Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 CM
 
 . / - /t 

 
 AN INDEX 
 
 OF 
 
 PROHIBITED BOOKS, 
 
 BV COMMAND OF THE PRESENT POPE, 
 
 GREGORY XVI. 
 
 IN 1835; 
 
 BEING THE LATEST SPECIMEN OF 
 
 THE LITERARY POLICY OF THE 
 CHURCH OF ROME. 
 
 REV. JOSEPH MENDHAM, M.A. M.E.H S. 
 
 Author of Literary Policy of the Church of Rome, Ijife of Pius V., Memoirs of 
 the Council of Trent, Index Sixti V., Spiritual Venality of Home, 3f. 
 
 ORATIO. 
 
 Pulchra Layerna, 
 
 Da mihi fallere, da justum sancttitnque videri ; 
 Noctem peccatis, et fraudibus objice niibem. 
 
 HOR. Ep. 16. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 DUNCAN AND MALCOLM, 
 
 37 PATERNOSTER ROW.
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BV MOVES AND BARCLAY, CASTLE STREET, 
 LEICESTER SQUARE.
 
 TO 
 
 GREGORY XVI. 
 
 SUPREME LEGISLATOR OF THE PAPAL WORLD, 
 
 WHO IN 1835 
 OBLIGED AND BOUND HIS SUBJECTS, 
 
 AS WELL FOREIGN AS DOMESTIC, 
 WITH A NEW PROMULGATION OF HIS WILL, 
 
 IN AN INDEX OF PROHIBITED BOOKS, 
 PUBLISHED WITH THE EXPRESS AND ENTIRE 
 
 SANCTION OF HIS AUTHORITY 
 
 THIS ATTEMPT TO EXTEND THE CELEBRITY 
 
 OF SO VALUABLE A BOON, 
 AND TO DO IT MORE JUSTICE THAN HAS 
 
 BEEN DONE BY THE 
 
 SECRETARY OF HIS SACRED CONGREGATION 
 
 IS PERTINENTLY AND GRATEFULLY 
 
 INSCRIBED BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 ~i C
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE prospects of Protestant Christianity are im- 
 proving. Light and vitality are beginning to in- 
 fuse themselves into a mass, to which they had too 
 much and too long been strangers. The genuine 
 friends of true religion are rousing to something like 
 preparation for a contest which they see to be un- 
 avoidable and at no great distance ; and the doubt- 
 ful or treacherous are doing them the favour and 
 benefit of going over, more or less openly, to the 
 ranks to which they really belong. Too long had 
 Protestants been deceived and cajoled by the 
 original enemy. They believed professions and 
 demonstrations, because they trusted in the low 
 honour which yet remains, and is one of the last 
 good things to be handoned, in simple human 
 nature, corrupt as it is. They became the dupes of 
 impostors, because they could not believe it to be 
 in that nature, that individuals, professing what is 
 called Christianity, could practise gross and de- 
 liberate deception, and could cherish a heart of 
 settled and destructive hostility, while lips and pens
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 exhausted the powers of language to express the 
 fervour of their good will and gratitude. The bitter 
 and the sweet came from the same fountain, and 
 continued most harmoniously to flow in a collateral 
 course: but the one was sincere, the other hypo- 
 criticalthe one meant to be seen, the other to be 
 concealed.* This is now no longer a secret. The 
 faction has gained its end ; and there is now hardly 
 an interest in keeping up the imposition. The dis- 
 ciplina arcani has had its run and its reward, and 
 is now abandoned. 
 
 But the victors will find, that they have purchased 
 their success full dear. A reckoning will come ; and 
 the very arms by which they prevailed shall come 
 to be the most effectual for their destruction. 
 
 What they believe, because they have seen, will 
 not be lost upon British Christians. They will have 
 learned a lesson at last by which they will profit. 
 They now perceive how they are to be guarded 
 against, and treat, a foe of the worst will, the most 
 intense and most fraudulent, that this world of sin 
 and malice ever produced. Their natural protec- 
 tors having betrayed them, and let in the Romish 
 wolf among them, they are taught, if any thing 
 can teach them, that it will not do to go on sleep- 
 
 * See the Speech of Mr. COI.QUHOUN at Exeter Hall, 
 March 11, 1836, where this concurrent flow of professed 
 loyalty and secret rebellion is irresistibly demonstrated and 
 detailed. Standard (Newspaper) and Publications of the Pro. 
 testant Association, Vol. I.
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 insr, and flatter themselves that the wolf will do so 
 
 O * 
 
 too. The time is come that they must bestir them- 
 selves in some appropriate and effectual way ; and, 
 having found, that when the iron chains of civil 
 restraint were so lovingly replaced by the chains of 
 cherry-stones, which the dealers in securities had 
 provided, the case was not much mended, they will 
 feel it necessary to gird themselves to a new kind of 
 warfare more within their own power ; and by at- 
 tacking the very citadel of Popery, and exposing 
 its essential iniquity, in principle and practice, they 
 may confidently hope to cover it with an infamy, 
 which, with all its impudence, it shall be able to 
 face no longer. 
 
 The means are furnished by the Impostor her- 
 self, much of it indeed very involuntarily. The 
 volumes of PETER DENS no longer enjoy the con- 
 cealment of exclusive sacerdotal circulation. Their 
 pages, with their sanction, are thrown open to the 
 profane eyes of heretics ; and those heretics can 
 read, and understand, and publish. The public is 
 acquainted with the disclosure, the denial, and, 
 when interest dictated, the re-acknowledgment, of 
 these books. Their authority, their destined use, 
 has been divulged. They are a mine, which has 
 yielded much, but which is yet unexhausted. The 
 rolls have been opened, and must still continue so. 
 They will afford text for abundant future comment. 
 It will not serve to put off their contents, as the
 
 Vl'il PREFACE. 
 
 opinions of a private doctor, or, according to the 
 suggestion of some weak or designing advocate, a 
 kind of Paley's Philosophy : the main contents 
 are, the most approved doctrines of the most ap- 
 proved doctors of the Roman Church. The main 
 contents are, the solemn, ex cathedra Constitu- 
 tions of the heads of the Italian Church. Nor can 
 they be set aside, or neutralised by being called 
 foreign : they are naturalised and made of force in 
 Ireland and England by non-reclamation, as well as 
 by more formal recognition.* I can barely glance, 
 additionally, at the CONFERENCES, to be regulated 
 by Dens, at the MAYNOOTEI CLASS-BOOKS,-]- at 
 
 * See M'GHEE in all bis Speeches and Works. 
 
 t The Account of the Maynooth System, by Mr.O'BEiRNE, just 
 published, has left its vindication only to the most profligate 
 of advocates. The voice of truth will at last be heard and 
 prevail even in the Lower House (and it is low enough) of the 
 British Legislature. Were any portion to be selected for par- 
 ticular attention, I should fix upon that under the head of " the 
 Seal of Confession," pp. 124, &c. Let any honest man read 
 the following, pp. 123-131 : 
 
 " Were a conspiracy to murder the Queen revealed to the 
 priest in confession, it is an established principle of the 
 Popish Church, as laid down in the Maynooth Class-book, 
 that the horrible intention is not to be disclosed. 
 
 " In Prussia, the inviolability of the Seal of Confession is 
 not allowed. Whenever it is necessary to prevent treason or 
 to punish murder, the State requires the Romish priest, under 
 severe penalties, to declare to the magistrate whatever he may 
 have learned in confession relative to those crimes. 
 
 " What a system of instruction ! What a course of educa-
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 the DIOCESAN STATUTES, at the BIBLE OF RHEIMS 
 AND DOUAY, with their Annotations, and all the 
 mendacious knavery connected with them. But 
 the subject is before the public, and I trust it will 
 unceasingly be so, till the proper effect is produced. 
 I am not so much concerned with these engines 
 
 tion for the Roman Catholic priesthood of Ireland ! How can 
 that unhappy country be expected to break its adamantine 
 fetters, while Maynooth College continues to be supported by 
 the Government and the country for the propagation of treason, 
 perjury, sedition, immorality, and vice ! How long will the 
 people of England tamely look on, and passively behold the 
 application of the funds of the country to the support of a sys- 
 tem of education which openly inculcates perjury and murder 
 for the purpose of supporting the diabolical Confessional an 
 institution to which may be ascribed the greater part of the 
 outrages and crimes, the murders and massacres, which have 
 stained and are daily staining unhappy Ireland 1 Owing to the 
 ease of mind necessarily experienced by the murderer in com- 
 municating his horrid deed to the priest at confession, and also 
 the facility of obtaining absolution for his awful crime, murders 
 have lost the greater part of their enormity in the eyes of the 
 demoralised peasantry of Ireland. I am thoroughly convinced 
 that the frequent occurrence of murder in Ireland is principally 
 to be attributed to the pain of mind attendant on being the con- 
 fidant of a guilty secret being removed, by communicating the 
 secret to the priest in confession, and receiving absolution. 
 Every one of common understanding must know what a heavy 
 burden it is to bear the consciousness of crime how distress- 
 ing it is to he the confidant of a guilty secret; but in Ireland, 
 owing to the Confessional, that pain is not felt. If there was 
 no such institution as the Confessional to interpose its au- 
 thority and give the troubled mind an opportunity of obtaining 
 all the comforts of a superstitious religion, not only would 
 murder and other heinous crimes become of less frequent oc- 
 
 a2
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 of imposture, about to turn upon their employers, 
 as with those of the INDEXES OF PROHIBITED BOOKS, 
 which are capable of the same retro-action. These, 
 in the first instance, and as long as they could be 
 continued so, were a work of darkness. But the 
 unwelcome light broke in, and made them manifest, 
 
 currence, but such crimes would very often (as in this country) 
 be openly acknowledged, and thus the ends of justice obtained. 
 Have there not been numerous instances, in this kingdom, of 
 murderers voluntarily surrendering themselves and confessing 
 their guilt, owing to the dreadful weight with which the con- 
 sciousness of their crime naturally oppressed them? Instances 
 of this kind are unknown in Ireland, owing to the SAFETY- 
 VALVE of the Confessional, by which the instinctive pangs of 
 conscience are completely removed. The priest, according to 
 the Maynooth Class-book, acts as God in the Confessional, 
 (sacerdos peccata confessa excipiens Christi vices ac personam 
 gerit,) and can therefore absolve from all sin, no matter how 
 great ; nor can he ever disclose any communication made to 
 him in confession. Nay more, were he summoned before any 
 tribunal of the country, for example, before a judge of assize, 
 to give evidence relative to r.ny of the prisoners at the bar, 
 although he knew them, by confession, to be robbers or even 
 murderers, he is bound to swear as in ignorance of the fact 
 tout they are good and honest men, because their guilt he 
 became acquainted with as God ; but the judge can examine 
 turn only as man, ' judex confessarium interrogare non potest 
 '"si quatenus hominem.' Admirable system of education, and 
 well worthy of being supported by annual Parliamentary grants 
 of the public money !" 
 
 I could wish the reader to peruse with some attention 
 
 pp. 197-208, where he will find a brilliant detection of the 
 
 artifice, perhaps originally brought into complete practice by 
 
 Preach encyclopedists, of opposing by weak argument 
 
 what is maintained by stronger, for a politic demonstration and
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 and in some respects harmless. In fact, the tide 
 is now turning ; and the damnatory and prescrip- 
 tive provisions of Rome, for the security of her own 
 heterodox and immoral literature, is one of the best 
 weapons put in the hands of her opponents for its 
 exposure and ultimate demolition. For these 
 
 deception. The subject is, the delicate one, of the power 
 claimed by the Popes of deposing temporal sovereigns. The 
 bishops of Rome have never ceased meddling with kingdoms, 
 from the reign of the infamous Hildebrand ; at one time 
 plaving off sovereigns against their subjects by persecution, 
 at another subjects against their sovereigns by rebellion, 
 insurrection, or secret assassination, as circumstances or interest 
 required. The Earl of Shrewsbury knows that the power of 
 deposing monarchs, particularly heretical, is in as full claim 
 under Gregory XVI. as under Gregory VII. ; and his present 
 holiness relies upon his beloved son, John, that by means of 
 the pious Institute, and by every other pious and practicable 
 means, he will do his best to bring the necks of Britons under 
 the servile yoke, both civil and religious, which was gloriously 
 shaken off by some of our monarchs; and when one apostate 
 monarch attempted to reimpose it, was again dashed to the 
 ground by the honourable and British efforts of a TALBOT and 
 others more noble by their actions than their birth, and 
 throwing forward a shade of infamy upon any degenerate 
 descendant who should thereafter betray so righteous a cause. 
 His infallibility, in a letter which deserves to be perpetuated, 
 should have been better advised than to tnlk of his first name- 
 sake's enlightening Britain. His more enlightened sons huve 
 taken care to confine the enlightening to the Saxons, or Anglo- 
 Saxons ; because they knew well enough what answer can be 
 given a fortiori to the larger claim, and indeed to the smaller 
 likewise. See SOAMES. The Pontiff might, perhaps, be 
 thinking of the pretty story in the beginning of the second 
 book of Beda's History, of the British youths exposed for sale
 
 Xll PREFACE. 
 
 documents teach, and infallibly teach, not only 
 what the Church of Rome condemns, but, by her 
 omissions, where knowledge was unavoidable, what 
 she approves. And then, setting aside as unworthy 
 of notice her insolent and brute condemnation of 
 what by its light condemns her darkness, think of 
 
 in the Roman market, whose unhappy rendition moved the pun- 
 ning commiseration of his predecessor. His holiness likewise 
 was a little overseen in gratuitously suggesting to the imagi- 
 nation of Englishmen, who mav not have forgotten the fires of 
 Smithfidd, " the TORCH of the Catholic faith." The Catholic, 
 the $anctitrima (as Sanders calls her), Mary, gave her subjects a 
 fair specimen of the TORCH with which she meant to enlighten 
 them. James attempted to give another. And the Italian 
 priest, Gregory, with the aid of his beloved sons, hopes yet to 
 apply the Catholic torch more effectually in these lands. But 
 it is, indeed, miserable, that in this sanctuary of freedom there 
 should be found noblemen of education taking their part in a 
 conspiracy to renew spiritual slavery a slavery worse than 
 Egyptian or West Indian in emancipated Britain, and to 
 force or swindle upon it a creed, which it would be pure and 
 ungracious irrny to suppose that, in its peculiarity, they believe 
 therr selves. 
 
 T'-e word swindle I use deliberately. Xone but such or an 
 equh-ilent would adequately express the conduct of Papal 
 individuals and bodies respecting the circulation of small 
 books, particularly that unprincipled one of substituting a 
 Popithfor a Protestant tract, leaving the caver of the latter. And 
 yet an editor of a Popish periodical had the characteristic 
 impudence of his Church to glory in the act. See the 
 Birmingham Catholicon, for January 1836, p. 20. I transcribe 
 the following from the Protestant Magazine, for January 1839. 
 " MODE op PROSELYTING (To the Editor nf the Wolverhampton 
 CJuvmic/e.) -Sir, I beg your insertion of the following facts ; 
 they need no comment, and I shall therefore add none: I
 
 PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 the wagon-load of Papal trumpery, as well as 
 profligacy both in morals and theology, which 
 this foreign monopolist of orthodoxy, virtually, 
 that is, really, approves and recommends. An 
 enumeration of a few only of the books which she 
 
 have, connected with my church at Bilston, a society for the 
 distribution of religious tracts in my district of the parish; 
 these tracts are enclosed in a cover, bearing the name of the 
 minuter of the district, and containing a few words of admoni- 
 tion to the readers. Last week, Mr. John Hutton, one of 
 those who kindly perform the office of distribution, brought 
 to my curate, the Rev. J. E. Troughton, four Romish tracts 
 under my covers, which had been circulated as if under my 
 direction. The St.. Mary tracts had been torn out, and these 
 Romish tnicts substituted in their place. I shall send the 
 tracts in question to your office, in the humble hope that 
 my brethren in the neighbourhood who may chance to read 
 this paragraph may be upon their guard against a similar 
 ingenuity. 
 
 " I am, Sir, yours faithfully, 
 
 " J. B. OWEN, 
 
 " Incumbent of St. Mary, Bilston." 
 
