proud obstinacy which Rome has always shown on such points of discipline, as might be altered for the benefit of public morals, without compromising her claims. Such are the laws which annul and punish the marriages of secular clergymen, and those which demand perpetual vows from them who profess any of the numerous monastic rules approved by the Roman church, both for males and females.

I will not discuss the question, whether a life of celibacy is recommended in the New Testament as preferable to matrimony at all periods, and in all circumstances of the church. I will suppose, what I do not believe, that virginity, by its own intrinsic merit, and without reference to some virtuous purpose, which may not be attainable otherwise than by the sacrifice of the soft passions of the heart; has a mysterious value in the eyes of God: a supposition which can hardly be made without advantage to some part of the ancient Manichæan system-without some suspicion that the law, by which the human race is preserved, is not the pure effect of the will of God. I will not assail such views, which, more or less, might be

inferred from the writings of the Roman Catholic mystics. I will take up the subject on their own terms. Let virginity be the virtue, not (as I believe) the condition of angels: let it be desirable, as Saint Augustine expresses himself somewhere, that mankind were blotted from the face of the earth by the operation of celibacy *. Let all this be so; yet are not celibacy and virginity described in the New Testament as peculiar and uncommon gifts, as perilous trials, and likely to place human beings in a state which Saint Paul compares to burning? Are not the warnings and cautions given by our Saviour and his apostles, as frequent as the allusions to it? Did not Saint Paul fear that the very mention of this topic might become a snare to his converts?-But how is the subject of virginity and celibacy treated by the Roman Catholic church? The world rings with the praises of the

* I cannot tax my memory with the words, nor is the object worth the labour of a long search. I believe that St. Augustine, in answering the objection that, if all the world. followed the principle he recommended, the earth would soon be a desert, says, with an air of triumph-Oh felix mundi exitium!

of belief delivered to the people, under the fearful sanction of an anathema, leaves no other alternative to a Roman Catholic but embracing the doctrine it contains, or being excluded from his church by excommunication. By one, then, of such canons, every member of the church of Rome is bound to believe that all baptized persons are liable to be compelled, by punishment, to be Christians, or what is the same in Roman Catholic divinity, spiritual subjects of the Pope. It is, indeed, curious to see the council of Trent, who passed that law, prepare the free and extended action of its claims, by an unexpected stroke of liberality. In the Session on Baptism, the Trent Fathers are observed anxiously securing to Protestants the privileges of true baptism. The fourth canon of that Session fulminates an anathema or curse against any one who should say that baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, conferred by a heretic, with an intention to do that which the church intends in that sacrament, is not true baptism *. Observe, now, the

* Si quis dixerit baptismum, qui etiam datur ab hæreticis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, cum intentione

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 t; 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.