fetters of spiritual bondage and led on to Protestantism and reform, these in their turn, and as a natural re-action, destroyed the old and barbarous notions which held man in political servitude and slavery, and taught him to stand erect in the energy and strength of civil liberty.

*

These two positions, that the triumphs of Protestanism have been and are greatly dependent on the extension of knowledge and civilization, and that its progress must promote the cause of genuine freedom, are singularly corroborated by the present situation of France. Since the period when the orthodox and infallible arguments of "sword and gun" had established the principles of "legitimacy," and a hundred and fifty thousand armed men had philosophically and satisfactorily demonstrated that nations are in reality nothing better than the appendages of royalty, the mere trappings of a coronation robe, or the animals which adorn a magnificent national estate, grazing there by the sufferance of the kingly possessor, something, as giving

and exclaimed, "O that I could have

converted thee!"

Ad Maronis mausoleum
Ductus, fudit super eum
Piærorum lacrymæ.
Quem te, inquit, reddidissem
Si te vivum invenissem
Poetarum maxime !

Of late several attempts have been made, in violation of the charter and in contempt of public opinion, to interfere with the rights of conscience in France. The lower tribunals in particular have shewn a great disposition to be intolerant. For instance, they fined the Protestant inhabitants of Nailloux more than 800 francs for refusing to hang out tapestry during the procession of the host. This sentence was confirmed on a second appeal, but ultimately reversed by the Court of Cassation. [Mon. Repos. XIII. 780.]

strength and splendor to the great proprietor, but nothing individually or collectively apart from him; the Ultras, who knew full well that they could not connect themselves with a liberal and enlightened age, and that their strength could only be founded on man's intellectual weakness, have been constantly plotting the revival of those blessed days, when priests and kings were "all in all." They have had some triumphs; but to judge from the false and foolish hopes they are indulging, they are little read in the history of man. They cannot turn backwards the tide of improvement its stream is strong, though perhaps not now impetuous. They see but a short distance into futurity; they are even scattering about with the disease the germ of a remedy, since in the beautiful arrangements of Providence, infatuated folly becomes its own corrective. Let it be again repeated that the great allies of Protestantism are literature and liberty. The first edition of the New Testament had scarcely been issued from the press, ere the Reformation burst upon the world. Is it the remembrance of this interesting fact which has caused the pertinacious opposition of the Church of Rome to the circulation of the Scriptures?

The Ultras in France, contemptible for their number, would be contemptible on every account, but for the patronage of the reigning family and for the concentration of their strength in the two Chambers, which give them an influence in the general system of government, to which the weakness of their party in the mass of the nation would never have dared to aspire; but what they want in strength, what they want in argument, they make up in activity and intrigue. Their missionaries, the Jannisaries of their faction, are spread over the surface of France, scattering the poison of hatred and bigotry, fanning and fostering whatever is left of the ashes of old intolerance, and kindling where they existed not the flames of discord and persecuThe mummery of Popery is again introduced; virgins and saints are re-enshrined in their former niches; immense crucifixes are erected in the squares and the highways. All these are comparatively innocent; but their crusades against literature, their vehe

tion.

ment opposition to the Lancasterian Schools and the Bible Societies, their admiration of the Inquisition, and their apologies for St. Bartholomew's-day and the murderers at Nismes, (which the writer has heard from their lips,) these are fearful and threatening symptoms on which pity would be wasted, and to which charity will not apply.

Will it be believed that one of their Journals (Journal des Débats) has ventured thus to address the Protestants: "Hommes imprudens! ne craignez-vous pas qu'il ne vous prenne envie de nous compter?" That Llorente, the admirable author of the History of the Inquisition, has been deprived of the privilege of saying mass, because of his enmity to the holy office and the Concordat? That the Ultras objected (but not successfully) to the establishment of a chemical chair at Marseilles, under the pretence that "chemistry had caused the Revolution"? But those who love to mark the course of the philanthropist and the patriot, and who have seen how the estimable Grégoire was excluded from the Chamber of Deputies, the assassin-like malignity with which he was attacked by those who seemed emulating that famous mob of old, who cried, " Crucify him, crucify him," will wonder at nothing, for the Ultras seem capable of every thing. †

* And when (mistaken men) you have counted the Protestants, and find you have thirty to one against them, will you have courage and Catholicism to attack and to extirpate them?