 I add another testimony to the same, and to a similar, 
 ' ingenious device," from the same periodical, for May 1840, 
 ]>. 160. " POPISH FRAUDS. Under the covers of the tracts 
 of Religious Societies, other tracts containing Romish doctrines 
 and superstition are now circulated. The cover of the Family 
 Library is in like manner imitated. An engraving similar, 
 at first view, to that on the tracts of the Society for Promoting 
 Christ inn Knowledge is placed on the title-page of the CATIIOI.K 
 INSTITUTE OF (JRKAT BRITAIN. Here, then, is a society espe- 
 cially sanctioned by all the Vicars Apostolic of Great Britain, 
 of which the KARI. OF SHREWSBURY is President, and several 
 of tin- Romanist noblemen and gentlemen Vice-Presidents, and 
 of which all the Romish M.s/io/is and clergy are ex-officio 
 members, putting forth on the face of every copy of its stereo-
 
 x i v PREFACE. 
 
 condemns, and of a few only of the books which 
 she thus approves, is sufficient to convince a child, 
 that the self-nominated mistress of all churches is 
 unworthy of being a scholar of the meanest. Her 
 worst enemies need not desire more effectual ex- 
 typed tracts what looks very much like a deliberate attempt to 
 impose on the poor uneducated persons among whom they are 
 circulated." See, too, Record, April 6, 1840, from the Morning 
 Herald, where it appears, that the word Catholic above Family 
 Library is printed in small German letters with what effect 
 among the illiterate is plain : the intention may be fairly 
 inferred. The fallacious, arid palpably dishonest, as well as 
 nugatory, declaration of the Papal prelates, &c. in 1826, founded 
 on the celebrated Eiposition (or rather Imposition) of Bossuet, is 
 pushed into fresh circulation. Every informed Romanist 
 knows that this work does not contain the honest doctrine of 
 his Chuch, and thart it never had the approbation of the head 
 of his Church. A thing was issued meaning to cheat the 
 author and the world with the notion that it was given : but 
 it was plainly eluded. BAVSSET, who wrote the Life of the 
 bishop, is utterly unable, with all his efforts, to stand against 
 palpable fact See Hist. i. pp. 172, &c. or Liv. iii. xiii.-xv. 
 He may satisfy persons, who, like "J. R." in the Gentleman's 
 Magazine, are, or appear to be, satisfied with any thing on their 
 own side. 
 
 The specimens of dishonesty and artifice united which I 
 have adduced are nothing irregular or abhorrent from the 
 Papal system. In fact they are a natural and almost an essential 
 part. Noble lords are not indeed to be accused of knowing 
 or sanctioning them, till they are so notorious that they 
 cannot be unknown or denied. To treat of BRIBERY and 
 INTIMIDATION of all forms, as the subject deserves, would 
 exceed my bounds. Let Lulworth Castle, or Stoke Alton 
 Towers, Tavistock, and numberless other places, speak. 
 
 A copy of the entire epistle of Gregory finds an appropriate 
 place in the present work, as emanating from the person who
 
 PREFACE. XV 
 
 posures of her disgraceful nakedness than are 
 afforded by the pages of her own Catalogues of 
 condemned books in redundant quantity. 
 
 Were not an infatuation operating in the case, 
 we might wonder that the more honest and better 
 educated, even of her own communion, are not 
 
 published the Index which is its subject, and as exhibiting a 
 congenial character in its direct aspect. 
 
 " POPE GREGORY XVI. 
 " To our Beloved Son, John Earl of Shrewsbury, President 
 
 of the Catholic Institute of Great Britain. 
 "Beloved son, health and apostolical benediction. Whilst 
 rilled with sorrow, on account of the ever-increasing calamities 
 of the Church of Christ, we have received such abundant cause 
 of gladness, as has not only relieved us in the bitterness 
 wherewith we were afflicted, but has excited in us more than 
 ordinary joy ; for we have been informed that, by the care of 
 yourself, and other noble and pious men, the Catholic Institute 
 was, two 3 r ears ago, established in Great Britain, with the 
 design especially of protecting the followers of our Divine 
 faith in freedom and security, and, by the publication of works, 
 of vindicating the spouse of the immaculate Lamb from the 
 calumnies of the heterodox. Since, therefore, these purposes 
 tend in the highest degree to the advantage of the English 
 nation, you can easily understand, beloved son, the reason 
 why such joy should have been felt by us, who have been, by 
 Divine appointment, constituted the heirs of the name and 
 chair of that Gregory the. Great, who, by the torch of the 
 Catholic fctitb, first enlightened Britain, involved in the dark- 
 ness of idolatry. We are encouraged to entertain the cheering 
 hope that the light of Divine faith will again shine with the 
 same brightness as of old upon the minds of the British 
 people. We desire nothing with greater earnestness than 
 to embrace once more with paternal exultation the English 
 nation. Wherefore, beloved son, we cannot refrain from
 
 XVI PREFACE. 
 
 shocked and alienated by the injustice, the varia- 
 tion, the trickery, and dishonesty discoverable in 
 almost every literary sentence of their supreme 
 head, when he assumes to sit as judge upon moral 
 and religious doctrine and learning ; and that they 
 do not at once give him up as the sovereign arbiter 
 of their faith, who, in order to keep good his title 
 to philosophic orthodoxy, is obliged to expunge 
 a solemn decision of his own of two centuries' 
 standing. 
 
 There is plainly an infatuation in the case ; 
 
 strenuously exhorting you, and all the members of the pious 
 Association over which you preside, to offer up fervent prayers 
 with us to the Father of Mercies,* that he would propitiously 
 remove the lamentable darkness which still covers the minds 
 of so many dwelling unh-.ippily in error, and in his clemency 
 bring the children of the Church.t who have wandered from 
 her, back to the bosom of the mother whom they have left. 
 
 " Meanwhile, to you and to all your countrymen, who 
 belong in any way to the Catholic Institute, we most affection- 
 ately impart our Apostolical benediction. 
 
 " Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, on the 19th day of 
 February, 1840, the tenth of our Pontificate. 
 
 "GREGORY, 
 
 " P. P. XVI." 
 
 * His holiness, it appears, has most unaccountably forgotten 
 his " Patroness and Protectress," "his greatest hope, yea the 
 entire ground of his Lope" the most blessed Virgin Mary. 
 Perhaps eight years have improved his divinity. 
 
 t "The children of the Church,' 1 enlisted by baptism, of 
 any kind, into the Pope's church militant, and punishable as 
 deserters if they leave it.
 
 PREFACE. XV11 
 
 and they who imagine that the infatuation is weak, 
 or little formidable, have much to learn of human 
 nature. Well adorned and well managed, Popery 
 has something in the more plausible faculties and 
 tendencies of the soul of man exactly adapted, 
 and responsive, to its main attractions and solicit- 
 ations. When, indeed, surveyed in its true de- 
 formity, it has every thing to repel a sound under- 
 standing and really holy feeling. But it has cover- 
 ings and ornaments which its native sagacity 
 prompts, and enables it to throw over its repulsive 
 features ; and nothing more is necessary than a 
 due calculation of human folly and human corrup- 
 tion to account at once for the progress of such 
 a mockery of Christianity as is the Papal system ; 
 and really to wonder, that its progress is not tenfold 
 greater than it is. But though falsehood is mighty, 
 truth and holiness are oftentimes mightier, even in 
 their effects on such intractable matter as the human 
 soul. But falsehood still, with that intractability 
 to good which is all in its favour, is deplorably 
 mighty. To advert only to the more specious, and, 
 distinctly from their application, innocent propen- 
 sities of humanity what costly and energetic 
 appeals are made to the various senses, particularly 
 to the vague but mighty instinct of natural devo- 
 tion ! what gorgeous and imposing apparel in the 
 ministering priesthood !- what profusion of superb 
 ceremonies! what splendour of precious stones
 
 XV111 PREFACE. 
 
 and metals in the sacred vessels! what spiritual 
 intoxication of melody and harmony, both vocal 
 and instrumental ! what scientific and successful 
 management of light and position ! in short, what 
 a masterly performance of the whole external, 
 sensual, and sensualising exhibition, where eye and 
 ear have every imaginable gratification allotted to 
 them ! So that the simple victims of the enchant- 
 ment, instead of a saving religion, which will bring 
 them to heaven, and fit them for it, find, to their 
 endless disappointment, unless escaped from, that 
 they have embraced, and mocked themselves with, 
 a brilliant but noxious phantasm an inflated 
 inanity a religion of sound and sentimentality 
 made up of chants and anthems ; of copes, tunicles, 
 albes, chasibles, and stoles; of the diversified 
 luxuries of masonry and sculpture, arches, vaulted 
 roofs, picturesque windows, carved and embossed; 
 not to add, grotesque and satirical ornaments of 
 all sorts, with shrines, monuments, tapers, and 
 every ornament devisable by human ingenuity 
 and last, not least, of the " dim religious light," 
 so apt and expressive an emblem of the supersti- 
 tion which it is meant to recommend, even in its 
 most favourable form. This is the real material, 
 though the formal may, and must, vary a cir- 
 cumstance which presents the only admissible miti- 
 gation in the affair; and it is admitted, as far as 
 it extends, with joy.
 
 PREFACE. XIX 
 
 Either simply and officiously, or insidiously, some 
 individuals are fond of pushing forward this sen- 
 timent, as if it were a discovery, or denied. It 
 is far from either. With every charity to such 
 names as the familiar ones of Pascal, Fenelon, 
 Flechier, and others, be it known, that they were 
 all distinguished, not only by bigoted intolerance 
 against presumed heretics, but by mutual condem- 
 nations, and by the condemnation of what was 
 good in them by their own Church, which is thus 
 quit of all the benefit which she might derive, and 
 is perversely made to derive, from their Christian 
 excellence, for which they were indebted, not to 
 their Church, but to that unextinguished Christ- 
 ianity, which their Church denounced and perse- 
 cuted, and does so still. All the three who are 
 named were respective persecutors, bigots, and 
 enemies to the free circulation of the Scriptures : 
 and they were all material idolaters. We believe, 
 however, that a God of mercy regards circum- 
 stances ; and that offences in the midst of dark- 
 ness, and offences in the midst of light, will be 
 visited by him in a very different manner. 
 
 Every sincere and feeling Christian catches with 
 eagerness at the supposition of so happy an incon- 
 sistency as that presented in the instances just pro- 
 duced. He cannot but detest fundamental error 
 and corruption introduced into, and, as far as it 
 prevails, poisoning, the religion which is all his hope,
 
 XX PREFACE. 
 
 all his honour all the hope, and honour, and 
 happiness of his fellow-sinners, if, and when, con- 
 verted. He considers Popery as none the better for 
 being the corruption of the best. He would rather 
 see a noisome reptile on a dunghill than in a room 
 of state ; and poison is not the more acceptable for 
 being presented in a golden chalice. But the 
 subjects of Papal antichrist are yet fellow-creatures; 
 they are yet spiritual, immortal, and accountable 
 creatures ; they may yet escape from their spiritual 
 delusion and thraldom. For suck, no Protestant 
 Christian exists, who does not entertain the sin- 
 cerest and most fervent charity. He feels for them 
 precisely as St. Paul did for his countrymen, 
 similarly circumstanced, though they were no 
 idolaters, not even materially, much \essformally. 
 Our hearts' desire for every subject of erring Rome 
 is, that he may be converted and be saved. 
 
 There is a class I fear a large one of which 
 we must think and speak in a far different strain. 
 They are not the deluded, but those who silently 
 and basely acquiesce in the delusion, knowing it 
 to be such ; or, not simply acquiescing in it, but 
 promoting it with the same knowledge. I will not 
 say, but 1 believe, this to be the case with many of 
 the clergy, nobility, and higher orders.* It is, 
 
 * In the examination by the Committee of the Lords on the 
 State of Ireland, of the Rev. JOHN BURNET, then of Cork, 
 March 16, 1825, occurs the answer " Some gentlemen of the
 
 PREFACE. XXI 
 
 indeed, impossible that some of the men of educa- 
 tion among them must not be sensible of the utter 
 nullity of so palpable a fable as Popery. Exclu- 
 sion of all other objects may go a great way to 
 bend the mind to an acceptanoe of such a system 
 as true ; but common sense will find, or make, 
 chinks to enter, whatever pains may be taken to 
 exclude it. Acid what does all this exclusion, and 
 the effort to produce it, mean ? What mean pro- 
 hibitory and expurgatory Indexes ? Why may 
 not the accused at least be heard ? Is there fear, 
 that if they are heard, by the might of truth they 
 must prevail ? I believe this to be both the fact 
 and the motive ; and I believe every tolerably 
 enlightened Papal priest to believe the same. But 
 in what an awful predicament does this place them ! 
 May they reflect and repent in time ! 
 
 In opposition to the view here, and generally 
 given, it is alleged, that many individual Romanists 
 have in past time borne, and in the present bear, 
 a high reputation, not only for piety, but likewise, 
 and particularly, for humanity ; and that it is emi- 
 nent injustice to deny them this praise. Nor is it 
 
 Catholic community, men of information, have distinctly told 
 me so themselves " that their profession was a point of 
 honour. " They said, that they do not believe in the Catholic 
 system of religion, nor in any other system of religion; but 
 as their parents have been Catholics, they profess the religion 
 of their parents, and adhere to that profession, because they 
 believe the Catholics to be an oppressed people." The fact, 
 however, is notorious, and could not be otherwise.
 
 XX11 PREFACE. 
 
 denied. We have neither desire nor temptation to 
 do it. Wherever, from circumstances, their peculiar 
 faith fails, or is feeble, in its operation upon them, 
 the principles of simple and independent Christianity 
 are at liberty to act and produce their genuine effects 
 in proportion to their force and purity. But it is 
 past denial, that wherever the Church, that is, of 
 Rome, commands, every true son of that Church 
 must and will obey, whatever repugnance his natu- 
 ral conscience, or natural humanity, may feel and 
 oppose ; and there is not a nation where Christianity 
 has been exposed to the superior power of Popery, 
 whose history in such times has not been written in 
 letters of blood ; and in this nation, in particular, 
 the Italian usurper and his instruments will have an 
 awful account to settle for the barbarities perpetrated 
 by them under the name and pretence of religion. 
 That these agents of religious cruelty may, aloof 
 from their intolerant creed, have possessed every 
 valuable and even amiable qualification, only serves 
 to aggravate the charge against a misnamed religion, 
 which no human virtue has power to arrest in her 
 inhuman course, and which, in that course, can even 
 convert the benevolent into savages. The concluding 
 reflection of Bishop Mant in his valuable His tory of 
 the Church of Ireland, on the character of Mary I. 
 of England, is just and important. Having sug- 
 gested the sincerity of her zeal as the cause of her 
 cruelty, he adds, " But the more her evil deeds are 
 extenuated, by the supposition of the sincerity of her
 
 PREFACE. XXlll 
 
 zeal, the more deep and dark is the brand of igno- 
 miny stamped upon that form of Christianity which 
 actuated her in so nefarious a career."* 
 
 * NICCOLA ORLANDINO was of noble family and author of the 
 first part of the Historia Societatis Jesit. The work was published 
 after his death by his Continuator, Francesco Sacchino, who, in a 
 prefatory account of the deceased, says that he was Moribus 
 suavibus, ingenio candido, &c. See how he speaks of Luther's 
 death, lib. vi. 59 : Deus * * * portentum illud orbis ter- 
 rarum, seminatorem malorum omnium, & hujus temporis Anti- 
 christum de medio sustulit. Piget infernum hoc monstrum suo 
 nomine nominare. Ille, inquam, Catholicse Religionis trans- 
 fuga, desertorque Coenobii, instaurator hajresium omnium, 
 illud Dei & hominum odium, duodetrigesimo suae defectionis 
 anno, cum laute et spleudide cotnatus esset, facetiisque de 
 more lusisset, ea ipsa nocte, repentino morbo correptus, jugu- 
 latusque, sceleratissimam animam vomuit, gratissimam Satanre 
 hostiam, qui se talibus oblectat escis, unde ejus saturetur in- 
 gluvies. Such and more is the language of this sweet and 
 candid man ; and it only shews into what brutes even such 
 men may be transformed by being nursed with the milk of the 
 Roman Tigress. For the lying calumny itself, it is the familiar 
 language of the faithful children of the original liar. Corn- 
 template Cardinal Pole in some of his candid moods, and then 
 read his Pro Ecclesiastics Unitatis Defensione Lib. IV. The mite 
 ingeninm of Cardinal Allen is likewise beautifully illustrated in 
 the Catholic effusion of the Admonition to the Nobility, &c. 
 "This tyrant," (Queen Elizabeth) " the infinite quantity and 
 enormous quality of her most execrable wickedness" ''her 
 horrible sacrifices," &c. " Luciferian pride" "Incestuous 
 bastard ! born in sin, of an infamous courtesan, Anne Bullen," 
 &c. &c. Pretty language to be addressed to the Nobility of 
 the time! Even Mr. Tierney dares not to give the whole ori- 
 ginal. On whosesoever's personal back it is to fall, whether 
 Allen's, who gives his name to it, or the foul Parsons's, it 
 falls ultimately upon the Papal Church.
 
 XXIV PREFACE. 
 
