bewitch women to follow them. He died in Had the writer stated Alexander the Sixth "Benedictus the Ninth was a conjuror; and with Laurence and Graccean, two cardinals, used to have been one of the greatest villains and to wander in the woods, to invoke the devils and most profligate men that ever existed, a no1045. Such was the piety of his time."-Wash- torious hypocrite, and a man of consumington Gazette, July 20. mate ability, who met a horrid fate, which he richly deserved, in all this we would have acquiesced. But the first charge made upon him we are not prepared to admit, "Was not Benedictus the Ninth a conjuror, who pretended to understand the magic art, and to bewitch women?"-Same paper, Aug. 20. such a crime, but because we find no testimony to support it. The history of Alexander's crimes would fill all the columns of our paper; but the crimes of ten or twelve Popes, selected from amongst 250, do not constitute the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. We shall conclude our present examination with Martin IV. "Martinus the Fourth, a Frenchman, kept the concubine of his predecessor, Nicholas; removed all the pictures of bears from the palace, lest his concubine should bring forth one. Died in 1285. O, Chastity !"—Washington Gazette, July 20. "Was not Martinus the Fourth also an adul terer, who kept the concubine of his predecessor, Nicholas; and had all the pictures of bears removed from the palace, lest she should bring forth one?"-Same paper, Aug. 20. This unfortunate young man was ex-not because we consider him incapable of tremely wicked. He was intruded by the factious laity, who at this time, as we have before observed, usurped by force what they could not obtain by the laws of God; and in their selections we find the dreadful consequences of their criminal aggressions. By force and violence, at a period of extreme youth, Theophilact, the nephew of Pope John XIX., was made his successor. Except from the writer in Washington, we know nothing of his progress in the art magic, of his having cardinals for the companions of his crimes, or of his bewitching women, or invoking devils. But history informs us that his crimes caused his ejection; and that by simony, John, Bishop of Sabinum, who took the name of Sylvester III., got into his place. Benedict's friends put him out by force; and soon afterwards the church was freed from them both, and We have ransacked the history of this Gregory VI. occupied their place. This Pope in every author, Catholic and Protesman was pious and well-disposed,-but tant, that lay within our reach; we have the dreadful state of Italy placed him un-read the history of every Pope of the same der the necessity of defending even the very churches with an army, and at the Council of Sutri he submitted the examination of his case to the synod; at their desire he resigned. Benedict and Sylvester were declared to have been always irregular intruders, and Clement II. was prevailed upon to assume the government of the church. Why, then, would the writer in Washington adduce the misconduct of a man who was condemned by both clergy and laity as a criminal, as the standard by which he would estimate the piety of the age which condemned him as impious? Is this candour? Is this religion? In the character of Alexander VI. we thought, at least, we should be able to agree with the man who signed himself AUDITOR: · Alexander the Sixth was incestuous with his own daughter. He died in 1503, by poison, which was given to him by mistake, instead of some of the cardinals whom he had invited to an entertainment. Monstrous!"-Washington Gazette, July 20. Did not Alexander the Sixth commit incest with his own daughter? This monstrous villain designed to poison several cardinals whom he invited to an entertainment; but the poison, as in the case of Hamlet, was given by mistake to himself."-Same paper, Aug. 20. name, and of several other Popes, under the impression that so gross a charge could not be made by the most impudent defamer, without some semblance of foundation in fact; but we were disappointed. The predecessor of Martin is accurately designated, and the charge inculpates them both. We can only say, that never have we found more exact concurrent testimony of writers of different religions and interests, than in the attestation that those two calumniated Popes, Nicholas III. and Martin IV.. were men of unblemished morality, and especially remarkable for their chaste and modest demeanour. What, then, could have tempted the writer in Washington to make so false a charge upon both? Martin interfered, perhaps, too much in temporal concerns; but there was much excuse for his interference. The next charge brought forward by [The Writer in Washington] is that of persecution. "Pelagius the First, who died in 559, ordained that schismatics and heretics should be punished with temporal death. Yet the Scriptures say, judge no man," &c. "Martinus the Fifth condemned Wickliff, and burned John Huss and Jerome of Prague, his followers. Died in 1431. The mercy and justice of the church!" "Gregorius the Thirteenth, a Bononian, altered the calendar. He contrived the massacre of the Protestants at Paris. Died 1585." "Gregorius the Fifteenth, a Bononian, instigated the French against Protestants, sainted Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Inquisition and the Jesuits. Most pious indeed."