+ Grégoire, in a letter to the writer,

thus expresses himself. “J'espère vous dant vous me trouvez vivant, car la furie revoir quand vous reviendrez, si cependes gens à qui je n'ai jamais fait aucun mal, mais qui sont stimulés et largement payés, est poussée à tel excès qu'après avoir tenté d'assassiner ma réputation il ne leur reste que de m' assassiner physiquement, et je ne doute pas de leur bonne volonté à cet égard. Cependant la Providence à la quelle je me suis toujours la virulence des outrages et l'evidence confié, m'accorde des compensations; car des calomnies ont tellement revolté les hommes justes et sensés qu'elles ont multiplié le nombre et la ferveur de mes amis et plus que jamais depuis trois mois j'ai été comblé de temoignages d'estime de la part des nationaux et des étrangers. Parmi les graces dont Dieu m'a favorisé

France.

M. de la Mennais is, perhaps, the individual whom the Ultras would, by common consent, fix on to represent them. He has some talents and learning. He is a writer in the Conservateur, an admirer of Chateaubriand, a friend of Marcellus. He speaks out honestly too. He vehemently protests against the circulation of the Bible, and insists that the Bible Societies are great propagators of crime; the very names of liberty" and "reformation" he pursues with violent, implacable hatred. He boasts that his church is supremely intolerant (souverainement intolérante) towards error, and asserts that men must be forced into the safe and orthodox path. He is irreconcileably offended with the progress of civilization, and (as the persecutors of old) calls Christian charity, indifference-curses and anathemas, a proper zeal for religion.

On one occasion, however, he lets the secret escape him. Luther taught a worse heresy than any of his religious errors: "He taught that sove

j'apprécie infiniment celle d'avoir på quelquefois faire du bien à ceux qui m'avaient persécuté et outragé. Je desire qu'il m'en fournisse de nouveau et fréquemment les occasions.

* M. Vincent is Editor of the Protestant Magazine, called Mélanges de Religion, which is published monthly at Nismes.

+ Observations sur l'Unité Religieuse en Réponse au Livre de M. de la Mennais, &c. A Nismes, 8vo. To be had of Treuttel and Wurtz, Soho Square, London.

reignty resides in the people." Unpardonable blasphemy! whose conscquences have brought even kings to a scaffold.*

A charge most industriously and tants is, that they have little respect repeatedly levelled against the Protesfor the holy Fathers of the church+ This, next to accusing them of a want of reverence for the Sacred would be difficult to prove against Writings themselves, which indeed it the Catholics mainly rely. But what them, is one of the arguments on which do they mean by these charges? Are mit the authority of the Fathers? they themselves always willing to adWill they pardon Tertullian for asserting again and again the materiality of when neither sin nor the Son existed? the soul, and that there was a time (Fuit tempus quum delictum et filius non fuerunt. Advers. Hermos. C. iii.) or Irenæus, who says Jesus Christ knew not the day of judgment at all, neither as God nor man? § Will they give with Lactantius; || own that the history up the personality of the Holy Ghost of the creation is but an allegory with Origen and St. Augustin, ** and use the language of the latter and of stantiation? ++ Will they allow Justin Tertullian with respect to TransubMartyr to give equal authority to the

"Luther et ses disciples persuadèrent à une partie de l'Europe que la souveraineté réside dans le peuple; et bientôt le sang des rois ruisselle sur les échafauds."-P. 49.

It is to be hoped the Abbé allows his beard to grow, in order to escape Tertullian's severity on those who employ a razor "as lying against their own faces, and impiously attempting to improve the works of the Creator."-De Spectaculis, cap. xxiii.

Many old Catholic writers, Cajetan and Andrada for instance, protest against the authority of the Fathers being put in the balance against Scripture testimony.

