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to Protestants, published in 1813, and most extensively circulated, I thus express myself:"Since this letter was written, I hear, with infinite "pleasure, that by a legislative decree of the Cortes, "the Spanish inquisition is utterly abolished. So "perish every mode of religious persecution, by "whom or against whomsoever raised!" In my Historical Memoirs of the English, Irish, and Scottish Catholics,* I gave a full account of the abominable process of the inquisition; I say that, "as a systematic perversion of forms of law to the "perpetration of extreme injustice and barbarity, "it holds, among the institutions outraging humanity, a decided pre-eminence."..

Why then," asks Mr. Blanco White," do "Roman Catholics cling to the Pope?"

My answer is that, we do not cling to him in the manner Mr. Blanco White suggests. We acknowledge in him no authority to sanction intolerance; no authority to legislate in any temporal concern; no authority to enforce his spiritual power by any temporal means. A Catholic, without ceasing to be such, may disapprove, may detest, may counteract the attempts of a Pope to establish an inquisition, or any other institution of intolerance. That both states and individuals have acted in this manner, in opposition to the Popes, is well known to Mr. Blanco White. All Austrian, German, Hungarian, Bohemian and French Roman Catholics, unimproved under Protestant government, cling, Vol. I. p. 104 time

in the manner I have mentioned, to the Pope: not one of these states has allowed the establishment of the inquisition within it. All deny the Pope's authority to depose princes; all deny his temporal power. Can we therefore be said with justice, to cling to the Pope, in the manner in which this expression is constantly used by Mr. Blanco White?

After all, objectionable as the system of the inquisition certainly was, both in theory and practice, can it be said, that it was more objectionable in either than the system of penal law, which was organised and established by the codes of Elizabeth and James?

Mr. Blanco White mentions, in affecting terms, the situation, to which his new opinions reduced his mother. I sincerely sympathize with him, and do not feel less indignation against the monstrous code of penal inflictions which occasioned it, than he expresses. But the penal codes of Elizabeth reduced many a mother, who would not inform, in certain cases, against her child, to similar woe. Neither should it be forgotten, that the object of the inquisition was to prevent the introduction of a new, and, as experience showed, a revolutionary religion; the object of Elizabeth's persecutions, was to eradicate the ancient and the actual religion of the country, in direct opposition to the wishes of a large majority of the nation; and, in the case of Ireland, in direct opposition to the acknowledged wish of the whole kingdom.

It sickens me to return to this sad subject. Why

should Mr. Blanco White write a book, the evident tendency of which is to raise popular prejudice against us; to perpetuate the laws under which we suffer; and thus to eternize the depression of a large proportion of his brother men, of his brother Christians; of those, with whom, not many years since, he walked in union, in the house of God?

VI. 4.

Mr. Blanco White has accurately transscribed my version of the canon of the 10th session of the Council of Florence, which defined, that

full power was delegated to the Bishop of Rome, "in the person of St. Peter, to feed, regulate and

govern the universal church, as expressed in "the general councils and holy canons."-" When "I examine," says Mr. Blanco White, (page 33), "the vague comprehensiveness of this decree, I can "hardly conceive what else the Roman Catholics "could be required to believe. Full power to feed, regulate and govern the universal church, can

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convey in the mind of the sincere Catholic, no "idea of limitation." But is not a very clear idea of limitation conveyed, by the words, " as ex"pressed in the councils and holy canons?" these words, Mr. Blanco White seems, by his subsequent discussion of this passage, to have paid no regard. They denote that the plenitude of power conferred on the Holy See, by the first part of the sentence, is limited by the second to the exercise of it in that manner, which is prescribed by the general

с

Thus the decree of the

councils and holy canons.

Council of Florence is explained by Bossuet.*

VI. 5.

Permit me to state succinctly, from an authority which cannot be questioned, the doctrine of the Roman Catholics, respecting exclusive salvation in their church, in opposition to the representation which Mr. Blanco White gives of it (p. 61), and in other parts of his work.

Roman Catholics hold, 1st, that whatever be the religious belief of the parents of a person who

* Defensio "Declarationis Ecclesiæ Gallicanæ, Pars II. "Lib. 6. cap. 12; Pars III. Lib. 11. cap. 10." In the original Greek the expression is stronger than my version of it; and I must observe, that a Protestant translator of this celebrated canon expresses the limitation in question, more strongly than I have done. "We define, that Jesus Christ has given "the Pope, in the person of St. Peter, the power to feed, "to rule, and govern the Catholic church, as it is

ex

plained in the acts of the Ecumenical Councils, and in the "Holy Canons." ("Dupin's Ecclesiastical History, trans"lated from the French, London, 1699, Fol. Vol. XI. Fifteenth "Century, p. 45.") The expression in the original is stronger than either of the translations. “ Καὶ αύλῳ ἐν τῷ μακαριῷ Πέτρω “Kai ávlų “ τοῦ ποιμαίνειν, καὶ δυθύνειν, και κυβύρνᾷν τὴν Καθολικὴν ἐκκλησίαν “ ὑπὸ τοῦ κυρίου ήμων Ιησου Χριστου πλήρη ἐξουσίαν παραδεδόσθαι, “ καθ ̓ ὅν Τρόπον και ἐν τοις πρακίικοις των οικουμενικων συνόδων, και ἐν “ τοῖς ἱεροῖς καινόσι διαλαμβάνεται. Et ipsi in beato Petro pas"cendi, regendi ac gubernandi universalem ecclesiam a do"mino nostro Jesu Christo plenam potestatem traditam esse; "quemadmodum etiam in gestis æcumenicorum conciliorum, "et in sacris canonibus continetur." L'Abbe's Councils, Paris Edition, 1672, Tom. XIII. p. 515.

is baptized, and whatever be the faith of the person who baptizes him, he becomes, on the instant of his baptism, a member of the holy Catholic church, mentioned in the Apostle's creed. 2dly, That he receives on his baptism, justifying grace and justifying faith. 3dly, That he loses the former, by the commission of any mortal sin. 4thly, That he loses the latter by the commission of a mortal sin against faith, but does not lose it by the commission of a mortal sin of any other kind. 5thly, That without such wilful ignorance or wilful error, as amounts to a crime in the eye of God, a mortal sin against faith is never committed. And 6thly, That except in an extreme case, no individual is justified in imputing, even in his own mind, this criminal ignorance, or criminal error to any other individual.

I extract these propositions from " Charity and "Truth," a work of the greatest authority among Roman Catholics, and recently republished under the sanction of the venerable prelates of the Roman Catholic church in Ireland.

Such, then, being the tenets of the Roman Catholic church on this important point, may want of charity upon it be objected to her? It cannot be objected to her by a Protestant of the Established church of England, as the Athanasian creed and its damnatory clause, form a part of her liturgy;

or by a Protestant of the Established church of Scotland, as the Protestants of that church, in their profession of faith of 1568, say, that out of the