 It may seem almost superfluous to observe, but 
 it is important to consider, that the charge against 
 Rome for her literary proscriptions does not attach 
 to the simple act of censure or condemnation, but 
 to the objects, quality, and character, of the cen- 
 sure or condemnation. For there is not a determi- 
 nation on the subject more just or applicable than 
 that of the poet, 
 
 Si mala condiderit in quern quis carmina, jus est 
 Judiciumque. H. Esto, si quis mala; sed bona si quis, &c. 
 
 HOR. Sat. II. 1. 
 
 And to one affecting Academic sagacity, who should 
 insist or insinuate, that the determination is indeci- 
 sive, it may be enough to say, that there are many 
 points on which suspense is allowable and even un- 
 avoidable, and there are likewise others, not a few, 
 which are about as certain, as that darkness is not 
 light. Apart from books of impiety, obscenity, 
 magic, &c. which, for form's sake, and for policy's 
 sake, are condemned, and which are readily given 
 up by all, let any one call to mind the other objects 
 of reprobation, which are almost exclusively books 
 of evangelical piety, and emphatically translations 
 of the Scriptures, most hypocritically denounced as 
 unfaithful ; and which, where particular passages are 
 specified (as in the single Expurgatory of Rome, or the 
 numerous ones of Catholic Spain,) are for the most 
 part the main and saving truths of the Gospel, particu- 
 larly justification by faith in Christ alone and then
 
 PREFACE. XXV 
 
 let him say, whether these are not decisive and 
 burning proofs of guilt. 
 
 Although the present work may be justly and 
 advantageously considered as a sequel to the Liter- 
 ary Policy, it is perfectly distinct and independent ; 
 and, without troubling himself with any thing which 
 has preceded on the subject, the reader may here 
 learn, what may be regarded as the present Pope's 
 Profession of his own and his Church's Literary 
 Faith, particularly as embracing what he considers 
 as his proper and exclusive province, Theology. His 
 Holiness has furnished facts, which it will remain 
 for time to discover, with what prudence they have 
 been made public. He has certainly, whether in- 
 errably or not, calculated pretty freely upon the 
 indifference or stolidity of Protestants. 
 
 The very scarce Roman Catalogue of Prohibited 
 Books printed at Venice in 1554, and here reprinted, 
 will be valued, I doubt not, by students of the 
 higher class. I am happy in this labour, contracted 
 as it is, to follow the example of my estimable friend, 
 the Rev. RICHARD GIBBINGS, of Trinity College, 
 Dublin, to whom the public and myself are in- 
 debted, not only for an elaborately exact reprint 
 and facsimile of the rare Expurgatory of Brasi- 
 chellen, but also for a Preface highly creditable to 
 his learning, research, and judgment, and from which 
 I have derived more important information than I 
 was aware was extant. I may be allowed here to 
 
 b
 
 XXVI PREFACE. 
 
 allude likewise to my own rescue of the Index of 
 a vigorous pontiff, Sixtus V., from intended and 
 well-provided-for destruction and oblivion. It is 
 seldom, indeed, that guilt of any kind, and particu- 
 larly fraud, gains so much by its primary success, 
 as not to be wofully overbalanced and punished 
 by the effects of its subsequent detection, when 
 that takes place, which may generally be reckoned 
 upon. 
 
 As a striking and instructing illustration of the 
 familiar confidence with which the disciples of 
 Rome put forward their most extravagant and base- 
 less pretensions, as well as of the cool insensibility 
 with which they receive the most palpable exposure 
 of their literary dishonesty, I will present the reader 
 with a quotation from a work not in every hand, 
 and one of considerable ability and importance 
 " Roman Forgeries, or a true account of False 
 Records, discovering the Impostures and Counter- 
 feit Antiquities of the Church of Rome. By a 
 Faithful Son of the Church of England [THOMAS 
 TRAHERNE], London, 1673." 
 
 At the end of his Advertisement to the Reader, 
 this author introduces, as an incident which befell 
 him while in pursuit of his favourite studies, that 
 which follows : these are his words " One evening, 
 as I came out of the Bodleian Library, which is the 
 glory of Oxford and this nation, at the stairs' foot 
 I was saluted by a person that has deserved well
 
 PREFACE. XXV11 
 
 both of scholars and learning, who, being an intimate 
 friend of mine, told me there was a gentleman, his 
 cousin, pointing to a grave person in the Quadrangle, 
 a man that had spent many thousand pounds in pro- 
 moting Popery ; and that he had a desire to speak 
 with me. The gentleman came up to us of his own 
 accord. We agreed for the greater liberty and 
 privacy to walk abroad into the New Parks. He 
 was a notable man, of an eloquent tongue, and 
 competent reading ; bold, forward, talkative enough. 
 He told me, that the Church of Rome had Eleven 
 Millions of Martyrs, Seventeen (Ecumenical Coun- 
 cils, above a Hundred Provincial Councils, all the 
 Doctors, all the Fathers, Unity, Antiquity, Consent, 
 &c. I desired him to name me One of his Eleven 
 Million of Martyrs, excepting those who died for 
 treason in Queen Elizabeth's and King James's 
 days. For the martyrs of the primitive times were 
 martyrs of the Catholic, but not of the Roman 
 Church, they only being martyrs of the Roman 
 Church that die for Transubstantiation, the Popes 
 Supremacy, the doctrine of Merits, Purgatory, 
 and the like. So many he told me they had, but 
 I could not get him to name one. As for his Coun- 
 cils, Antiquities, and Fathers, I asked him what he 
 would say, if I could clearly prove that the Church 
 of Rome was guilty of forging them, so far, that 
 they had published Canons in the Apostles' names, 
 and invented Councils that never were; forged
 
 XXV111 PREFACE. 
 
 Letters of Fathers, and Decretal Epistles, in the 
 name of the first bishops and martyrs of Rome, 
 made five, six, seven hundred years after they were 
 dead, to the utter disguising and defacing of An- 
 tiquity for the first four hundred years after our 
 Saviour ? ' Tush ! these are nothing but lies,' quoth 
 he, ' whereby the Protestants endeavour to disgrace 
 the Papists' ' Sir,' answered I, ' you are a scholar, 
 and have heard of Isidore Mercator, James Merlin, 
 Peter Crabbe, Laurentius Surius, Severinus Binius, 
 Labbe and Cossart, and the Collectio Regia, books 
 of vast bulk and price, as well as of great majesty 
 and magnificence. You met me this evening at the 
 library door : if you please to meet me there to- 
 morrow morning at eight of the clock, I will take 
 you in ; and we will go from class to class, from 
 book to book ; and there I will shew you in your 
 own authors, that you publish such instruments for 
 good records ; and then prove, that those instru- 
 ments are downright frauds and forgeries, though 
 cited by you upon all occasions.' He would not 
 come ; but made this strange reply : ' What if 
 they be forgeries ? what hurt is that to the 
 Church of Rome?' ' No !' (cried I, amazed.) 'Is it 
 no hurt to the Church of Rome to be found guilty 
 of forging Canons in the Apostles' names, and 
 Epistles in the Fathers' names, which they never 
 made ? Is it nothing in Rome to be guilty of coun- 
 terfeiting Decrees, and Councils, and Records of
 
 PREFACE. XXXI 
 
 Antiquity ? I have done with you.' Whereupon I 
 turned from him as an obdurate person." 
 
 I cannot forbear an observation upon the 
 correct distinction of Traherne, that they only 
 can be claimed as Rome's martyrs, who suffered 
 for Transubstantiation, the Pope's Supremacy, 
 Merits, Purgatory, and the like. These only, 
 and most truly, are Rome's, or her Sovereign's 
 martyrs. 
 
 On the subject of such martyrs, there is a fine 
 apostrophe in the highly interesting and strangely 
 overlooked work of the celebrated Dr. DONNE, the 
 Pseudo-martyr, in defence of James the First's Oath 
 of Allegiance, but embracing allied topics of much 
 originality and moment. In the " Preface to the 
 Priests and Jesuits, and to their Disciples in this 
 kingdom," towards the close, he breaks out " I 
 call to witness against you those whose testimony 
 God himself hath accepted. Speak then and testify, 
 O you glorious and triumphant Army of Martyrs, 
 who enjoy now a permanent triumph in heaven, 
 which knew the voice of your Shepherd, and stayed 
 still he called, and went then with all alacrity Is 
 there any man received into your blessed legion, 
 by title of such a death, as Sedition, Scandal, or 
 any human respect occasioned ? O no ; for they 
 which are in possession of that Laurel are such as 
 have washed their garments, not in their own blood 
 only, (for so they might still remain red and 
 b 2
 
 XXX PREFACE. 
 
 stained,) but in the blood of the Lamb which 
 changes them to white"* 
 
 The martyrs here most justly dis-canonized are 
 so truly his Holiness's martyrs, that he is entitled to 
 the full and sole credit of their murder himself 
 
 * As concerns James's Oath of Allegiance it may be worth 
 while to consult the account given by CHARLES DODD, author 
 of the Ecclesiastical History in his Secret Policy of the Society 
 of Jesus, &c., letter xiv. pp. 190-5, of the way in which 
 those gems of purest Catholicity could play fast and loose 
 with oaths and obligations, either of allegiance or rebellion ; 
 and how, by their own conduct in defiance of Papal fulmina- 
 tions, they justified the secular clergy, who took James's oath 
 with the same heretical contempt of the head of the Church. 
 The whole of Dodd's work is replete with exposures of Jesuitic 
 immorality and knavery, as pungent and indignant as any which 
 might be expected to flow from a Protestant pen : and it is a 
 matter of some surprise, that the author should appear almost 
 wholly unconscious, that no small measure of the castigation, 
 which he deals out to individuals certainly very deserving of 
 it, recoils upon the communion of the casti gator himself. 
 True, as is done in many similar cases, he endeavours to atone 
 for his apparently traitorous severity by occasional sallies of 
 superfluous bitterness against presumed heretics: but the spon. 
 taneous advantage which he has given those heretics, while he 
 only thought of avenging a personal quarrel, is neither affected 
 nor diminished by this circumstance. Campion, it appears, made 
 no scruple of professing obedience to be due to Elizabeth as 
 a lawful sovereign. The work is uncommon, and, at the pre- 
 sent, and apparently approaching, crisis, peculiarly valuable. 
 That this, as well as the History of the College of Douay, which 
 gave occasion to it, as exciting the intemperate attack of a son 
 of Ignatiusis, a production of C. Dodd, though both are anony. 
 mous, is considered as not admitting a doubt by a very com- 
 petent witness in the Catholicon for 1816, Vol. IV. pp. 120, 
 &c, signing himself K, and who, I presume, is the Rev. Mr. 
 KIRK of Lichfield.
 
 PREFACE. XXXI 
 
 being the real murderer. For this just and unan- 
 swerable view of the affair I refer to Dr. C. O'CONOR'S 
 Columbanus, No. VI. pp. 108 and following, under 
 the head " VI. Historical narrative of eleven 
 Priests confined in Newgate for not renouncing the 
 Pope's pretended Deposing Power" They were 
 all but two executed. The whole is amply worthy 
 of every Romanist's serious consideration. The 
 charge against the head of his Church at the 
 time, and every other head in similar circum- 
 stances, is awful and irresistible. It is as plain 
 as any demonstrable proposition can be, that the 
 objection against James's oath of allegiance was 
 not this or that alleged scruple, but the fact, that 
 the oath compassed its intention, and obliged the 
 taker to a real allegiance to his true and natural 
 sovereign, independently of his pretended spiritual, 
 who could easily draw any thing, however temporal, 
 under his spirituality, by means of indirecte, and 
 in ordine ad spiritualia. After enumerating the 
 eleven sufferers with the cause of their suffering, 
 Dr. O'CoNoa observes, " Let us now consider 
 who, in the eye of unprejudiced reason, was the 
 persecutor and executioner of those unfortunate 
 men, James or the Pope? The evidence of facts is 
 irresistible. The question bears not one moment's 
 examination, Qui facit per alium facit per se" 
 
 On precisely the same principle, and with the 
 same demonstration, the blood of those who suffered
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 for their Papal treason and rebellion in the reign of 
 our Queen Elizabeth, in consequence of the dam- 
 natory bull of Pius V., repeated or unrepealed by 
 Gregory XIII., Sixtus V., Urban VII., Gregory 
 XIV., Innocent IX., and Clement VIII., will be re- 
 quired at the hands of those sovereign lords, their 
 real murderers, at the day of just retribution, when 
 neither bribery, nor force, nor fraud, will be of any 
 avail.* 
 
 Sutton Coldfield, 
 
 September 15, 1840. 
 
 * As a signal specimen of the literary knavery of Rome, 
 and of the hard game it has to play, I will give in a final note, 
 the result of a rather minute examination which I have made 
 in the instance to be brought forward. In my Memoirs of 
 the Council of Trent, pp. 277-9, I had occasion to notice, after 
 James and others, a notorious and interested corruption of a 
 passage in Cyprian, de Unitate Ecclesite. This is not the spe- 
 cimen I now propose to introduce, but another, relative to an 
 edition of CHRYSOSTOM'S Epistle to Ctesarius, first brought to 
 notice in the Latin translation by Peter Martyr, who found it 
 in a library of Florence, and presented it to Archbishop Cran- 
 mer ; with the dispersion of whose library it was lost : Cardinal 
 Perron thence obtained the opportunity, which he did not suf- 
 fer to escape, of questioning its existence. It was, however, 
 discovered in the Florence Library, and printed by EMERIC 
 BIGOT, with PALLADIUS'S Life of Chrysostom, which formed the 
 first and main article, in 1680, at Paris. The doctors of the 
 Sorbonne were not pleased with it ; and before the publication, 
 obtained the suppression and abstraction of the leaves both of 
 the Epistle, and of the part of the preface referring to it ; and 
 indeed of some others, as we shall see. Archbishop WAKE 
 fortunately got possession of those very leaves, and pub- 
 lished them in his Defence of his Exposition, &c. in 1686, Ap-
 
 PREFACE. XXXU1 
 
 pendii, pp. 142, &c. They had been published in the 
 preceding year by LE MOYNE. See JENKYNS'S Remains of 
 Cranmer, ii. 325, note. The genuineness of the Epistle 
 is now, though reluctantly, admitted by the Benedictine 
 editors of Chrysostom. I propose, however, to be a little 
 more minute upon the subject, and lay before the reader some 
 corroborating phenomena in the copy which I possess. The 
 first leaf, then, containing the title-page, must have been sub- 
 stituted ; for the contents of the volume are there enumerated, 
 and the Epistle does not appear. The leaf after the Dedicatory 
 Epistle must likewise be a substitution for the same reason. 
 And here a new and positive deception commences ; for the 
 article, following the Epistle in question, has the page 225 
 assigned to it, though 229 is assigned to that immediately 
 preceding. It was en regie to begin the mystification at due 
 distance from the point of main imposition; and a mistaken 
 number might most hopefully be thrown upon the carelessness of 
 the printer, as has been profitably done in other cases. We 
 now get to the Prefatio, Signat. I (2). This is a substituted 
 leaf, in the place of two leaves, or four pages from Signat. 
 i(2) recto to I (3) verso. But the curious and elucidating 
 circumstance in my copy is this. The substituted leaves 
 would, of course, be fresher than the rest, and would, in tech- 
 nical phrase, be set off on the opposite page, if, as appears to 
 be the fact in my copy, the two were placed in contact too 
 early. This has been the case in my copy, and must have 
 taken place while the work lay in sheets, or before binding. 
 Now both the sides, or pages, of the substituted leaf of the 
 Prefatio are found set off one upon a leaf (likewise substi- 
 tuted) immediately preceding the Epistle under view, for a 
 reason which will appear; the other on the fly-leaf at the end. 
 We now proceed to the main article, the Epistle itself. It was 
 necessary to dismiss the immediately preceding leaf, because 
 the Epistle began on the verso of that leaf. The Epistle oc- 
 cupied that verso, or page, and four leaves, or eight pages 
 besides. They are numbered, as in the Preface, in Wake's 
 restoration, in the margin. But here was something of a 
 difficulty : the sudden advance of the pages would betray the
 
 XXXIV PREFACE. 
 
 abstraction. A true son of Rome is seldom at a loss for 
 resources. The page preceding the substitution is 234 ; the 
 next would be 235; but the careless printer might naturally 
 mistake the middle number and make it 245. Here is a new 
 confusion in an unsuspicious place. Then, next to this sub- 
 stituted leaf is another quite new, and blank, with only a ge- 
 neral title of what follows, with no page, and with the sig- 
 nature (to get on) Hh, when it should in order be Gg iii. 
 Then we land on the next article with its due and original page 
 245, which was provokingly anticipated by the careless printer, 
 and the signature Hh iii another advance. The second of the 
 two substitutes here mentioned is set off on p. 234, and we 
 shall find the first likewise performing the same act. For, let 
 the reader know, another substituted leaf was necessary, which 
 is the last, being the last of the Index ; and that Index being 
 a particular one of the first and main article, the Life by Pal- 
 ladius, there followed another, at the end of which was the 
 Privilegium. That last Index would let out all. It was there- 
 fore dismissed, and with it the last leaf of the former Index, in 
 order, with a new leaf, to get in the Privilegium at the end. 
 This is done ; the substituted page is found set off on the recto 
 of the substituted leaf immediately following p. 234, while, at 
 the same time, it receives the impression, of which we were in 
 quest, of the very page, falsely numbered 245. 
 