-Washington City Gazette, July 20. "Did not Gregorius the Thirteenth, who altered the calendar, contrive the massacre of the Protestants at Paris? And did not Gregorius the Fifteenth, the patron of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the society of the Jesuits, introduce the bloody Inquisition, wherever he had sufficient influence ?"-Same paper, Aug. 20. monstration of the truth from its nature. They believe that corn seed will produce new corn, though they have no demonstration of the truth from its nature; and thus they mistake the evidence of the fact for the evidence of the nature. The Catholic offers them evidence of the fact that God revealed the doctrines of his church, and they require of the Catholic evidence of the truth of the doctrines from their nature, or they will not receive the evidence of the revelation. To argue with persons whose conduct is thus inconsistent and irrational, is folly. Gregory XV. came to the papal chair in 1621, and St. Ignatius died in 1566, which was full fifty-five years before. He could not, therefore, have been the patron of Ignatius. John Huss was burned on the 6th of July, 1415. Jerome of Prague, suffered on the 2d of June, 1415. Martin V. was elected Pope on the 11th of November, 1417. They could not therefore have suf fered under the pontificate of Martin V. We shall presently find that no Pope burned either of them. Before we proceed to examine the charges themselves, it will not be amiss to remark upon some palpable inaccuracies, which exhibit how little this writer knows of the facts which he comments upon and misrepresents. In the first place, St. Ignatius of Loyola was not born until the year 1491, and the origin of the Inquisition is carried at least back to the year 1184, when in a provincial council of Verona it was decreed, that bishops ought to make diligent Inquisi- Now let us examine the facts of the alletion after heretics in their diocesses, and gation. Pelagius is represented as ordering having detected them, cause them to be to have heretics and schismatics put to delivered up to the civil magistrate, to be death. "Ordained that heretics and schistreated according to law. The first person matics should be punished with temporal who held the office of Inquisitor-General, death." The very assertion is ridiculous, was Peter of Castelnau, a papal legate, in for the Pope had then no temporal power, the year 1204. Rainer and Guy, two Cister- and could make no such regulation or orditian monks, were commissioned in 1198, in nance. The fact is, that having been conLanguedoc, to inquire for the Albigenses, sulted whether it was lawful to suppress by and denounce them to the secular power. the secular power, those persons who would The first court of Inquisition was formed in neither be convinced by reasoning, nor subToulouse in 1229, and Pope Gregory IX. in mit to authority, he answered that it was 1233 nominated two Dominican friars the lawful for the secular power to do so if it inquisitors. The writer, therefore, was thought proper. And we have no hesitation guilty of a gross injustice, in charging St. in saying, that if persons under the pretext Ignatius with a supposed crime, committed of religion should disturb the public peace, at least 155 years before he was born. So as many of the heretics and schismatics of much for historical accuracy. However, that period did, it would not only be lawful, we will indeed be miserably disappointed but it would be the duty of the temporal if we look for anything like knowledge of power to suppress their tumults, to preserve history amongst the swarms of self-sufficient, the peace. The Catholic Church teaches ignorant assailants of the Roman Catholic no more than this: and the principles of the religion. All their objections are derived American constitutions and of civilized sofrom two sources-the misrepresentations of ciety, teach the same doctrine. If the their predecessors, and their own empty decree of Pelagius be construed thus, which pride. They charge the Catholic religion with all the crimes which bad men have ever committed, and with several crimes which were never committed. They shut their eyes to their own crimes, and they reject the doctrines of the Catholic religion, because there is no demonstration of their truth from nature; and still they believe that grass grows, and they can discover no de is to us evidently its meaning, the doctrine is that of reason and not of persecution; but if it be construed to mean that persons may be put to death under the pretext of their being heretics, or because they are heretics or schismatics, or infidels, it is a doctrine which the Catholic Church does not require her children to believe, but