Christianis donentur, et illi publicis cædibus deputentur. Fi nally, the 63d canon orders that Jews married to Christian women be divorced from their wives, unless they submit to be baptized. There is a sacred duty incumbent on every man who appears as an author before the public, which the writer of the Book of the Roman Catholic Church has, I fear, often overlooked in his work; but seldom more openly than in the present instance. The best excuse is, that the apologist of Rome has copied from others; but dishonesty lies somewhere: the garbled statement comes, no doubt, from among the writers of the Roman Catholic communion who have lately appeared before the British public. Am I not therefore justified in earnestly saying to that public-Beware! D.-Page 78. TRANSUBSTANTIATION. An accurate and detailed history of the rise and gradual progress of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, would be a valuable contribution to the philosophy of the human mind. What appears to me most deserving the attention of philosophical observers, is the concurrence of two perfectly unconnected errors, in giving birth to this intellectual monster. The natural propensity of mankind to refer their worship of the invisible to the symbols employed to express it, is found even among the early Christians. A great reverence for the bread and wine, which, in the words of the Saviour, were called his flesh and blood, far from being to blame in them, must be viewed as a direct consequence of the certainty they possessed, that the Eucharist had been established by the Son of God. But here the usual process of the vulgar mind began. Abstractions and distinctions are difficult and painful to the generality of mankind. The spiritual presence of Christ, the intimate connexion between an external and simple act of eating and drinking, and the influence of his grace on the soul of those who eat and drink by faith in his death and passion, was soon lost sight of. Though Christ himself had declared that "the flesh profiteth nothing," the bread and wine gradually assumed the character of his material flesh and blood. Yet neither the people nor their leaders were able to use any definite language upon the mysterious work of consecration. It happened, however, in the metaphysical ages (such name, I believe, would suit the period between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries) that every system which successively occupied the attention of the schools, had an effect not unlike that which is now produced by physical discoveries, though upon very dissimilar objects. A newly discovered law or power of nature, in our days, puts the whole mass of European intellect into motion: a thousand applications are tried, ten thousand hopes of improvement are raised, till the effervescence is sobered down by experience and failure. A new metaphysical system produced in those times a similar state of mind, among the class who pursued abstract knowledge, with regard to the objects of their favourite studies, and that without any thing to check it. Platonism first, and then Aristotleism, were believed to be sufficient to explain every mystery in theology. The success, however, of the latter was unrivalled in defining, explaining, and demonstrating the as yet indistinct and fluctuating theory of the Eucharist. One of the doctrines introduced by the Aristotelian system of the school, is that of substantial forms, or absolute accidents*. The schoolmen suppose that the universe consists of a mass of matter, invested by certain forms or qualities, which possess a real and substantial being. This was a lucky discovery for the school divines. It explained the bodily presence of Christ in the sacrament. The substance of the bread and wine, they said, is converted into his body and blood; but the absolute accidents, the substantial forms of both, remain as before. Hence the word transubstantiation. The visible !! The idea of a general mass shaped by these substantial forms or moulds, is so agreeable to the external impressions of mankind, and so analogous to the operations by which what we call materials are converted into objects fitted for peculiar uses; that the words in which the school philosophers expressed them, have been incorporated with all the European languages +. That the doctrine of transubstantiation could not have been established without the aid of Aristotle, any one who examines the technical words of the Roman Catholic divines upon that question, will readily perceive. Of this they were so fully 1 * The schoolmen have foisted many of their absurdities upon the Greek philosopher. From the definition which Aristotle gives of matter, it is evident that he considered that word as the sign of an abstraction. "Materia est neque quid, neque quantum, nec aliud eorum quibus ens denominatur." I quote the translation used among the schoolmen. + It is curious to trace to the same source even the word elements, which seems to have been chosen by the Protestants as the most independent from the theory of transubstantiation. Elements is another scholastic name for that substratum which is conceived to bear the qualities of things. "Omnium elementa possunt invicem in se transmutari, non generatione, sed alteratione.” The bread and wine were elements, because they were supposed to be changed into the body and blood of Christ. See Brucker, Hist. Philos. Pars II. Lib. II. c. vii. convinced but a short time ago, that I recollect the opposition to which the modern system of natural philosophy was still subject in my youth, as depriving the Roman Catholic faith of its chief support, by the rejection of the substantial forms. Indeed transubstantiation conveys either no meaning at all, or one entirely the reverse of what Rome intends; unless we suppose the separableness of substance, and forms or qualities. The substance of the bread and wine, it is said, is converted into the body and blood of Christ; which, translated into any language but that of the schools, means that the body of Christ (I wish to speak reverently), chemically analyzed in the consecrated bread and wine, will be found to consist of every thing that constitutes bread and wine: i. e. the body and blood of Christ will be found to have been converted into real bread and wine. What else do we designate by bread and by wine, but two aggregates of qualities, identical to what the analytical process will show after consecration? Substance without qualities is a mere abstraction of the mind; with qualities, it is that which the qualities make it. So here we have a mighty miracle to convert Christ into bread and wine; for such would be the substance of his body and blood if it changed its qualities for those of the two well known compounds which the Roman Catholics adore. If it is said that Christ occupies the place of the bread and wine, and produces the impressions peculiar to them on the senses, the supposed miracle should change the name of transubstantiation into that of delusion. Surely transubstantiation has for its basis the most absurd philosophical system which ever disgraced the schools of a barbarous age! E.-Page 96. UNCERTAINTY OF ROMAN CATHOLIC INFALLIBILITY. Nothing can be more certain than the uncertainty of the Roman Catholic Church, as to the seat and source of her pretended infallibility. If any thing can be deduced from the vague and unsettled principles of her divines, on this subject, it would appear that infallibility finally resolves itself into the authority of the Pope. For, as no council whatever is deemed infallible till the Pope has sanctioned its decrees, the pretended assistance from heaven must apply to that discriminating oracle, on whose decision the supernatural authority of the councils depends. The opening speech of the papal legates who presided at the council of Trent represents the expected inspiration as conditional: : a very natural caution in the representatives of that see, which has always most strenuously opposed the notion that the Pope is inferior to a general council. After a candid acknowledgment of the enormous corruptions of the Roman Catholic clergy, which the reader will find hereafter, the legates speak of the expected inspiration in the following words : "Quare nisi ille spiritus nos apud nos metipsos primum condemnaverit, nondum illum ingressum esse ad nos affirmare possumus, ac ne ingressurum quidem, si peccata nostra audire recusamus. Idem enim dicetur nobis, quod populo veteri per prophetam Ezechielem est dictum, cum nondum agnitis suis sceleribus, Dominum per prophetam interrogaré vellent. Venerunt viri Israel ad interrogandum Dominum, et sederunt |