§ L. ii. cap. xlviii. see also Tert. de Resurr. cap. xxii. p. 338, (edit. 1664,) and Origen. Hom. in Matt. fol. 64. Hieron, Ep. lxv.

Philoc. p. 12.

** De Gen. contra Manich. II. 2. + Non enim Dominus dubitavit dicere, Hoc est corpus meum, cùm signum daret corporis sui. Contra Adim. cap. xii. Tertullian explains this text, figurâ corporis mei.

Sybil oracles as to the Old Testament; permit Clement of Alexandria to assert that an amiable Heathen may be saved as well as a Christian believer, and to attack the horrible doctrine of eternal torments? Will they give the sacrament to children with St. Cyprian, and deny original sin with St. Chrysostom, or say, as Origen* does, that the very devils may be saved at last? Alas! there is more heresy among the Fathers than they are aware of. †

But this is little; for such heresies there are other authorities: faith has yet a much more difficult task. We must believe the story of the Phoenix resuscitated from its ashes, for the fact is recorded by Clement of Rome, of Alexandria, § by Origen || and St. Ambrose; the latter of whom says, Hoc relatione crebra et scripturarum auctoritate agnosci. (De Fide Resurr.) On the credit of Justin Martyr ** we must admit that Ptolemy Philadelphus sent deputies to Herod to borrow the sacred books, though the former lived nearly two centuries before the latter was born; on the assurance of St. Epiphany ++ we must assert that the Indus and the Ganges are the same river, that they water Ethiopia and empty themselves westwards of Cadiz. St. Basil may tell us (and of course we must take the holy Father's word) that the Danube has its source in the Pyrenees, that it runs through France, and crosses the Po before it rolls into the Euxine Sea. St. Chrysostom §§ may assure us (on the best informa

* Aug. de Civit. Dei, L. xxi. cap. vii.

The early Fathers, without exception, I imagine, taught and believed that the day of judgment and final consummation of all things would take place in their time. Those who wish to see their glosses on Scripture exposed, may consult Whitby's Dissertatio de S. Scripturarum Interpretatione secundum Patrum Commentarios: or Daille on the use of the Fathers, a work of uncommon merit. As to the Millenium, the gross and seusual notions of the Fathers form an admirable counterpart to the pictures of a Mahommedan paradise.

Ad Corin. p. 34. § Stromat. p. 5. De Prin. II.

De Pœnit. II.

** Apol. p. 2.

++ In Anchor. p. 6. ‡‡ Hom. III.

§§ Hom. XIV.

tion no doubt) that the four walls which surround heaven have their foundations laid in some remote part of the earth. Lactantius* and St. Augustin+ may be allowed to abuse those who asserted the existence of the antipodes. St. Hilary may call the birds of the air spiritual beings, and the flowers of the field angels of light. It is all canonical, the holy Fathers have said it. §

Christian charity would induce us to hope that the Abbé in this discussion has really carried into effect some of the good maxims of the holy fathers; as, for instance, that tricks and stratagems may be employed in controversy against heretics, if more honourable weapons fail. St. Jerome insists that a man may argue against his own conscience, if such an argument will help him against his adversary. St. Athanasius observes this style of reasoning in St. Dionysius, the Areopagite; and St. Basil justifies the doctrine, drawing a fine distinction between dogmaticè disserere and disputare; -nice casuists these!

Instit. III.

+ De Civit. Dei, XVI. ↑ Hilar. Pictav. Op. p. 633, 4th Ed. 1693.

§ Some of the glosses of the Fathers on Scripture are almost too barefaced for credibility. St. Hilary says the words of Jesus, Matt. xvi. 23, ought to be read, "Get thee behind me ;-Satan, thou art an offence to me;" the former part of the sentence only being addressed to Peter, the latter to the devil. St. Ambrose insists that Peter told no lie when he said "I know not the man," our Lord being not a man but a God; and both Clement and Eusebius assert that the Peter whom Paul withstood at Antioch was not Peter the Apostle, but somebody else. Surely if men are perplexed by a hard argument, they would do better to follow Anthony's precept, as given by Cicero, and pass it over in silence.