 It is seldom that fraud presents us with so many subsidiary 
 points of detection, so minute, so accidental, and yet so de- 
 cisive. 
 
 This instance of disgraceful exposure, it might have been 
 expected, would have taught Roman editors a little caution. 
 But the instance exactly similar in the case of Baluzius's 
 edition of Cyprian, and in which nearly the same phenomena are 
 visible, proves that the Church of Rome, on even a moderate 
 temptation, does not know how to act honestly. 
 
 At pp. 106, 7, where Ferrari is referred to as declaring, that 
 the reading of prohibited books, even where the prohibition is 
 not enforced, is yet, and nevertheless, a violation of a precept 
 of the Church, it should perhaps have been added, that such 
 violation is in the Papal code a mortal sin, subjecting to eternal
 
 PREFACE. XXXV 
 
 death. So Dr. JAMES BUTLER, in his popular Catechism, 
 approved by Dr. DOYLE, Dublin, 1827, p. 52, " Q. Do the 
 precepts of the Church oblige under pain of mortal sin'! A. 
 Yes; He that will not hear the Church," &c. So likewise in H. 
 T[UBERVILLE]'S Abridgement of Christian Doctrine, Permissu 
 Snperiorum, p. 66, " Q. What sin is it to break any of these 
 Church commandments? A. A mortal sin of disobedience," 
 &c. It is the same in Dr. DOYLE'S edition of this work, p. 70. 
 Dublin, Coyne, 1828.
 
 C A T H A L 0- 
 
 GVS LIBRORVM 
 
 HAERETICORVM. 
 
 * * 
 * 
 
 Q VI HA C TEN V S 
 
 colligi potuerut a uiris Catholicis, fup- 
 
 plendus in dies, fi qui alii ad noti- 
 
 tiam deuenerint, de commif- 
 
 fione Tribuna- 
 
 Us, 
 
 Sanctiflimae inquifitionis Ve- 
 netiarum. 
 
 VENETIIS APVD GABRIELEM 
 
 IVLITVM DE FERRARIS, 
 
 ET FRATRES. MDLIIII.
 
 N O M I N A 
 
 EORVM QVI MALE 
 
 DE FIDE SCRIPSERVNT, 
 
 quorum scripta a Catholicis 
 
 Legi prohiben- 
 
 fur. 
 
 A 
 
 ACT A colloquii Ratisponce. 
 Acta Comitiorum Augusta. 
 Acta Concilii Tridentini an- 
 no M.D.XLVI. celebrati, una cum 
 annotationibus piis lectuq; dignissimis. 
 Acta AdelpM Clarenbach. 
 Achilles P. Gassarus medicus Augu. 
 Adam Rysser. 
 Admonitio ministrorum uerbi Argenti- 
 
 nensium. 
 
 Aenecp Sylvii sen Papce pii ii commen- 
 taria de actis fy gestis Cone. Basilece. 
 Aetius Anomocus. 
 
 Alexander Alexius {Lamb. Gallam. 
 
 Alchoranus Franciscanorum. per Franc. 
 A Ich o ra nus Mali u metis. 
 AlpJionsus Aemilius. 
 Alphonsus de Valdes. Hispanus. 
 
 A 2 Alpha-
 
 Alphabetum Christianum. 
 
 Almaricus. 
 
 Alnordus. (Illyrici. 
 
 Arnica fy humilis fy devoid admonitio. 
 
 Ambrosius Blaurerus. 
 
 Andreas Carolostadius. 
 
 Andreas Althameri. 
 
 Andreas Hosiander. 
 
 Andreas Hipperius. 
 
 Andreas Knopen. 
 
 Andreas Bondestein carolost. 
 
 Assertio ortodoxa utriusq; in Christo na- 
 
 tur<B) contra varias hcereses. 
 Antonius Anglus. 
 Antonius Coruinus. 
 Antonii Bruccioli commentaries Italica. 
 Antonius Halieus. 
 
 Antonius Syrri. (Jiar. 
 
 Anathomia excussa Marpurgii per Oc- 
 Annotationes in Gulielmum Postellu. 
 Annotationes in chronicd Abbatis ursperg. 
 Alchirnia Purgatorii. 
 Apologia confessionis. 
 Apotegmata Vadegii. 
 Aricus confessor. 
 Arsatius Scqfer torn. pri. gl. 
 Artnacanus, 
 
 Articuli
 
 Articuli a Facilitate Theolog. Parixi- 
 
 nun Antidoto. 
 Arnaldus de Monte Auerni. 
 A mold us de Villa noua in operibus, qucp 
 
 sequuntur. Videlicet. 
 Libellus cuius est titulus de humilitate 4* 
 
 patientialesuChristi, fy incipit. Filia 
 
 amor naturalis. 
 Libellus cuius est titulus de finemundi, <$ 
 
 incipit. Entes per uostres lettres. 
 Libellus cuius est titulus. Informatio Be- 
 
 guinorum sen lectio Narbon. fy inci- 
 pit Toes aquelles. 
 Libellus cuius est Titulus ad Priors 
 
 san deCharitate <^r incipit. Beneit sia 
 
 fy loaf lesu Christ. 
 Libellus cuius est Titulus. Apologia $ 
 
 incipit, Adeaquceperuestras: seu lite- 
 
 raquce incipit. Domino suo cJiarissimo. 
 Libellus cuius est Titulus, Denunciatio. 
 
 factacordm Domino Episcopo Gerun- 
 
 den. Sf incipit, Coram nobis. 
 Libellus cuius est Titulus, de Eleemosina 
 
 fy Sacrificio, fy incipit, A I catholic I i 
 
 Inquisidor. 
 Libellus qui incipit, Perco molts desigen 
 
 saber. 
 
 A 3 Libel! us
 
 Libellus cuius est titulus, Alia informatio 
 
 Beguinoru, et incipit, Alculciuadoris. 
 Libellus qui incipit. Davant nos senyer en 
 
 iac per la gratia deDeu Rex d'Arago. 
 Libellus qui incipit, Quant fuu- 
 
 Auinio. 
 Libellus cuius est Titulus. Responsio 
 
 contra Bernardum Riccardi. 
 Augustinus de Roma Episcopus Naza- 
 
 renus. 
 Augustini Mediolanen. apostatcp Sermo- 
 
 nes. 
 
 B 
 
 ^T%Artholomeus Vuestemeri. 
 
 ^^ Bartliolomeus lanoues, dircot. 
 
 Bartholomeus Codes. 
 
 Bartliolomeus Conformi. Germ, in missam 
 cum pr&fatione Mart. Luth. 
 
 Balthasar Hiebmaier. 
 
 Balthasar Pacimonthanus epistolte Tuc. 
 
 Baptista Lasdemius. 
 
 Basiliensis Ecclesice ministrorum, cur mis- 
 sam abol. 
 
 Beatus Renanus. 
 
 Beneficium Christi. 
 
 Bernadinus echinus. Senensis. 
 
 Berengarius de Monte Falcone. 
 
 Ber-
 
 B 
 
 Bernensis disputatio Helvetica. 
 
 Bertholdus Alerus. 
 
 Bibliotheca uniuersalis. Gasneri. 
 
 Biblia Sebastiani Castallionis. 
 
 Biblia Roberti Stepliani cum duplici 
 
 translatione, Sf annotationibus. 
 Biblia Tigurina. 
 Bononatus. 
 Brevis tractatus ad omnes in Christia- 
 
 nam libertatem maleuolos. 
 Brevis disputatio Heluetica. 
 Brevis fy compendiosa instructio de Re- 
 
 ligione Christiana. 
 Fratris Baptistce de Crema opera. 
 
 C 
 
 f^Aprici del Bottaio. 
 ^^^ Caspar Cruciger. 
 Capita religionis antiquce. 
 Caricus Cogelius. 
 Caronte Dialogi, versi ex hispano. 
 Catalogus Papce fy Mosis. 
 Catechismus cui Titulus. Qual maniera. 
 Catechismus Ecclesice Argentoratensis. 
 Catechismus major fy minor. 
 Catechismus minor. 
 
 Catectiismus pro Ecclesia Vuirterber- 
 gensi. 
 
 A 4 Catech-
 
 c 
 
 Catechismus Tubingensis. 
 
 Catechismus super Euangelium Marci. 
 
 Catechismus sive Symboli expositio. 
 
 Catechismus sive explicatio Symboli A- 
 postolorum. (tar. 
 
 Catechismus quo Geneuesis Ecclesia uti- 
 
 Catechismus puerorum in fide, litteris $ 
 moribus. 
 
 Cellarius Christophorus Tronuerus. 
 
 Centum gravamina. 
 
 Christophorus Hegendorphinus. 
 
 Christophorus Hoffman. 
 
 Christophorus Melchofier Zuinglianus. 
 
 Chrisostomus cum Scholiis Oecolampadii. 
 
 Christiana institutio. 
 
 Christiance Scholce epigrammatum lihri 
 duo. 
 
 Christiana responsio ministrorum Eunn- 
 gelii Basilece. Cur missam. 
 
 Civitatis Magdeburgen. publicatio lit- 
 ter arum ad omnes Christi fideles an- 
 no. 1550. 
 
 Claudius Taurinensis. 
 
 Clemens Maroth. Gallas. 
 
 Ccelius Hedus. 
 
 Ccelius Secundus. 
 
 Congrega-
 
 c 
 
 Congregatio sive collectio insignium con- 
 cordantiarum Biblice. 
 
 Collectanea demonstrationum ex Propke- 
 tis, Apostolis, Sf Doctoribus Ecclesice 
 Christi, quod Spiritus sanctus d solo 
 Poire procedit. 
 
 Commentaria Germanics in Cornelium 
 Taciturn. 
 
 Comitia Spirce celebrata. 
 
 Comitia Vuormatientia. 
 
 Consiglio d'alcuni Episcopi congregati 
 in Bologna. Verg. 
 
 ConcordanticB grcecce noui Testament i. 
 
 Concilium Pisanum. 
 
 Condones de decent prceceptis dominicis. 
 
 Confessio Ecclesice Tigurince de cena Do- 
 mini. 
 
 Confessio exhibita in Comitiis Augustce. 
 
 Confitendi modus. 
 
 Confutatio unius fy propositionum de dif- 
 ferentia legis fy Evangelii. 
 
 Confutatio determinations doctoru Pa- 
 risiensium contra Martinum. 
 
 Conciliabulum Theologicorum adversus 
 bonarum litterarum studiosos. 
 
 Conradus Tremice de Fridesleven. 
 
 Conradus Gesnerus. 
 
 A 5 Conradus
 
 c 
 
 Conrad us Pellicanus. 
 
 Conradus lagus. 
 
 Conradus Hoffman. 
 
 Conradus Clauserus. 
 
 Copia d'una letter a scritta alia quattro 
 
 di Genaio. 1550. Verg. 
 Coptis Cliristianus. 
 CordigercB nauis conftagratio. 
 Conventus Augustensis. 
 Conhardus Semius. 
 Crato Mylius in Cronica Vrspergen. 
 
 D 
 
 ntis Monarchia. 
 Desiderius Longobardus. 
 Dialogus doctrines ChristiancB. 
 Dialogus multis interrogationibus fy re- 
 
 sponsionibus. 
 Dialogus obscurorum uirorum, in quo col- 
 
 loquuntur tres TheologL 
 Dialogi adversus loannem Ecchium. 
 Dialogi Murnarus Leviathan. 
 Dialogus Carstans fy Kegellians. 
 Dialogi duo quorum prior de costio alter 
 
 Eccius monacus. 
 De gemina uerborum Domini interpreta- 
 
 tione. Hoc est corpus meum. 
 Declaratione del Giubileo. Verg. 
 
 Disor-
 
 D 
 
 Di sordine della Chiesa. Verg. 
 
 Disputatio Bernensis. 
 
 Disputatio Groningensis. 
 
 Dyctelmus Cellarius. 
 
 Didymus Fauentinus vel Melanthon. 
 
 Dionysius Meleander. 
 
 Discorsi sopra li Fioretti di San Fran- 
 cesco. Verg. 
 
 Dottrina vecchia $ nova. Vrb. Regii. 
 
 Due lettere d'un Cortigiano nelle quali si 
 dimostra die la Fede. Verg. 
 
 Durianus Nouariensis. 
 
 Duce disputationes Heffordiance Langi, 
 fy Meclerii. 
 
 E 
 
 I ^Rasmus Ritter. 
 
 ^^ Erasmus Sarcerius. 
 
 Erasmus Alberus. 
 
 Erasmus Scaphurius. 
 
 Erasmus Benedictus Silesius. 
 
 Erasmi Rotho. annotationes in nouum Te- 
 
 stamentum. 
 
 Paraphrasis in eundem. 
 Annotationes super Hieronimum. 
 Colloquiafamiliaria. 
 De Sarcienda Ecclesice concordia. 
 
 Enchiridion
 
 E 
 
 Enchiridion militis Christiani. 
 
 Moria. 
 
 Modus orandi Deum. 
 
 Modus confitendi sine exomeloges. 
 
 Prcefatio in diuum Hilarium. 
 
 Christiani matrimonii institutio. 
 
 Eccius dedolatus libellus. 
 
 Elementa Christiana ad instituendos pu- 
 
 eros. 
 
 Enchiridion Christianismi. 
 Eobanus Hessus. 
 
 Erhardus Hegenuald. (Bruc. 
 
 Epistolce pice et Christiance di Gratia dio. 
 Epitome belli Papistarum contra Ger- 
 
 maniam. 
 Epitome decem prceceptorum prout queq; 
 
 Christianum cognoscere decet. 
 Epistola apologetica ad sinceriores chri- 
 
 stianismi sectatores. 
 Expositione dell 1 Oratione del Signore 
 
 inuolgare, compostaperun Padre non 
 
 nominato. 
 Espositione sopra il salmo, Beati immacu- 
 
 lati, di Giovan Battista Vergerio. 
 
 Vescovo di Pola. 
 Euuagrius Ponticus. 
 Euangelicce condones Dominicarum to- 
 
 tius anni. 
 
 Euange-
 
 M 
 
 Euangelium ceternum directorium. 
 
 F 
 britius Capito. 
 
 Ferrago concordantiarum. 
 Fasciculus rerum expetendarum fy fugi- 
 
 endarum. 
 Federicus Cardinalis Fregosius de modo 
 
 orandi. 
 
 Firmanus Clhorus. 
 Franciscus Lambertus. 
 Sancti Francisci nocturna apparitio. 
 Franciscus Card. Zabarellus de Schismate, 
 
 cum pr&fatione impress. Argentine?. 
 Franciscus Gutterus. 
 Franciscus Enzinas. Hispanus. 
 Franciscus Stancarus Mantuanus. 
 Fridericus lacob de Antruyl. 
 Frisias Orientalis. 
 Faustus Regiensis Galliarum Episco- 
 
 pus. 
 
 Franciscus Grisonius lustinopolitanus. 
 G 
 
 Alasius cuius est defensio Zuingl. 
 
 Gaspar Cruciger. 
 Gaspar Megander Liguriensis. 
 Gaspar Hedio. 
 Gaspar Bruschius. 
 
 Gaspar
 
 G 
 
 Gaspar Scuenkfeldius. Anabaptista. 
 
 Gaspar Huberinus. 
 
 Gaudenti Epistolce. 
 
 Georgius Spalatinus. 
 
 Georgius Vogler. 
 
 Georgius Maior vita Patrum, cum prcefa- 
 tione Lutheri. 
 
 Georgius Batten. 
 
 Georgius Aemilius. 
 
 Geographia universalis, Basilece per Hen- 
 ri rum Petri Munsteri. 
 
 Geomantice opera. 
 
 Gerardus Listrius in moriam Erasnri. 
 
 Gerardus Sorichius de missa eroganda. 
 
 Gerardus Nouiomagus. 
 
 Gerardus Neomagus. 
 
 Gilbertus Cognatus. 
 
 Guilelmus Occham. 
 
 Guilehmu de Sant. Ainore. 
 
 Guilelmus Postellus. 
 
 Guilelmus Pharellus. 
 
 Gorgianus. 
 
 De Gratia Dei fy liber o eius velociq; 
 cursu. 
 
 Guilelmus Aurifex in rifex. 
 
 G ulielm us Sartius. 
 
 Helias
 
 H 
 
 T^fElias Pandocheus. 
 
