consequences of this enlarged spirit of concession in the two subjoined canons.

"If any one should say that those who have been baptized are free from all the precepts of the holy church, either written or delivered by tradition, so that they are not obliged to observe them, unless they will submit to them of their own accord, LET HIM BE ACCURSED *.”

Having soon after declared the lawfulness of infant baptism, they proceed to lay down the XIV. Canon.

"If any one should say that these baptized children, when they grow up, are to be asked whether they will confirm what their godfathers promised in their name; and that if they say they will not, they are to be left to their own discretion, and not to be forced, in the mean time, into the observance of a Christian life by any other punishment than that of keeping them from the

faciendi quod facit ecclesia, non esse verum baptismum, anathema sit. Concil. Trident. Sess. VII. Can. IV.

* Si quis dixerit, baptizatos liberos esse ab omnibus sanctæ Romanæ ecclesiæ præceptis, quæ vel scripta vel tradita sunt, ita ut ea observare non teneatur, nisi se sua sponte illis submittere voluerint, anathema sit.

reception of the eucharist and the other sacraments till they repent, LET HIM BE ACCURSED*.”

Now, "it is most true," says the author of the Book of the Roman Catholic Church, "that the Roman Catholics believe the doctrines of their church to be unchangeable; and that it is a tenet of their creed, that what their faith ever has been, such it was from the beginning, such it now is, and such it will ever be." Let him, therefore, choose between this boasted consistency of doctrine, and the curse of his church. The council of Trent, that council whose decrees are, by the creed of Pius IV., declared to be obligatory above all others; that council has converted the sa

* Si quis dixerit hujusmodi parvulos baptizatos, cum adoleverint, interrogandos esse, an ratum habere velint quod patrini, eorum nomine, dum baptizarentur, polliciti sunt, et, ubi se nolle responderint, suo esse arbitrio relinquendos, nec alia interim pæna ad Christianam vitam cogendos, nisi ut ab eucharistiæ, aliorumque sacramentorum perceptione arceantur donec resipiscant, anathema sit. Can. VIII. et XIV. de Baptismo.

+"I also profess and undoubtedly receive all other things delivered, defined, and declared by the sacred canons and general councils, particularly by the holy council of Trent, &c. &c." Creed of Pius IV. in the Book of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 8.

crament of Baptism into an indelible brand of slavery: whoever has received the waters of regeneration, is the thrall of her who declares that there is no other church of Christ. She claims her slaves wherever they may be found, declares them subject to her laws, both written and traditional, and, by her infallible sanction, dooms them to indefinite punishment, till they shall acknowledge her authority and bend their necks to her yoke. Such is, has been, and will ever be, the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church; such is the belief of her true and sincere members; such the spirit that actuates her views, and which, by every possible means, she has always spread among her children. Him that denies this doctrine, Rome devotes to perdition. The principle of religious tyranny, supported by persecution, is a necessary condition of true Catholicism: he who revolts at the idea of compelling belief by punishment, is severed at once from the communion of Rome.

What a striking commentary on these canons of the Council of Trent have we in the history of

the Inquisition! Refractory Catholics born under the spiritual dominion of Rome, and Protestants originally baptized out of her pale, have equally tasted her flames and her racks*. Nothing, indeed, but want of power, nothing but the muchlamented ascendancy of heresy, compels the church of Rome to keep her infallible, immutable decrees in silent abeyance. But the divine authority of those decrees, the truth of their inspiration, must for ever be asserted by every individual who sincerely embraces the Roman Catholic faith. Reason and humanity must, in them, yield to the infallible decree in favour of compulsion on religious matters. The human ashes, indeed, are scarcely cold which, at the end of three centuries of persecution and massacre, these decrees scattered over the soil of Spain. I myself saw the pile on which the last victim was sacrificed to Roman infallibility. It was an unhappy woman, whom the Inquisition of Seville committed to the flames under the charge of heresy, about forty years ago: she perished on a

* Llorente mentions the punishments inflicted by the Spanish Inquisition on English and French subjects.

spot where thousands had met the same fate. I lament from my heart that the structure which supported their melting limbs, was destroyed during the late convulsions. It should have been preserved, with the infallible and immutable canon of the Council of Trent over it, for the detestation of future ages.

How far, to preserve consistency, Rome, in the present time, would carry the right of punishing dissent, which her last general council confirmed with its most solemn sanction; it is not in my power to tell. It may be hoped that the spirit of the age has extinguished her fires for ever*: but the period I fear is still remote when she will change another part of her system, by which she ruins the happiness and morals of numbers,-I mean her monastic vows, and the laws which bind Catholic clergy to perpetual celibacy.

Where church infallibility is concerned, I can readily understand the necessity imposed on the most liberal individuals who have filled the Roman see, to adhere strictly to former decrees and declarations; but nothing can excuse or palliate the *Note F.