|| See more of this in Daille, pp. 159— 161. I believe it is L. Paramus, in his book on the Holy Inquisition, who gives a curious example of a pious fraud in connexion with a theological dispute. St. Ephrem, the Syrian, was to have a public controversy with a heretic. Finding he was absent, the Saint went to his house, and having induced the woman who lived there to lend him his opponent's Bible, he glued all the leaves together and returned it. In the height of the disputation, St. Ephrem dared the heretic to

M. de la Mennais, in defiance of all history and all experience, charges Protestantism with having demoralized and depraved society. He calls the French Revolution the triumph and the consecration of the principles of Protestantism, and asserts that it destroyed, in consequence, all the virtues of the French character. It has never occurred to the Abbé, perchance, and yet it is a truth confirmed by all authentic testimony, that the most decided friends and forwarders of revolutions are even such as he-in a word, the absurd advocates of kingly and priestly despotism. The deduction which he makes seems singularly remote from his premises, and instead of reminding him that the origin of the Revolution, the up-springing of an universal nation to liberty, was welcomed by the best and the wisest of every class of Christians, (and surely Protestants, as Protestants, had nothing to do with its crimes,) we would have him look back to the reign, the golden reign, of Louis the XIVth, the great, the favourite Prince of the Bourbon dynasty. Was there ever a more striking example of open, abandoned, universal profligacy? Yet he was Catholic enough in all conscience: he revoked the Edict of Nantes, and instead of banishing, would, no doubt, have rejoiced to be able to burn the Protestants.

Happily, Protestantism has nothing to fear from that tendency to improvement which is led on in the train of years. Whatever lessens the power

produce proofs from the Sacred Volume. The latter anticipated a glorious triumph,

but he could not open the book. The hearers cried out, "A miracle, a miracle!" and the heretic, having no notion of the trick that had been played him, was completely confounded, and gave himself up for convinced.

This is no new charge. Pallavicini said, "the Protestants could not shew one man illustrious for piety, and few for learning;" but the time seemed gone by for such accusations.

+ Some of those writers who do most honour to the Catholics are honest enough to own, that its advocates have often disgraced themselves and their cause by the precepts they have taught and the examples they have given. John Louis Vives says, "They have not only marred and smothered all other arts, but divinity

of ignorance and despotism, is its friend; whatever strengthens these is its enemy. Its hopes, its expectations are forwards and far stretching. In the developement of mind, in the progress of science, it finds its tried and surest auxiliaries. It heaves no sigh of regret over departed darkness, it sheds no tear of disappointment upon opening day. Liberty and light are its companions; they are never far asunder: truth and reason sing its triumphs over intolerance and barbarism.

It is well for us that we live in a day when a weak argument cannot always be enforced with a strong hand, or we might be reasonably alarmed at some of the propositions which are urged against us all. De la Mennais insists that the principle of Protestantism is that of Deism, of Atheism, all alike presumptuous pride and daring rebellion; and if there should be any mistake in this or any other severe judgment, and an innocent man should get persecuted and punished, n'importe; for, as the Abbé says, L'autorité peut tout, soit pour le bien, soit pour le mal:" of course Roman Catholic authority!

The Abbé goes farther. He asserts that a new sort of persecution is now directed against the Catholics. Will it be credited that he insists the Catholics are persecuted, because they are not allowed to persecute? They conscientiously believe they ought to put down heresy, and yet they are compelled to see its triumphant progress. Lest this monstrous distortion of argument should appear misrepresentation, take his own words: "Les gouvernements favorisent l'indifference," (he always uses this expression when "de tout he means to say toleration,) leur pouvoir; et, chose inouïe, s'efforcent d'entrainer le Christianisme dans ce systême; nouveau genre de persecution, dont nous sommes loin de connâitre tous les effets."*

too, which they have profaned with their curiosity, their vanity, their folly and rashness:" and in Julius the Third's time, the Catholic Bononian Council seems to have gone almost as far as the Reformers in recognizing the errors of the Popish Church.

Instead of remarking on these absurdities, it will be wise, perhaps, to