 Henricns Cornelius Agrippa. 
 
 de occulta philosophia fy 
 
 de uanitate scientiarum. 
 Henricus Bomius. 
 Henricus Senen. ordinis Minorum. 
 Henricus V -ther. 
 
 j 
 
 Henricus Lupulus. 
 
 Henricus Tolosanus. 
 
 Henricus Bullingerus. 
 
 Hermanus Bonus. 
 
 Hermanns Bodius. 
 
 Hermanus Buschus. 
 
 Hermanus Hessus. 
 
 Hermanus Italus. 
 
 Hermanus Aberingus. 
 
 Hermanus Hiszuuich. 
 
 Hermani Episcopi Colon, deliberatio. 
 
 Heinr. Montprot. 
 
 Hiob Gast. 
 
 Hieronymus Schurpff de S. Gallo. 
 
 Hieronymus de Praga. 
 
 Hieronimus Bassanus. 
 
 Hieronymus Sauonen. 
 
 Hieronymo Cato di Pesaro. 
 
 Hidromanticp
 
 H 
 
 Hidromantite opera omnia. 
 
 Historic/, uera de morte Sancti loannis 
 
 Didiaci Hispani dfratre interfecti. 
 Hippophili Melangei compendiu Theolo- 
 
 Hortensius Tranquillus. 
 Hugo Latimerus Anglus. 
 Huldricus Echkstem. 
 Huldricus Zuinglius. 
 Huldricus Huttenus. 
 I 
 TAnus Cornarius Medicus. 
 
 lacobus lustus Durandus. 
 lacobus Zeglerius. 
 lacobus Rueff. 
 lacobus Prcepositi. 
 lacobus Bedrotus. 
 lacobus Dachser. 
 lacobus Schenck. 
 lacobus Strauiz. 
 lacobus Vitundus. 
 lacobus Scheueh. 
 lacobus Strant. 
 lacobus Icolerius. 
 lacobus Dedeotus. 
 
 lacobus Faber in euangelia $ in episto- 
 las. 
 
 Institutio
 
 7 
 
 Institutio In this deficient leaf the preceding 
 catchword proves that the first word must have been 
 Institutio. There is no article, indeed, beginning 
 with that word in the next Index of Paul IV., nor 
 in the following Tridentine of Pius IV. ; but in the 
 very next, the suppressed one of Sixtus V., there are 
 two Institutio Principis, and Institutio Religionis 
 Christianee impressa Vuirtenbergee, anno 1536. 
 Both these entries are likewise found in the next, 
 Clement VHIth's, Index, and one or other, or both, 
 were probably in the present Catalogue. In con- 
 jecturing what may have been the names or titles 
 besides in the leaf in question, we can have no bet- 
 ter guide than the immediately succeeding Index, 
 that of Paul IV. already adverted to ; and there, al- 
 though demonstrably more extended, we find but 
 the names of Janus, Gasparus, and five loachimus's, 
 between lacobus and loannes, which last begins with 
 the sirname, Aepinus. After this we might, not 
 unreasonably, expect to find, of those in. the latter 
 Index, the names in alphabetic order, of ^Brentius, 
 Calvinus perhaps it was too early for Foxus 
 Frith, Hoperus, a Lasko, Oecolampadius, Sleidanus, 
 Staupitius. The first name in the next leaf, Stigelius, 
 comes next. The whole number of names in Paul 
 IVth's Index is too extended to be brought within 
 the space of this single leaf. 
 B
 
 Institutio Religionis Christiana. 
 
 Introductio Puerorum. 
 
 loannes Aventinus. 
 
 Joannes Aepinus. 
 
 loannes Agricola. 
 
 loannes Brentius. 
 
 loannes Baptista Piscatorius. 
 
 loannes Bugenhagius Pomeranus. 
 
 loannes Bomelius. 
 
 loannes Botzein. 
 
 loannes Briesmannus. 
 
 loannes Balistarius. 
 
 loannes Caluinus. 
 
 loannes Chrisostomus cum Scholiis Oeco- 
 
 lampadii. 
 
 loannes Cassianus de libero arbitrio. 
 loannes Daczer. 
 loannes Drachoniles. 
 loannes Muchkius. 
 loannes Eudlich. 
 loannes Frederus. 
 loannes Filonius. 
 loannes Forsius Heluetius. 
 loannes Froschius. 
 loannes Gastius. 
 loannes Gigans Nortus amoy. 
 loannes Gochiii&. 
 
 B loannes
 
 loannes Cboin b u rgius. 
 
 loannes Huss. 
 
 loannes Hartungus. 
 
 loannes Herolt, acropolita. 
 
 loannes Ireneus. 
 
 loannes a Lasco Baro Polonice. 
 
 loannes Lonicerus. 
 
 loannes Lathman. 
 
 loannes May re. 
 
 loannes Meyer Ber. 
 
 loannes Matter super Apocalyp. 
 
 loannes Oecolampadius. 
 
 loannes ordinis Minorum direct. 
 
 loannes Piscatorius. 
 
 loannes Posselius. 
 
 loannes Pottius. 
 
 loannes Postellus. 
 
 loannes Postellusius. 
 
 loannes de Praga. 
 
 loannes Pomeranus. 
 
 loannes de Poliaco. 
 
 loannes Pupperus. 
 
 loannes Rhellicanus. 
 
 loannes Riuius. 
 
 loannes RodolpJiat. 
 
 loannes de Roecksesana. 
 
 loannes
 
 Joannes Stigelius. 
 
 loannes Sapidus. 
 
 loannes Spangenbergius. 
 
 loannes Stumpff. 
 
 loannes Sturmius. 
 
 loannes Sartorius. 
 
 loannes Sleydanus. 
 
 loannes Sazo. 
 
 loannes Scunemitzo. 
 
 loannes de Strunw. 
 
 loannes Scenius. 
 
 loannes de Vuessalia. Doct. 
 
 loannes Vuideff. 
 
 loannes Veltkirch sine Velcurio. 
 
 loannes Vualdesius, Hispanus. 
 
 loannes Vurden. 
 
 loannes Xilotectus. 
 
 loannes Zuiccius. 
 
 loannes Camarius. 
 
 loannes Camerarius. 
 
 loachimus Vadianus. 
 
 lodocus Vuillichius. 
 
 lodocus Vuidschemus. 
 
 lodocus Vbilichius. 
 
 lodocus Vuillhelmus Resselinnus. 
 
 lodocus Vuillichelmus. 
 
 loannes Philologus. 
 
 *) 2 losephus
 
 losephus Grumpech. 
 
 Justus lonas contra Fabrum. (stimuli. 
 
 lulius de Mediolano Apostata. Augu- 
 
 lulius Dialogus. 
 
 lustus Meuius. 
 
 loannes Buschini de Eucharistia. 
 
 loannis Damasceni Sermo $ eius uita, 
 
 per Oecolampadium versa, 
 loannes li caula. 
 loannes Montholon. 
 loannes Reuclin. 
 
 loannes Eluiso cu Scoliis Oecolampadii. 
 loannes Genesius. 
 
 loannes Rodophante contra Papistas. 
 loannes Homburgius. 
 loannes Antonius Panther a Parentl- 
 
 nus. 
 
 loannes Alarco. 
 loannes Cuspinian cum Annotationibus. 
 
 L 
 
 T Aurentius Valla de libero Arbitrio 
 *~* Sf de falsa Donatione Constanti- 
 
 ni. Romanus. 
 Lazarus Spengler. 
 Leo ludas. 
 
 Leonardus Culmanus. 
 Leopoldus Dikius paraphrast. meditat. 
 
 Leonardux
 
 Leonardus Beier. 
 
 Lentitius. 
 
 Litania Germanorum. 
 
 Libretto consolatorio a i persueguitati. 
 
 Libellus Militantes. 
 
 Libellus aureus quod idola. 
 
 Libellus consolatorius pro Labor antibus . 
 
 Liber de omnibus actibus Adolphi Cla- 
 
 renbach. 
 Loca insignia. 
 Loci insigniores. 
 Loci utriusq; testamenti complectens prce- 
 
 cipua capita. 
 
 Ludus Piramidum de fide Papistica. 
 Lucianus Samosatensis. Asianus. 
 Luscinius. 
 Ludouicus Hetzer. 
 Ludouicus Olearius. 
 Ludouicus Carbaianus. 
 Lucas Scrotheistenll. Licentiatus. 
 De laude Parochorum fy ministrorum ne- 
 
 cessariorum. 
 
 M 
 1V/1 Artinus Luther. 
 
 Martinus Bucerus. 
 Martinus Borrhaus alias Cellar ius. 
 Martinus Hog. ber. (Stutgardianus. 
 B 3 Martinus
 
 M 
 
 Martinus Frectitus Pseudoepiscopus 
 
 epistolce Zui. 
 Marcus Tullius de officiis cum commen- 
 
 to Xisti Betulei. 
 
 Matthceus Alberus Epistolce Zuingl 
 Matthceus cellius. 
 Matthceus Greiter. 
 Matthceus Concionator Reuthlingen. 
 
 Qui fy Assartius Schoffer. 
 Matthceus Zelor. 
 Matthceus Schiner formular. 
 Matthceus Zifer. 
 Matthias Kessler. 
 Matthias Boemus. 
 Matthias Flaccius Illyricus Istrius. 
 Macrobius Carborus. 
 Marsilius de Padua. 
 Matrimonio delli Preti fy delle Mo- 
 
 nace. Verg. 
 Maniera di tenere a insegnare II Jigliuo- 
 
 li Christiani. 
 Medicina animce. 
 
 Melchior Kling. (norum. 
 
 Michael de Cesena generalis ordinis Mi- 
 Michael Servetus Hispanus. 
 Michael Stifelius. 
 Michael Rothingius. 
 
 Michael
 
 M 
 
 Michael Vueisz. 
 
 Ministrorum verbi Argentinensium ad- 
 
 monitio ad ministros Helueticos. 
 Miconius Osualdus Lucernanus. 
 Modo di tenere a insegnara di Predicare. 
 Maturinus Corderius. 
 Munsteri opera. 
 
 N 
 
 Perazonus de arte notoria, 
 memoria. 
 Nicolaus Borbonius Vandoperanus. 
 Nicolaus Cellaring. 
 Nicolaus Cabasilas. Grcecus. 
 Nicolaus Aemstorpius. 
 Nicolaus Amsdorjius. 
 Nicolaus de Vuile. 
 Nicolaus Galasius. 
 Nicolaus Galecus. 
 Nicolaus Gerbellius. 
 Nigromantice opera omnia. 
 Notorice artis opera omnia. 
 Nicomediana Calvini. 
 
 
 
 f\Sualdus Miconius. 
 
 ^^ Ottho Brunselius Maguntinus. 
 
 Oltho Vuerdmullerus Tigurinus. 
 
 B 4 Ottho
 
 
 
 Ottho Binderus Epistolce Oecolamp. 
 
 Onus Ecclesice. 
 
 In Orationem Dominicam saluberrimce ac 
 
 sanctissimce medit. ex libris Cath. P. 
 In Orationem Dominicam Comentarius. 
 Orandi Modus. 
 Oratio Ccelii secundi. 
 Orationes Dominicales Griffii. 
 Oratio ad Christum Opt. Maximum. 
 
 P 
 
 JT^Aralipomenon rerum memorabilium. 
 * Paschasius de Sacram. cum Scholiis 
 
 loan. Gast. 
 Pasquilli. 
 
 Pasquillorum tomi duo. 
 Pasquillus Ecstaticus. 
 Pasquillus prcescriptus a Tridentino 
 
 concilio. 
 
 Pasquillus Semipoeta. Castal. 
 Pandectce sacrce Scripturce. 
 Passio Martini Lutheri secundu Mar- 
 
 cellum. 
 
 Paulus Fagius. 
 Paulus Olearius dejide Concubinarum in 
 
 Sacerodotes. 
 
 Paulus Comodus Britanus. 
 Paulus SperatuS' 
 
 Paulas
 
 Paulus Conxtantinus Phrygius. 
 
 Petrus Artopeus. 
 
 Pet r us de Aragonia. 
 
 Pet r us de Anglia. 
 
 Pet r us Gyroneus Oecolamp. 
 
 Petrus Olerius. 
 
 Pc.fnis de Luna. (mis. 
 
 Petrus Martyr Verunglius Florenti- 
 
 Petrus de Ferrariis qui scripsit practi- 
 
 cam Papiensem. 
 
 Petrus loannis Viramensis Buronensius. 
 Petrus Dresensis. 
 Petrus Mosellanus. 
 
 Petrus Ligneus grave Ligan. Parabol. 
 Petrus Viretas. 
 Petrus Artopliagus. 
 P/tilofefus Ireneus. 
 Philippus Melanchton. 
 Philaletis ciuis Vtopiensis de facultati- 
 
 bus Romanensibus. 
 Philippus Melopher. 
 Phrases sacrce Script urce. 
 Panegeristce. 
 
 Pifp 4- Christiana Epistolcp. 
 Pontificii Oratoris Legatio in Conventu 
 
 Norembergensi. 
 
 Pomponius Mela cum loachimo Vadiano. 
 B 5 Pogii
 
 Pogii Florentini $ Henrici Bebelii fa- 
 
 ceticp. 
 Prcecationes Christiance ad imitationem 
 
 psalmonun. 
 Prcecationes Biblica*. 
 Prcpcationum aliquot, fy piarum medi- 
 
 ffitionum. 
 
 Processus concistorialis loannis Sluss. 
 Piromanticp opera omnia. 
 Photinus de Gallogrecia. 
 
 Q 
 
 Quamobrem Papce, fy discipulorum eius a 
 Martina combusti sunt. 
 
 R 
 3 Aplmel Museus. 
 
 Raymundi Lulii opera. 
 
 Infra scripta. 
 
 Liber de Philosophia amoris. 
 Liber de centum Dei notninibus. 
 Liber contemplationum. 
 Liber de septem arboribus. 
 Liber de trecentis Proverbiis. 
 Liber de confessione, contritions, satisfa- 
 ctions, fy oratione. 
 Liber de Orationibus. 
 Liber a matt fy amid. 
 Liber de Benedicta tu. 
 
 Liber
 
 R 
 
 Liber de beata Maria. 
 
 Liber de benedicta Trinitate. 
 
 Liber de articulis fidei. 
 
 Liber de doctrina pueriU. 
 
 Liber de planctu Raymundi. 
 
 Liber de intentionibus. 
 
 Liber de arte Amativa. 
 
 Liber de contewplatione, fy est alius a 
 prcedicto. 
 
 Liber de anima. 
 
 Liber Sententiarum. 
 
 Liber apostolicon. 
 
 Receptatio omnium figurarum sacrce scri- 
 ptures. 
 
 Reformatio Ecclesice coronen. 
 
 Reinaldus Lorichius. 
 
 Rodolphus Gualtherus Tigurinus. 
 
 Rodolphus Baus. 
 
 Ricardus Anglicus Vuiclefita. 
 
 Ratio cur qui confessionem Augustaiwin 
 profiteritur, non esse assentiendum in i- 
 y///x concilii Tridentini sententiis. 
 
 Responsio de missa, matrimonio, de iure 
 magistratus in Religionem. 
 S 
 
 ^Ca/petus Vrspergen. 
 
 Sebastianus Castalion. 
 
 Sebastianus
 
 s 
 
 Sebastianus Meyer. 
 
 Sebastianus Colditz. 
 
 Sebastianus Munsterus. 
 
 Severus con const. 
 
 Sermones conuiuales. 
 
 Seruetus Hispanus Oecolampa. Epi- 
 
 stolcp. 
 
 Simon Hessus. 
 Simon Grineus. 
 Simon Zultzerus. 
 Simon Falterus. 
 Sigiberlus monacus Gdllus contra Papam 
 
 Gregorium et contra Epistolas Pas- 
 
 chalis Papcp. 
 Simulachri Historic, f figure della 
 
 morte. 
 StepJiani Doleti Cato Christianus <^r 
 
 carmi. 
 
 Stephanus Vintonus Anglus Episcopus. 
 Suermenica doctrina. Anabapt. 
 Summario della scrittura. 
 Summarium in Smaragdum super Euan- 
 
 gelia. 
 Supplicatio quorundam apud Helvetios 
 
 e uangelista rum. 
 Symphorianus Pollius. 
 Synodus Marpugen. ab Vsper. 
 
 Spongia
 
 s 
 
 Spongia iudicum. 
 
 Speculum ccecorum ad cognitionem euan- 
 gelicce ueritatis. 
 T 
 
 Tatianus. 
 Themata 114. prope Basileam disputahi- 
 
 ta. 1523. 
 
 Theobaldus Niger ber. 
 Theobahhis Billicanus. 
 Theobaldus Gerlachius. 
 Theodorus Bibliander. 
 Tliomas Naogeorgus. 
 Thomas Blaurerus. 
 