which many of those who are most attached 1 to her faith, amongst whom we are proud to rank ourselves, believe to be contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, and of humanity, and unreasonable, and impious. We know of no power given by God to governments in church or state to inflict bodily pain upon man for errors in faith; and hence we condemn all those acts of persecution and cruelty which have been committed upon our fellow-beings, whether by kings, emperors, popes, bishops, priests, sheriffs, reformers, warriors, or any others, as much as the man in Washington does, and still we are most tenacious Roman Catholics; and we believe each and every doctrine taught by the Roman Catholic Church, and reject every doctrine contrary to her principles; and we believe that no man ought to be persecuted for error in faith, and we reject the doctrine of persecution; and we do not know a persecuting tenet in the Roman Catholic code, though there have been persecutors in the church. As for the miserably defective application of the text, Judge not, &c., we too know that the Scripture tells us not to pass judgment upon the private failings of our brethren; and we also know that the same Scripture informs us that, speaking of doctrine in the first council held in Jerusalem, the phrase used by the Apostles was, I judge. And if the writer himself went to law for his property, with an unjust aggressor, he would condemn as inefficient or unprincipled the judge, who, under the affectation of complying with the Redeemer's injunction, would not enter judgment. Neither would he be safe in his person or property, were there not judges who would condemn men in judgment. We feel ashamed at being obliged to expose such a silly misapplication of Scripture. His next case we have already answered. Martin V. did not burn John Huss nor Jerome of Prague. It is true they were burned, but not by the Pope, nor by the church, but by the laws of the empire, and not by any ecclesiastical law. more convinced by our inquiry, that the few writers who attempted to charge Gregory with any share in the transaction were slanderers. In the first place, Gregory was raised to the pontificate only on the 13th of May, 1572, and the massacre commenced on the 23d of August. Thus it would be extraor dinary, if entering upon the discharge of very complicated duties, his first would be to plot this horrid butchery, when he had much to look to at home. Secondly. Many others tell us, that, although the catastrophe did not take place until 1572, that it was planned at a meeting held at Blois in 1570, just after the marriage of Charles IX.; of course, this was nearly two years before Gregory's acces sion to the pontificate. Thirdly. The character of Gregory is that of a good, tender-hearted, pious man; and surely a person possessed of those qualities would be incapable of being a party to such a crime. Fourthly. We have not a particle of evidence to connect him with it; and upon the principle that a man is to be believed innocent until he shall have been proved guilty, we ought to acquit him. Fifthly. When we look to the unhappy state of France, and the dispositions of the queen mother and the Duke of Guise, we shall find they wanted no incitement. The only circumstance which has been adduced to inculpate the Pope, is, that after the massacre he had public processions in Rome, for the purpose of thanksgiving. No doubt but if Gregory then viewed the transaction as we do now, he would deserve equal obloquy for this unbecoming exhibition, as if he had been a plotter or an executioner of the carnage. But was he then aware of the facts? By no means. The perpetrators of the massacre did not publish their crime to the world in all its horrors. They sought to justify their conduct. France had previously been embittered and desolated by a civil war of the worst description, her Gregory XIII. did not contrive the murder finest provinces laid waste, numbers of her of the Protestants at Paris. The story of clergy butchered, her churches plundered the unprincipled massacre at St. Bartholo- and destroyed, an attempt made to seize mew's, in 1572, is a long and a melancholy upon her monarch, and England busily enhistory. Much has been written to ex-gaged in exciting the Calvinists, who were tenuate, nothing could justify so atrocious and disastrous accumulation of perfidy and murder. We now only examine the share which Gregory had in it. We have looked into several authors, and frequently examined, to try if we could find any circumstance to connect the Pope with this act of Charles IX. and the queen mother and the Duke of Guise; and we have been always the authors of all those evils, to still greater exertions. The Catholic murderers of Paris and the provinces were, in many instances, persuaded that the Calvinists had entered into a conspiracy to destroy them, and though we have reason to believe the prime movers of the mischief knew that there was no such conspiracy, yet they propagated the report, and endeavoured to give the whole In