 Thomas Montzer Tigurinus. (tJiei. 
 
 Thomas Venatorius in primam Thimo- 
 Tltomas Muncerus. 
 Thomitanus Italus super Mathceum. 
 Tragmdia de liber o arbitrio. Francisi'i 
 
 Nigri Bassianatis. 
 Troporum Theologicornm. 
 Triloquium pro Catliechistis. 
 Trigaitius contra quern Cocleus. 
 Theodorus Beza. 
 
 V 
 Aldentius direct. 
 
 Vuaremondus Luitoldus. 
 
 Varimadas.
 
 Varimadus. 
 
 Vergerius Episcopus de Capo d'histria. 
 
 Vdele Cymber Cusanus Vrsperg. 
 
 Vincentius Obsopceius. 
 
 Viridarii somnium de potestate Papce. 
 
 VitcB P tificum Vuitemberg. impresses. 
 
 Victor de Bordella. 
 
 Vitus Theodorus. 
 
 Vlricus de Hutten. 
 
 Vlricus de Morana. 
 
 Vlricus Delenus. 
 
 Vrbanus Rhegius. 
 
 Vesseli to. primo. 
 
 Vuolffangm F. Capita. 
 
 Vuolffangus Dachstein. 
 
 Vuolffangm Mcesel. 
 
 Vuoljfangus Musculus. 
 
 Vuoljfangus Ruesz. 
 
 Vuolffangus Vuissenburgius. 
 
 Vmnceslaus Linck. 
 
 Vida Doc. lustinopolitanus. 
 
 X 
 
 "V" Istus Betuleius Augustanus. 
 
 Libri
 
 LIBRI QVOS SANCTA 
 
 ROMANA ECCLESIA CATHO- 
 
 liris uitandos du.rit, hi sunt sicut ha- 
 betur D. XV. Santa Ro- 
 ma na Ecclesia. 
 
 \ Riminensis Sy nodus a Con- 
 
 ^^ stantino Cesar e Constant ini 
 filio congregata mediant c 
 Tauro prcefecto. 
 
 Itinerarium nomine Petri apostoli quod 
 appellatur S. dementis lib. VIII. 
 
 Act us nomine Andrece apostoli, Apo- 
 crifus. 
 
 Act us nomine PJnlippi apostoli, Apo- 
 crifus. 
 
 Actus nomine Petri Apocrifas. (crifus. 
 
 Actus nomine Thomce apostoli, Apo- 
 
 Euangelia Thadei nomine Apocrifa. 
 
 Euangelia TliomcK apostoli nomine (/nl- 
 bus Manicliei utuntur. (Apocrifa. 
 
 Euangelia nomine Barnabce tipostoli 
 
 Euangelia nomine Petri apostoli. 
 
 Euangelia quce falsauit Lucianus, Apo- 
 crifa. 
 
 Euangelia quce falsauit Yrtius, Apo- 
 crifa. 
 
 Liber
 
 Liber de infantia Saluatoris vel sanctce 
 Maria, de obstetrice Saluatoris Apo- 
 crifus. 
 
 Euangelia qucefalsauit Ysitius. 
 
 Liber qui appellatur Pastoris. 
 
 Libri omnes quos fecit Leutius Discipulus 
 Diaboli. 
 
 Liber qui appellatur fundamentum. 
 
 Liber qui appellatur Thesaurus. 
 
 Liber qui appellatur defiliabus Adce. 
 
 Liber qui appellatur actus Thadece fy 
 Pauli. 
 
 Penthametrum de Christo Virginalis co- 
 paginatum uersibus apocrifum. 
 
 Liber qui appellatur Nepotius. 
 
 Liber proverbiorum ab h(preticistranscrip- 
 tus, fy sancti Sixti signatus apocrifiis. 
 
 Reuelatio qucp appellatur Pauli apocrifa. 
 
 Reuelatio quce appellatur Thomas apo- 
 crifa. 
 
 Reuelatio quce appellatur Stephani apo- 
 crifa. 
 
 Liber qui transitus sanctce Marice ap- 
 pellatur apocrifiis. 
 
 Liber qui appellatur de pcenitentia 
 Adce apocrifas. 
 
 Liber Diogice nomine Gigantis qui post 
 
 diluuium
 
 diluuium cum dracone ab heretic is 
 pugnasse perhibetur, apocrifus. 
 Liber qui appellatwr testimonium lob, a- 
 
 pocrifas. 
 Liber qui appellatur pcenitentia origi- 
 
 nis, apocrifus. 
 
 Liber qui appellatur de pcenitentia Ci- 
 priani. 
 
 Liber qui appellatur lance fy Mambrce. 
 Liber qui appellatur pcenitentia originis, 
 
 Apocrifus. 
 
 Liber qui appellatur sors apostolorum. 
 Liber qui appellatur Lusani. 
 Liber qui appellatur Canonumapostoloru. 
 Liber Phisiologus ab hcereticis conscrip- 
 tus fy beati Ambrosii nomine prcesig- 
 natus, apocrifus. 
 
 Historia Eusebii Pamphili, apocrifa. 
 Opuscula Tertuliani sine Aphricani. 
 Opuscula louiniani Gal//. 
 Opuscula Montani fy Pristillce ma.ri- 
 
 millce. 
 
 Omnia Opuscula Facundi $ Manichfi. 
 Opuscula alterius dementis Alexan- 
 
 drini. 
 
 Opuscula Cassiani presbyteri Gallearu. 
 c Opuscula
 
 Opuscula Victoris Pictaven. 
 
 Opuscula Fausti Regien. Gallia- 
 
 rum. 
 
 Opuscula Feumentii. 
 Opuscula lesu ad Abagarum. 
 Passio Quirici fy lulitce. 
 So'iptura quce appellatur Salomonis 
 
 contradictio. 
 Philateria omnia quce non ab Angela 
 
 ut illi confingunt, sed magis d demo- 
 
 ne conscripta sunt. 
 
 Libri damnati per Ecclesiam, qui 
 
 habentur in Decreta- 
 
 libus. 
 
 Liber loachim quern edidit contra Pe- 
 trum Lombardumdeunitate sen essen- 
 tia Trinitatis. 
 
 Libri damnati in ex Vag. lo. 
 Papce xxii. 
 
 Libelli fratris Michaelis de Cesena 
 
 Generalis
 
 Generalis minister or dims Mi/to- 
 
 nun. 
 
 Libri damnati per D. lo. 
 Pa pee. xxii. 
 
 Postilla super Apocalypsim. 
 
 Post ilia super Matthceum. 
 
 Postilla super Canonicas. 
 
 Euangelium (sternum edidlt f rater Pe- 
 trus loannis ord. min. Rat/. lulu tibri 
 damnati per D. Gregorium. 
 
 Liber de Philosophia amoris. 
 
 Liber de centum Dei nominibus. 
 
 Liber Contemplationuin. 
 
 Liber de septem arboribus. 
 
 Liber de trecentis Prouerbiix. 
 
 Liber de confessione, contritione, satisfu- 
 ctione, fy oratione. 
 
 Liber de orationibus. 
 
 Liber amati fy amid. 
 
 Liber de Benedicta tu. 
 
 Liber de beata Maria. 
 
 Liber de articulis fidei. 
 
 Liber de doctrina puerili. 
 
 c 2 Liber
 
 Liber de planctu Raymundi. 
 
 Liber de intentionibus. 
 
 Liber de arte Amatiua. 
 
 Liber de tentatione. 
 
 Liber de oratione i^ es t alms a prccdl- 
 
 cto. 
 
 Liber de anima. 
 Liber Sententiarum. 
 Liber apostolicon. 
 
 Libri damnati tempore Innocentii 
 PapcB VI. 
 
 Liber uirginale appellatus ceditas Agon- 
 
 dissaluo cochen. 
 Liber Salomonis appellatus de Sacrijiciis 
 
 Demonib usfaciendis. 
 
 Tempore Vrbani Pa- 
 pee. VI. 
 
 Bartliolomceus de adventu Ckristi. 
 
 Tempore Nicolai Papce. IIIL 
 
 Epistolce
 
 Epistolce Duliani Nauariensis. 
 
 Item in partibus Gallics de mag no 
 
 consilio Magistrorum. 
 Libri Nigromantice. 
 Libri Geomantice. 
 Libri Piromantice. 
 Libri Idromantice. 
 Libri Ch 'romantice. 
 Libri decem Annulonun. 
 Libri quatuor Speculorum. 
 Libri imaginum Thobice. 
 Libri Imaginum Ptolomei. 
 Libri Hermetis Magi ad Aristotelem. 
 Clavicula Salomonis. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 EX EXEMPLARI 
 V EN E Til 8 EX- 
 
 cvso.
 
 INDEX 
 
 POPE GREGORY XVI. 
 
 THE policy of the Church of Rome is pre- 
 dominant in all her actions. And that policy 
 is nearly omnipotent. It is restrained by no 
 such checks as are felt and obeyed by all other 
 agents, in their degree, whether persons or 
 communities. To the policy of the latter both 
 real religion and true morality oppose many 
 obstructions and restrictions which are insur- 
 mountable. But Rome is free and uncon- 
 trolled : she has no such fetters : she here 
 enjoys, exercises, and riots in, the " liberties of 
 her Church" to her extreme content. And this 
 freedom naturally arises from her constitution 
 and principles. Her supreme and ostentatiously 
 professed object is, in her phraseology, the 
 glory, or, to adopt the almost appropriated 
 motto of her choicest sons, the GREATER glory 
 
 B
 
 of God; and this, in equivalent terms for 
 it must be translated is, her own interest; 
 not, as she would bear the world in hand, a 
 spiritual interest, but a secular, sublunary 
 interest throughout, and from first to last. 
 This is the circumstance which releases her 
 policy from all the usual restraints, and leaves 
 her at liberty to pursue her onward march, 
 not only independently of all impediments, 
 but in perfect defiance of them. I speak of 
 voluntary impediments ; for there are others, 
 which, happily for the most valuable interests, 
 in all instances, but eminently in that of Rome, 
 restrain, counterwork, and defeat, the most 
 determined and well-contrived devices of man. 
 But distinctly from these, the Church of Rome 
 laughs to scorn every chain, which either 
 divine or human law has forged to limit human 
 iniquity : and, in the way to her aggrandise- 
 ment in wealth or any other kind of power, 
 tramples upon every claim of truth, fidelity, 
 honour, reverence towards God, or humanity 
 towards man, with the same freedom and 
 indifference as a secular and unprincipled 
 individual would hasten to the acquisition of 
 a large estate, without suffering himself to be 
 diverted from his course, or putting his good
 
 fortune to any jeopardy, by the payment of a 
 visit of ceremony to a simple acquaintance. 
 
 In whatever province Roman policy may be 
 employed, this is its character, and such is its 
 course. 
 
 I am at present concerned with it only as it 
 has respect to Literature Literature in par- 
 ticular, as embracing Theology and Science. It 
 will appear why I instance the last. And in 
 this province it will be seen, that the Church, 
 impudently claiming inerrancy and supremacy, 
 and the more regardless of religious and moral 
 restraint, in consequence of that very claim, 
 vindicates to her policy the entire of her self- 
 chartered liberty. The province to which my 
 view is now confined is still mure limited. 
 Papal policy takes its unimpeded range over 
 the whole territory of letters, and plays its 
 game in effects and proofs, which are scattered 
 over its whole surface. But it is in the public 
 and authorised condemnations of books, either 
 as altogether proscribed, or as sentenced to 
 various emendation or alteration, issuing: from 
 
 7 O 
 
 the highest authority which the Italian Church 
 possesses, that I am now to shew, in the last 
 signal, and very modern, instance, (as I have 
 hitherto done in a detail from the beginning,
 
 the most complete in existence,) how little the 
 literary policy of that corrupt ecclesiastical co- 
 operation can be accused of having slumbered ; 
 and how amply the continued and unabated 
 heresy, bigotry, falsehood, knavery, and hypo- 
 crisy, which shine forth in the production to 
 be examined, bear testimony, that the foreign 
 Church over which the author of the last Pro- 
 hibitory Index presides, is, in this respect, as 
 in others where she can, be semper eadem. 
 
 These Papal documents have, from the time 
 of their appearance, or rather discovery, ex- 
 cited intense interest in the true friends, and 
 competent appretiators, of learning, in all its 
 branches, especially the more valuable portions 
 of it. In a paper on this subject, which the 
 editor of the British Magazine did me the 
 favour to insert in the volume for 1839, or 
 Vol. XV. pp. 162, and following, I adduced 
 names to this purpose Avhich would honour 
 any cause ; and much honour does not redound 
 to those who do not resemble them. Need I 
 mention the first librarian of one of the noblest 
 libraries in the world, Dr. James ; William 
 Crashaw, father of an apostate son, of more 
 popular fame, but far inferior worth ; Sir 
 Humphrey Lynde ; Alexander Cooke ; Sir
 
 Edwin Sandys ; Birckbeck ; the last Bishop 
 Barlow ; Bishop Taylor ; and the eminently 
 learned author of the Historia Literaria ? 
 
 But let us proceed to the main object. My 
 intention is, to make the British public ac- 
 quainted with a Prohibitory Index of Rome of 
 the most recent date, and of which I am happy 
 to have become a possessor. Its title is 
 INDEX Librorum Prohibitorum Sanctissimi 
 Domini JVostri Gregorii XVI. Pontificis 
 MaximijusKu editus. Romas, MDCCCXXXV. Ex 
 Typographia Reverendae Cameras Apostolicae, 
 Cum Summi Pontificis Privilegio. After the 
 old Preface of Benedict XIV., follows what 
 alone of prefatory matter is peculiar to this 
 edition Catholico Lectori Fr. Thomas An- 
 toninus Degola Ordinis Pradicatorum Sac. 
 Congregationis Indicis Secretarius. After one 
 paragraph of not the most elegant Latin,. the 
 secretary satisfies himself with repeating what 
 a former secretary, Ricchinius, had prefixed to 
 an edition of the Index in 1758 ; and he closes 
 with announcing a Mandate of Leo XII. in 
 1828, and a Monitum of the S. Congregation 
 in 1825. The Index, however, is not without 
 an interest beyond what it would possess, were 
 it merely a new edition of the usual biblical
 
 6 
 
 censures which the Vatican assumes to itself 
 the authority of fulminating. There are some 
 entries, which, besides being new, are rather 
 remarkable. The reader will observe, under 
 the early letter B BLUNT, Vestiges of Ant lent 
 Manners and Customs discoverable in Modern 
 Italy and Sicily. The sensitive and cautious 
 author took some pains not to give offence ; 
 but his efforts, it seems, have proved unavail- 
 ing. Rome knows no favour where she is 
 either hurt or alarmed; and the wounds, which 
 such disclosures as those made by our meri- 
 torious countryman, open afresh, are peculiarly 
 tender. As the reader, that is, the English, 
 proceeds, he encounters, at no great distance, 
 another countryman, under the title, BUR- 
 GESS, LECTURES on the Insufficiency of Unreveal- 
 ed Religion, and on the succeeding Influence of 
 Christianity, delivered in Rome, if I am not 
 mistaken. It will not be amiss to notice the 
 Spanish DISSERTACION Historica, Legal, y Po- 
 ly tica sobre el Celibato Clerical, par D L. ; 
 
 and, to transgress alphabetic order, on account 
 of unity of subject, MATRIMONIO (il) degli 
 Antichi Preti, e il Celibato dei Moderni, &c. 
 (the two next articles are on the same subject,) 
 the subject is the Celibacy, enforced, of the
 
 Latin clergy. Then appears, HALLAM ARIGO, 
 Middle Ages in Italian, and Constitutional 
 History of England from , &c. Then, MORGAN, 
 LADY, L'ltalie. Not to busy ourselves with 
 culling such flowers too diligently, we meet 
 with de POTTER, who, for his Vie de Scipion 
 de Ricci Eveque de Pistole, et Prato, richly 
 deserved a niche among the condemned. 
 
 o 
 
 ROME IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, a book 
 to which the natural fears of Rome cannot fail 
 to give importance, particularly as it would be 
 read and studied by all the English visitors of 
 the holy city, (more so. perhaps, than the 
 books there provided so kindly and disinter- 
 estedly for them,) could not be expected to 
 escape equal honour. Then there is STORIA 
 DI ANDREA DUNN, and STORIA DI ENRI- 
 CHETTO, E DEL suo LATORE, well-known Eng- 
 lish tales, the latter by Mrs. Sherwood. These, 
 being naturalised, were formidable to Italian 
 superstition. So much for the added articles. 
 It is of some importance to inquire into 
 those which have been omitted. Omissions are 
 sometimes very significant, and, in their effect, 
 very positive, things. In the Index imme- 
 diately preceding that now under examina- 
 tion, Pius Vllth's INDEX of 1819, and in its
 
 8 
 
 Appendix of 1821, we observe standing in its 
 proper alphabetic place, TAXES DBS PARTIES 
 
 CASUELLES DE LA BOUTIQUE DU PAPA. In 
 
 the present Index it is thrown into the less 
 obvious place of ACHEUL JULIAN. No one 
 who was not acquainted with the subject, and 
 felt some curiosity respecting it, would look 
 for the thing under such a name. The subject, 
 indeed, is, and ought to be, a sore one to all 
 interested in the exculpation and support of 
 the Romish religion and Church ; for that 
 Church is terribly implicated, not only in the 
 proper baseness of the matter, but in the ad- 
 ventitious disgrace of the means made use of 
 to shelter it from view and reprobation. Added 
 to which, the concern to which it refers is far 
 less lucrative than it was in days of yore, when 
 the gainer, whatever the people might do, 
 would applaud and bless himself. The market 
 for sacerdotal absolution, dispensation, indul- 
 gences, with totquots, in articulo mortis, and 
 with purgatorial efficacy, is fairly dead and 
 buried, except in Italy, Spain, and Ireland. 
 Formerly, the wicked editions of the Taxa, 
 particularly those of the Penitentiary, by the 
 heretics, were pretty freely adverted to ; but 
 even then Rome herself could not muster
 
 impudence to acknowledge her own genuine 
 indisputable productions of this infamous class. 
 The reader who wishes to know what is fact 
 on this subject need only cast his eye on what 
 I have endeavoured to exempt from oblivion, 
 in a work entitled Spiritual Venality of Rome. 
 And he may go farther to the kindred subject 
 of Venal Indulgences in another work of mine, 
 if he love, and would improve, truth. The 
 present Index forbears to offend the delicate 
 eye of the reader with any recognition of the 
 Roman Taxes under the letter T, where, of 
 course, Taxes should be sought ; and he must 
 ferret out the information, which it is most 
 desirable to the culprits that he should not 
 obtain, under the entries BANCK and PRAXIS. 
 And these are heretical editions. Of the 
 abundance of her own editions at the close 
 of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth 
 centuries, beaming forth in full lustre, and 
 in imposing array, in every Bibliotheca em- 
 bracing the time, and extant at full length in 
 the Pontifically accredited Oceanus Juris, in 
 more than one edition, the organ of Apostolic 
 censorship is as still as death.* 
 
 * The omissions, suppressions, curtailments (one class only 
 of Roman fraud), by the highest authorities in the pontifical 
 
 B 2
 
 10 
 
 There is, however, another omission, or 
 rather collection of omissions, which is more 
 complete, and far more important, in all re- 
 spects ; and upon this it is my purpose to tres- 
 pass at much greater length upon my reader's 
 patience than I should otherwise feel justified in 
 doing. It is the omission, for the first time after 
 about two centuries, of the proscribed names of 
 GALILEO GALILEI, of COPERNICUS, andof^os- 
 CARINI. The pontifical sponge has been applied 
 to the triple blot which remained for so long a 
 period on the pages of Rome's damnatory Index; 
 and her sons are now, for the first time, free 
 to think and write what all the world has long 
 
 Church all of them interested are without number. But I 
 should like the reader just to recollect the withdrawment of 
 the last article of the Creed and Oath of Pius IV., which binds 
 the professor and taker by the most solemn obligation to do ail 
 in his power for the advancement of his exclusively salvific 
 church. The act of knavery was perpetrated, perhaps first, and 
 in this country, where it was needed, or was politically neces- 
 sary, by Dr. Challoner, a vicar apostolic, and with such de- 
 lusive success, that C. Butler, Esq., a learned counsellor, was 
 carried away with the device, and brought to the humiliation of 
 confessing himself ignorant of the Creed of his own Church. 
 The omitted and final clause of that Creed renders practicable 
 proselytism to Popery, by whatever means, not only allowable 
 but imperative upon all who profess it ; and those are all who 
 have cure of souls, together with those who have charge of 
 
 education, and others. See BUTLER'S Vindication, pp. xxvii 
 
 xxix. ; and B. WHITE'S Letter, pp. xvi.-xxxi.
 
 11 
 
 known to be true philosophy, without disobey- 
 ing the solemn and published law of the 
 Church, or without having to resort to a fiction 
 to evade such disobedience. 
 
 It is well known that the Roman Church 
 has, of late, for no inconsiderable time, smarted 
 under both the inconvenience and disgrace of 
 putting the most exalted of human sciences in 
 chains, when in every other territory it had 
 long been at liberty. Presumed and exclusive 
 orthodoxy in divine science might compensate 
 for much deficiency and backwardness in such 
 as is simply natural. But even so spiritual a 
 community could not easily brook the ridicule, 
 if not contempt or rebuke, of being anticipated 
 by nations of heretics in what she well enough 
 knew to be demonstrable truth ; but was with- 
 held, by the shame of reversing past sentences 
 and decrees, promulgated in the most solemn 
 manner, from joining in its adoption. But the 
 time was come for relaxing the rigour of this 
 imaginary dignity ; and in the thirty-fifth 
 year of the nineteenth century, the dishonour 
 became too heavy a burthen to be borne any 
 longer ! 
 
 The Sacred Congregation of the Index is a 
 body of great importance in the constitution
 
 12 
 
 of Papal Rome. It has its Prefect, with his 
 associated Cardinals, its Secretary, and Con- 
 suitors, to a considerable number. The cele- 
 brated Dr. Nicholas Wiseman is one of the 
 last. The state of heretical countries, and 
 particularly the British, more especially when 
 his holiness honoured the meeting with his 
 presence, would come under very deliberate, 
 anxious, and minute examination. All the 
 circumstances of this kingdom are as familiarly 
 and accurately known to the political rulers of 
 the Church of Rome as if those rulers were 
 resident in London. Agents, whether official 
 or voluntary, are watchfully and actively em- 
 ployed in obtaining and transmitting all such 
 intelligence as may be essential or useful for 
 furthering the advancement and aggrandise- 
 ment of the faith and power of Rome ; or for 
 crippling, as she cannot yet hope to destroy, 
 the faith and power of a heretical community.* 
 It must have been peculiarly annoying to 
 Rome and her friends, to know how much her 
 scientific reputation suffered, particularly in 
 England ; and no wonder that some expedient 
 should be thought of, as indeed had incipiently 
 
 * Read the solemn information and warning of Dr. C. 
 R to the same effect, Columbanus, No. VII. pp. 58, &c.
 
 13 
 
 been done, to remove the occasion of scandal. 
 I do not affirm that the new Index solely or 
 principally originated in such a view ; but 
 certainly no measure could be better adapted 
 to attain a plain object of desire, than the 
 publication of a fresh Index with the omission 
 which has been stated. 
 
 True it is, that the public heard very little 
 about the occasional and frequent lists of con- 
 demned books issuing from the highest author- 
 ity in the Latin Church, and declaring most 
 formally and solemnly her judgments respect- 
 ing the various points brought under criticism. 
 The public, even the reading and apparently 
 informed public, were almost completely igno- 
 rant, as they are now, upon that subject ; and 
 there was not much disposition in the parties 
 most concerned to rouse or enlighten them ; 
 they were, with very good will, left to sleep. 
 However, Rome knew well enough how things 
 stood ; and although, in consequence of popular 
 ignorance and indifference, the charge of 
 hostility to science against the Roman Church 
 was made to rest almost exclusively upon the 
 actual persecution of Galileo, for his anti- 
 orthodox doctrine respecting the solar system ; 
 and this charge was almost exclusively re-
 
 14 
 
 butted by certain ingenious devices in logic 
 relative to the personal treatment of the phi- 
 losopher, the better judges abroad saw at once, 
 that this charge and defence were of a com- 
 paratively transitory description ; but that the 
 condemnation, not of the man only, but of his 
 doctrine yes, absolutely of HIS DOCTRINE 
 was in a record under the hand and seal of 
 the Head of the Roman Church, published 
 repeatedly for two hundred years, and had 
 therefore a permanency of character, which 
 rendered it abundantly more important and 
 more fatal than the other. By the authority 
 of this juster view, we are encouraged to pro- 
 ceed with the evidence afforded by the Prohi- 
 bitory Indexes of Rome. We shall not, how- 
 ever, neglect an investigation of the evidence 
 in the other field. For there is something 
 important to be said there. In order of time 
 the prosecution of Galileo, by the Roman In- 
 quisition, his sentence, his abjuration, and con- 
 finement, precede the Indicial condemnation, 
 which was its natural sequel : but, as it is im- 
 portant to establish the fact in view by the most 
 decisive and irrefragable evidence in the first 
 place, particularly because such an order will 
 preclude a good deal of argument rendered
 
 15 
 
 unnecessary by anticipation, we will examine 
 the evidence afforded by the Roman Index. 
 
 We now, then, come to the Index. On the 
 5th day of March, 1616, was passed a decree 
 of the Sacred Congregation, condemning all 
 such books as taught the Copernican doctrine 
 respecting the solar system, or that, in that 
 system, the sun is the centre, and immovable. 
 I have, of course, in a general way, stated the 
 main facts of this very observable case, in the 
 proper place, in my Literary Policy of the 
 Church of Rome; but the circumstances which 
 have of late transpired on the subject render 
 it expedient to be more diffuse and precise. 
 The terms of the condemnation are very de- 
 cisive and detailed ; and the whole being 
 exceedingly unknown, it will be desirable to 
 exhibit them at length. The decree itself, for 
 we are not speaking of the entry made, in con- 
 sequence, in the body of the subsequent In- 
 dexes, is found in three places in the two 
 separate Collections of Decrees of the date of 
 1624, appended to two different editions of 
 Capiferreus's Elenchus, and in the Collection 
 which closes Alexander Vllth's Index of 
 1664. No. XIV. pp. 307, 8.
 
 16 
 
 Et quia etiam ad notitiam prsefatee Sacrge 
 Congregationis pervenit, falsam illam doctrinara 
 Pythagoricam, divineeque Scripturce omnino adver- 
 santem de mobilitate Terrse, et immobilitate Soils, 
 quam Nicolaus Copernicus de revolutionibus orbium 
 ccelestium, et Didacus Astunica in Job etiam do- 
 cent, jam* divulgari, et &. multis recipi ; sicuti 
 videre est ex quadam epistola impressa cujusdam 
 Patris Carmelitae cui titulus Lettera del Reu. Padre 
 Maestro Paolo Antonio Foscarini Carmelitano 
 sopra 1' opinione de' Pittagorici, e del Copernico, 
 della mobilita della Terra, e stabilita del Sole, e il 
 nuovo Pittagorico sistema del Hondo, in Napoli per 
 Lazzaro Scoriggio 1615, in qua dictus Pater osten- 
 dere conatur, prsefatam doctrinam de immobilitate 
 solis in centro Mundi, et mobilitate Terrse, conso- 
 nam esse veritati, et non adversari Sacrse Scripturee : 
 Ideo ne ulterius hujusmodi opinio in perniciem 
 Catholicse veritatis serpat, censuit dictos, Nicolaum 
 Copernicum de revolutionibus orbium, et Didacum 
 Astunica in Job suspendendos esse donee corrigan- 
 tur. Librum vero Patris Pauli Antonii Foscarini 
 Carmelitse omnino prohibendum, atque damnandum, 
 aliosque omnes Libros pariter idem docentes, prohi- 
 bendos, prout preesenti Decreto omnes respective 
 prohibet, damnat, atque suspendit. In quorum 
 
 * So I venture to correct quam.
 
 fidera prsesens Decretum manu, et sigillo Illustris- 
 simi, et Reverendissimi D. CardinalisSanctseCsecilise 
 Episcopi Albanen. signatum et munitum fuit, die 
 5 Martii, 1616. 
 
 P. Epis. Albanen. Card. Sanctae Cseciliae, 
 Locus f sigilli. 
 
 Regist. fol. 90. 
 
 F. Franciscus Magdalenus Capiferreus Ord. 
 Praedicat. Secretarius. 
 
 It will be observed here, that the Coperni- 
 can doctrine is condemned, in the first place, as 
 false, and then as contrary to Scripture; and 
 likewise, that, although other teachers of the 
 doctrine are named and condemned, neither 
 Galileo nor any book of his is specified ; they 
 are, however, both virtually condemned in 
 the clause, which includes " all books teach- 
 ing the same doctrine." It seems as if the 
 terms were selected for the very purpose of 
 precluding, or putting to shame, the attempt 
 which would be made in a future age to save 
 the credit of Rome's philosophic orthodoxy at 
 the expense of what was then sincerely deemed 
 her theological, and certainly at the expense 
 of truth. The Dialoao of the Florentine ap- 
 peared in 1632; and, in 1634, he and his book 
 were both expressly condemned, together with
 
 18 
 
 other books, by the Sacred Congregation, in a 
 decree of August 13, in the following words : 
 Dialogo di Galileo Galilei dove ne i congressi 
 di quattro giornate si discorre sopra i due 
 Massimi Sistemi del Hondo, Tolemaico, e 
 Copernicano. In the Roman Index of 1704, 
 we read the general condemnation : Libri 
 omnes docentes mobilitatem Terrce et immobili- 
 tatem Solis. Not a vestige of any of these 
 decisive proscriptions is now to be found in any 
 Roman Index. The name of the persecuted 
 and condemned reviver of a doctrine now uni- 
 versally received, with that of his Dialogo, 
 kept their place the last, and were only silently 
 and furtively withdrawn in the year 1835. In 
 all the preceding Indexes the condemnation, 
 not of the man only, but of the DOCTRINE, 
 stands an imperishable monument of the igno- 
 rance, bigotry, and intolerance of the Roman 
 Church. 
 
 But the reader was to expect associates in 
 this disgraceful procedure of the mother and 
 mistress of all churches. They were named ; 
 and we will notice COPERNICUS, the founder 
 of the obnoxious doctrine first. His book, De 
 Mundi Revolutionibus, was formally and singly 
 condemned by a Decree of the Sacred Congre-
 
 19 
 
 gation in 1620; neither the month nor day is 
 given ; but it is No. XXI in Alexander Vllth's 
 Collection. There the Congregation declares, 
 that although it was its intention to have alto- 
 gether prohibited the work, on account of 
 some principles occurring in it repugnant to 
 Scripture, and to the Catholic interpretation 
 thereof, which the author, non per hypothesim 
 tractare, sed ut verissima adstruere non dubitat 
 a remarkable hint, which we shall find 
 afterwards improved it yet satisfied itself 
 with indicating passages to be amended or ex- 
 punged, which are specified for about a quarto 
 page of small print; rather an indulgence to 
 the author, and a risk to itself, as this speci- 
 fication, amounting to something like definite 
 expurgation, might, as it had before done, 
 in the instance of Brasichellen's Expurgatory, 
 expose it to difficulties. However, Copernicus 
 found his place in the coming Index in this 
 wise Nicolaus Copernicus de revolutioni- 
 bus orbium, nisi corrigatur, juxta Deer. 1620. 
 He kept his place to, and in, the penultimate 
 Index of 1819, where the entry is a little 
 enlarged ; and, under the name Copernicus, 
 giving the date of the day of the Decree by 
 which he was confixed, Maii 15, 1620. In
 
 20 
 
 the last Index he may be sought under either 
 Christian or Sirname, but will not be found. 
 
 The same is the fact with the third person 
 named as in the same predicament FOSCARINI. 
 His name is found up to the Index of Pius VII. 
 There he stands Foscarini Paolo Antonio. 
 Lettera supra Vopinione de Pittagorici, e del 
 Copernico della mobilitd della Terra, e stabilita 
 del Sole. Deer. 5 Martii, 1616. This item 
 has likewise taken its unceremonious flight.* 
 
 Thus, have the three prisoners in the pope's 
 literary gaol, the career ecclesia, very analogous 
 to the purgatory which his Church created, 
 most unexpectedly and quietly, obtained from 
 the consideration or policy of the reigning 
 pontiff, Gregory XVI., a happy release from 
 their protracted incarceration. His holiness 
 at last found that he detained them only to 
 plague himself; and, like Pharaoh, he thrust 
 them out in haste ; and certainly, with as little 
 noise and parade as possible. 
 
 These three illustrious prisoners, had they 
 returned to life in 1835, the year of their 
 
 * If the Dublin Reviewer bad any acquaintance with the 
 proscribing Indexes of his own Church, one might admire the 
 dovelike simplicity which dictated the sentence "Why, 
 then, it may be asked, was Galileo, and Galileo alone, 
 silenced?" P. 97.
 
 liberation, with no great violence of applica- 
 tion, might have adopted the language of the 
 chief Apostle and his companion, when, after 
 having been unjustly imprisoned as well as 
 punished, the attempt was dishonourably made 
 by the magistrates secretly to dismiss them, 
 "They have beaten us openly uncondemned, 
 being Romans, arid have cast us into prison ; 
 and now do they thrust us out privily ; nay 
 verily, but let them come themselves and fetch 
 us out." The effect was, that the magistrates 
 became suppliants.* His holiness has made 
 an equally intelligible confession of guilt. 
 