this light was the whole transaction represented at Rome, and the Pope did institute a public thanksgiving for the preservation of the Catholic religion from the destruction to which he was told it was exposed in France. Thus, upon a fair examination of the facts, we discover that Pope Gregory XIII. had no connexion with the massacre of St. Bartholomew's eve, in Paris; and that the misrepresentation of the object of his thanksgiving, forms the only equivocal circumstance in his whole case; and the testimony of all history proves that the colouring which was given to the transaction was well calculated to deceive the Pontiff. There are many liberal and well-informed persons, who, even at this day, contend that the massacre was in truth but a preventive measure by the Catholics, and that what we call a deceitful gloss, was but the true colouring. The king, Charles IX., in his letter to the Pope, calls it a punishment of conspirators against him and the Catholic princes. However, our opinion is, that the Catholics did not receive any immediate provocation, and that the massacre of the Calvinists was wickedly planned and cruelly executed; but that massacre is no part of the Catholic religion, nor had the Pope any concern in it. Gregory XV. is by all writers, Catholic and Protestant, acknowledged to have been one of the mildest of men, and of all others least deserving the name of persecutor. How the writer has selected him as one fit to be placed on the list we know not, except that, by copying the blunders of others, he has endeavoured to swell his list. It is a little extraordinary, that those writers who ransack every corner to discover the peccadilloes of Popes, can find nothing against the good men John Knox, Martin Luther, and John Calvin, who caused more carnage, devastation, and religious persecution, than all the popes, bishops, kings, emperors, and inquisitions of the Catholic Church, during eighteen centuries, and whose followers and adherents are at this day the only persecutors that we know of in Europe, with the exception of the Turks. We must endeavour to bring this subject to a close, and for that purpose will examine the remaining specifications of [the] charges against the Roman Catholic Church. "Innocentius the Third, brought in the doctrine of transubstantiation, ordered a pix to cover the host, and a bell to be rung before it, and He died in 1216. This forms the era when priests first imposed auricular confession on the people. gained complete power over the consciences of men."-Washington Gazette, July 20. The first charge here is, that Innocent III. introduced the doctrine of transubstantiation. Of all the historical blunders of which any writer was ever guilty, this is one of the greatest and most glaring. About 350 years after the period here assigned, the compilers of the Book of Homilies in England, inform us that all Christendom had been in a state of damnable idolatry during more than eight hundred years; and as one of the grounds of this charge is said to be the doctrine of transubstantiation, that doctrine must have been in Christendom at least five hundred years before the death of Innocent III. How then could he have introduced a doctrine which existed 460 years before his existence? Luther testifies that it was in the church during ages before-so does Calvin, so does Zuinglius, so do all the early fathers of what is called the Reformation. And now, for the first time, an obscure ignorant writer, who has been convicted by us of nearly one hundred blunders, errors, and misrepresentations, in an article of about two columns in length, asserts that Innocent III. had introduced it!!! Berengarius, the Archdeacon of Angers, in France, was, sixty years before, the only individual who was found to dissent therefrom; and after all the researches that could have been made by the impugners of the doctrine, Berengarius, John Scotus Erigena, and Ratramnus, if such a being ever existed, are all the writers or authors whom they can produce as raising a question upon the subject during 1500 years. The doctrine is found in the writings of most of the fathers, especially in those of St. Augustine, eight hundred years before the time of Innocent III., in those of St. Ambrose, who was his master; still earlier in those of St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Irenæus, and in the holy gospels. Never have we met a more unfounded assertion more unblushingly made. It is folly to argue with men who can so unhesitatingly print such palpable untruths. He ordered a pix to cover the host." We do not know the meaning of the expres sion, and therefore cannot say anything of its truth or falsehood. A pixis is the small vessel used for keeping the holy sacrament of the eucharist; and from the earliest ages the sacrament was kept sometimes in a fine linen cloth, sometimes in a vessel, which vessel was at different times of different materials. The question of doctrine is not, in what vessel was the sacrament preserved, but what was it believed to be. He "ordered a bell to be rung before it." Bells were not in general use before this period; but previous to the time of Innocent III. bells were in many places rang at the consecration of the eucharist, and upon carrying it to the sick, or in procession; but at this period bells coming into general use, the custom became more general, and the order was made. This surely was no crime. The crime imputed is the belief of transubstantiation, and not the ringing of the bells. He "first imposed auricular confession upon the people." This is no new calumny. It is at least three hundred years old, and has been three hundred thousand times refuted. Yet it is still repeated, with as little sense of shame as if it were true. The Council of Lateran held in 1215 under this Pope, made a canon; it was the act of the Council, and not an act merely of the Pope; which canon subjected to spiritual censures those persons who did not go to confession at least once in the year. Now there is a great difference between commanding a person to perform, at a particular time, a duty which had been previously obligatory, and introducing a new duty to be performed. Confession was obligatory before; but Christians were so fervent and regular that there was originally no need of compelling them to discharge their duties; they were themselves anxious for their discharge; but growing negligent, it became necessary to threaten punishment should the negligence continue, and to prescribe a time when the duty should be performed. Confession was obligatory before. Should we show this by the testimony of any one author who lived and wrote before the year 1215, it would prove that it was not in that year it was introduced. St. Bernard, one hundred years before, speaks of it as Roman Catholics do at this day. He calls it a part of the sacrament of penance, and he states that priests are not to give absolution except to those who are contrite and have confessed. Peter Damianus, a respectable writer, one hundred years before St. Bernard, writes on the necessity of confessing all the sins, and the sacrilege of concealing any, and of the obligation of the priest to profound silence. A century earlier, Radulph, another eminent writer, gives us the same doctrine. In the ninth century, Rabanus, Bishop of Mayence, writes on the necessity of confession and penance for the remission of sins. In the eighth age the venerable Bede describes the distinction between mortal and venial sin, and the mode, and the necessity, and the benefit of confession, in his commentary upon the 5th chapter of St. James. In the seventh age, Cesarius, Bishop of Arles, has several homilies on penance; in the tenth he entreats sinners to go for safety to confession. In the preceding age, St. Gregory the Great, and St. John Climacus and several others. testify the existence and the necessity of the custom. In the previous ages we have the testimony of Sozomen, St. Leo, St. Augustine, St. Innocent I., St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. Athanasius, Ambrose, Hilary, Basil, and Cyprian, of Tertullian and Origen, of the Councils of Worms, Tours, Constantinople, Carthage, and Laodicea, of the Apostle St. James, and of the Acts of the Apostles. What then must be thought of the assertion of the individual, who in opposition to an host of testimony, of which the names of one-fifth of the witnesses are not here enumerated, calmly asserts that it was Pope Innocent III., who in the year 1215 introduced auricular confession, when in fact it was introduced by Almighty God 2700 years before, as may be seen in the books of Numbers and Leviticus, fifth chapter of each. So that if the period of the introduction of auricular confession forms that era when priests gained the full power over the consciences of men, we must fix that era at a very early period. The last charge which this writer brings regards indulgences. "Clement the Fifth first made indulgences and pardons saleable. A very pretty kind of merchandise for the head of the church to deal in. He died in 1315." "Leo the Tenth increased the sale of inburnt Luther's books, declared him and his foldulgences and pardons to an unlimited degree: lowers heretics. Died in 1522."-Washington Gazette of July 20. "And did not Clement the Fifth introduce the sale of indulgences and pardons into the church? And did not Leo the Tenth extend that kind of traffic, so that indulgences and pardons were hawked about all Christian countries, like as our only have purchased a pardon for all sins com. Yankees do their notions-for one might not mitted, but all that were to be committed? This, indeed, was the chief cause of the Reformation, and was the chief argument used by Luther to effect that purpose. To deny this is to call all history false."-Same paper, of Aug. 20. Now, without calling all history false, we do distinctly deny the whole of his assertions concerning indulgences, and we declare they do not contain the truth. We acknowledge that bad men did, at different times, abuse the doctrine of indulgences, by endeavouring to impose upon |