 This, and the other attempts of the friends 
 of Rome, to wipe away the Vandalic blot, which 
 her own ignorance and tyranny fixed upon 
 herself, are little likely to succeed, when the 
 self-interest of the procedure, and therefore 
 its motive, may so plainly be discovered. If 
 from a simple sense of justice and truth, 
 and not from the pain of continued disgrace, 
 she had thought fit to dismiss from her black 
 book the names of men of science, the severity 
 of censure in the intelligent observer would be 
 disarmed. But when no other consideration 
 seems to have stimulated the act, than that of 
 
 * Acts, xvi. 37-39.
 
 22 
 
 recovering lost or declining reputation, in order 
 that an impenitent and incorrigible deceiver 
 may continue her spiritual impositions with 
 less impediment, we hardly know whether 
 it is to the feeling of grief or to that of indig- 
 nation that we should give way. 
 
 If any hope of repelling the charge of 
 enmity to science, by any of the means made 
 use of, were for a moment entertained, it would 
 at once be laid prostrate by the necessity under 
 which certain Romish editors of Newton felt 
 themselves, to use the mask suggested in the 
 censure of Copernicus, and hold out the ap- 
 pearance of disbelieving a doctrine which it 
 was their business and their manifest design 
 to teach and recommend : and that, let the 
 reader well observe, not because the fate of 
 Galileo, as respects the proceedings of the In- 
 quisition, deterred them, (although that would 
 be a reasonable apprehension, and the conse- 
 quent caution natural,) but because they had 
 before their eyes the terror of the sentence still 
 in force in the Index, with its rules and 
 penalties against all who taught, at least pub- 
 licly, the condemned doctrine of Copernicus 
 respecting the solar system. They were ex- 
 pressly the Decrees of the high pontiffs in the
 
 23 
 
 Index which they dreaded violating, and 
 therefore betook themselves to an intelligible 
 
 O 
 
 fiction or evasion. 1 quote the words of the 
 extraordinary apology of these editors, from 
 the justly celebrated SPEECH OF SIR ROBERT 
 HARRY INGLIS, BART, on the Roman Catholic 
 Question, May 10th, 1825, a speech emi- 
 nently harmonising with the subject of the 
 present humble pages, and which, had it suc- 
 ceeded, as its merit and cogency entitled it to 
 do, perjury would not have obtained legislative 
 power, and the purified Christian Church 
 established in these realms would not have suf- 
 fered the actual damage which she has sus- 
 tained, nor have to dread the future increas- 
 ing assaults for which she must now prepare. 
 We do, indeed, looking above the things in 
 our little orb, wrap up all in submission to 
 His will, who cannot be otherwise than just, 
 and to those who humble themselves under 
 His hand will be merciful. The quotation 
 which is to be laid before the reader is the 
 following: P. P. Le Seur et Jacquier De- 
 claratio. Newtonus in hoc tertio Libro telluris 
 motse hypothesim assumit. Autoris proposi- 
 tiones aliter explicari non poterant, nisi eadem 
 quoque facta hypothesi. Hinc alienam coacti
 
 24 
 
 sumus gerere personam. Cceterura latis a sum- 
 mis Pontificibus contra telluris motum Decretis 
 nos obsequi profitemur. Tom. iii. Genev. 
 1742. Speech, pp. 18, 19, note. No one 
 can be so hoodwinked as not to perceive that, 
 in the view of these learned men, science was 
 under a restraint which could not be resisted, 
 and a restraint so disgraceful as to render 
 hypocrisy necessary ; and none but such can 
 avoid seeing, that the restraint is, and was 
 created, by the existing force and operation of 
 the Decree of the Index. But the fact speaks 
 for itself.* How is it possible to conceive, that 
 the pope and his cardinal council, should put 
 such importance upon the erasure of three 
 names from his Prohibitory Index, which had 
 stood there, firm as rocks, for three centuries, 
 as to run the high hazard of exposure of the 
 clandestine proceeding, and the disgrace of 
 publicly repealing his own decree without any 
 new or honest reason, unless he were inwardly 
 and sufficiently conscious that the main 
 strength of the existing evidence against him 
 lay in that Index ? This is plainly one of the 
 
 * The example of Galileo put some apprehension into Des- 
 cartes. See HALLAM'S Introduction to the Literature of Europe, 
 vol. iv. pp. 30, 31.
 
 25 
 
 reasons, if not the principal, why so strong an 
 effort is now made by Papal advocates to shift 
 the trial to a new around, where an inferior 
 
 *x 
 
 tribunal is concerned ; where the facts are dis- 
 tant and may be supposed to be comparatively 
 obsolete ; and w r here the case is confined to 
 the person of one mart, instead of embracing, not 
 only two other persons equally and by name im- 
 plicated, but the vast, unlimited mass of those 
 who are included in the general and sweeping 
 condemnation of all who teach the obnoxious 
 philosophy. As the Index of Rome stood, up 
 to the present time, or 1835, every baptized 
 individual who dared to believe and teach that 
 the earth and other planets revolve round the 
 sun, and that the sun does not make all sorts 
 of eccentric revolutions round them, was sub- 
 ject to the literary ban of the Roman Church, 
 and, what was an infinitely more important 
 concern to him, to all the specified penalties 
 which she could inflict. This would be no 
 enviable predicament, where that church had 
 power, and inducement to use it. 
 
 It will be useful, though not necessary, to 
 visit the new ground chosen by the adversary, 
 and to remain some time upon it, if for no 
 other reason, to expose and put for good to 
 
 c
 
 26 
 
 shame the sophistication which has been prac- 
 tised upon it. 
 
 The defence set up for the Roman Church 
 in her treatment of Galileo, is, that it was in- 
 flicted, not for his adopted system of Coperni- 
 cus, but for his insisting that the system was re- 
 concilable with Scripture. It was to be expected 
 no other expectation is admissible that he 
 would frame his defence so as most directly to 
 meet the charge brought against him, which 
 was, that his hypothesis was repugnant to 
 Scripture. If able, he certainly would feel in- 
 clined to justify himself, by at least attempting 
 to prove that this was not the fact. And it 
 was natural, though of no importance as to the 
 substantial charge, that he should repel the 
 imputation with some warmth, particularly if he 
 were a man of sanguine temperature, which 
 appears to have been the case. The mode just 
 mentioned of defending the apostolic character 
 and proceeding in the present instance has 
 been made popular of late by BERGIER, in 
 his Encyclopedic Methodique, article, Sciences 
 Humaines. 
 
 To understand its value it is necessary to 
 examine the life of Galileo, in the portion con- 
 cerned, with some minuteness. Perhaps, the
 
 27 
 
 best biography which we possess of this eminent 
 man in our own language is that which forms 
 a part of the Library of Useful Knowledge, sup- 
 posed, and I believe generally admitted, to 
 have been written by the late Mr. DRINK- 
 WATER BETHUNE. His account, where it con- 
 cerns the subject of the present inquiry, has 
 been criticised with the asperity, petulance, 
 and flippancy, which might be expected from 
 a writer in the Dublin Review. The critic 
 alluded to is reported to be the Rev. PETER 
 COOPER, curate to the Papal usurper of the title 
 of Archbishop of Dublin, and the volume in 
 which the criticism appears is that for 1838, 
 No. IX. 
 
 Galileo, whatever might be the circum- 
 stances, was condemned by the Inquisition for 
 his Copernicism ; and his condemnation, and 
 consequent abjuration, are given at length, and, 
 I believe, with perfect accuracy, by Mr. D. B., 
 in the thirteenth chapter of his biography, pp. 
 55-64. The original documents, as I have 
 been informed by a very competent friend, not 
 having the work in my own possession, are 
 to be seen in VENTURI'S Memoric e Lettere 
 di Galileo Galilei, Modena, torn. ii. pp. 
 170-176.
 
 28 
 
 A Life and Letters of Galileo were pub- 
 lished in Italian, in a series, at Venice in 1826. 
 The Life occupies the first place, and is sup- 
 plied by a friend of his, Vincenzio Viviani, in 
 the form of a letter to the Duke of Tuscany. 
 The letter, of course, is a long one, and about 
 the middle of it the writer introduces the ob- 
 noxious tenet of his friend, which he himself 
 affects to condemn. The narrative then pro- 
 ceeds to Galileo's summons to Rome in 1632, 
 and the gentle treatment which he received 
 from the pontiff, Urban VIII. He, however, 
 was obliged to retract his error ; and his 
 Dialogue, which contained it, was prohibited. 
 He was likewise put in easy confinement in dif- 
 ferent places, the last of which was Arcetri 
 on many accounts acceptable to him. His 
 biographer proceeds to write, that the Dialogue 
 had been translated into various European lan- 
 guages, and that therefore it was impossible to 
 suppress the error, a circumstance very mor- 
 tifying to Galileo. So much for the Life. 
 
 The Letters are more promising. The first, 
 which immediately concerns the objection to the 
 offensive doctrine, is to P. B. Castelli, dated 
 Firenze, 21 Dicemb. 1613. Galileo there 
 mentions the inquiry of the Grand Duchess of
 
 29 
 
 Tuscany on the subject, and the answers of his 
 Paternity to them ; suggesting, with respect to 
 the Scriptures, that he might have represented 
 them as not always to be interpreted literally ; 
 as, for instance, when human members and 
 human affections are ascribed to the Deity. 
 He adds, that the Bible was intended to in- 
 struct mankind in the way of salvation, and not 
 philosophy, otherwise it would have been more 
 copious on that subject. He afterwards adverts 
 to the miracle of Joshua, and contends, that it 
 is as consistent with his hypothesis as the 
 opposite. 
 
 Some other topics of defence are added. 
 
 The biographer of Galileo (ch. xi. pp. 46, 47) 
 gives an extract from a letter of his to the 
 Grand Duchess, where he recommends his op- 
 ponents to examine themselves the arguments 
 on the subject of his philosophy, and leave the 
 condemning them as erroneous and heretical to 
 whom it belongs ; but he trusts that the caution 
 of the holy fathers, and the absolute wisdom of 
 Him who cannot err, will preserve them from 
 such temerity. In such positions, which are 
 not articles of faith, no man, he says, " doubts 
 but his Holiness hath always an absolute power 
 of admitting or condemning them, but it is not
 
 30 
 
 in the power of any creature to make them to 
 be true or false, otherwise than of their own 
 nature, and in fact they are." The author, 
 Mr. D. B., immediately subjoins : " We have 
 been more particular in extracting these pass- 
 ages, because it has been advanced by a writer 
 of high reputation, that the treatment which 
 Galileo subsequently experienced was solely in 
 consequence of his persisting in the endeavour 
 to prove that the Scriptures were reconcilable 
 with the Copernican theory, whereas we see 
 here distinctly that, for the reasons we have 
 briefly stated, he regarded this as a matter 
 altogether indifferent, and beside the question." 
 Bergier is referred to, and the passage quoted 
 in a note. It will be seen in the sequel why I 
 have introduced this extract. I wish Mr. 
 D. B. had shewn himself better acquainted 
 with the Roman Indexes than the note, p. 59, 
 discovers him to have been. It would, as the 
 reader will have seen, have strengthened his 
 argument abundantly and even conclusively. 
 
 The next letter, February 16, 1614, ob- 
 serves, with respect to the preceding, that it was 
 written currente calamo ; and the writer adds, 
 that he had shewn more zeal for the Church 
 and for the dignity of the Scriptures than his
 
 31 
 
 adversaries had done, since they desired the 
 prohibition of a book [meaning Copernicus's], 
 permitted so many years by the Church without 
 having seen it, much less read and understood 
 it. And concerning Copernicus, he continues, 
 that he was a Catholic and canon of the Church, 
 called to the last Lateran Council under Leo X., 
 to assist in a reform of the Calendar, and that 
 he settled every thing upon the new system, 
 and dedicating the book in which it appeared 
 to Paul III., without exciting any scruples; 
 and now the good monks reward his labours 
 by getting him declared a heretic. But 
 the jest of the charge was, that he (Gali- 
 leo) had the credit of a doctrine which be- 
 longed, not to a living Florentine, but to a 
 dead German, who published it seventy years 
 ago, dedicating the work to the chief pontiff. 
 The writer, before he closes, expresses his 
 supreme submission to his superiors. 
 
 Galileo had the odium philosophicum, as 
 well as the odium theologicum, to contend with, 
 of both of which he complains with some 
 warmth in letters written in 1616.* 
 
 * Dr. PRIESTLEV, in the Preface to the first volume of his 
 Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit, writes, " The most
 
 32 
 
 In one of the 12th of March in the same 
 year, from Rome, writing' to the secretary of 
 the Grand Duke, he says, that the Congrega- 
 tion of the Index had determined, that the 
 opinion of Copernicus was not in unison with 
 the Scriptures, and that the work should be 
 suspended donee corrigatur ; but that, the cor- 
 rection made, nothing more would be objected 
 to, except the intimation in the preface, that 
 his opinion was not at variance with Scripture, 
 and the end of the tenth chapter of the first 
 book, where he says of his system, such is the 
 Divine fabric of the Most High. Galileo 
 waited upon his holiness, who received him 
 most graciously, and declared that he and 
 his Congregation would admit no charge of 
 his enemies against him lightly. 
 
 In the following letter to the Grand Duke, 
 dated Firenze, May 23, 1618, keeping to the 
 same subject, he professes (with obvious irony) 
 the profound submission of his weakness to 
 the superior intelligence of his censors, and 
 talks of his theory as a poem or a dream : but, 
 adds he, as poets value their own fancies, so he 
 
 rancorous opposition, and the most unprovoked abuse that I 
 have met with, has been from persons who never knew any 
 thing of me but in the character of a philosopher."
 
 33 
 
 has some esteem for his trifle or chimera. He 
 thought that, as Copernicus had been left un- 
 touched for about eighty years, he might hope 
 to escape : but a celestial voice dissipated the 
 whole vision. 
 
 A subsequent letter, dated Bellosguardo, 
 March 7, 1631, to the Secretary of the Grand 
 Duke, states that the writer had submitted 
 his work, containing the Copernican doctrine, 
 to the Master of the Sacred Palace, previously 
 to publication at Rome, and that the latter had 
 given his license with his own hand. He was, 
 however, prevented from printing there by the 
 death of his friend, Cesi, head of the Academy 
 de' Lincei, and determined to print it where 
 he was. Upon that the Master of the Sacred 
 Palace wished to have another sight of the 
 work, which was rather inconvenient ; and a 
 consultor of the Inquisition was appointed to 
 revise it on the spot, which he did with ex- 
 treme scrupulosity, and earnestly advised the 
 publication. There were, however, delays 
 from Rome, where fresh authority was wanted, 
 and this discomposed the writer. 
 
 The work, nevertheless, was published [at 
 Florence in 1632, 4to.] ; for in a letter in De- 
 cember of 1633, Galileo writes to V. Renieri 
 c2
 
 some account of what followed, particularly his 
 audience before the officials 'of the Inquisition. 
 He was lodged in a delicious palace near the 
 Tuscan Ambassador's, and thence by the Com- 
 missary of the Inquisition was conveyed to the 
 palace of the Holy Office, with many efforts on 
 the way to convince him of the scandal given 
 by his opinion. Here others beset him, and 
 particularly with Scripture, which he answered 
 in the usual way; but puzzled his examiners with 
 an unexpected passage from Job, at which they 
 shrugged up their shoulders (solito refugi o di 
 chi e persuaso per prejudizio e per anticipata 
 opinione). " Finally," lie says, " I was obliged, 
 as a true Catholic, to retract my opinion, and 
 for a punishment my Dialogue was pro- 
 hibited,"* &c. After five months he left 
 Rome, and came to Florence ; thence he pro- 
 ceeded to Bellosguardo, and lastly to Arcetri, 
 whence the letter is dated. 
 
 Omitting some following letters of just com- 
 plaint, I will conclude with one from Arcetri, 
 where he still was, of the year 1637, to the 
 
 * Finalmente, fni obbligato di ritrattare come vero Catolico 
 mia opinione, e in pena mi fu proibito il Dialogo, &c. The 
 latter clnuse has been falsely, and apparently with design, 
 translated " as a punishment T have been deprived of the 
 Dialogues."
 
 35 
 
 King of Poland. It concerns a philosophical 
 commission, which, the writer says, he had 
 executed as well as he could, considering he 
 was still in the prison where he had continued 
 for three years, by order of the Holy Office, for 
 having printed the Dialogue concerning the 
 two systems, although with the license of the 
 same Office, that is, of the Master of the Sacred 
 Palace in Rome. This, and other similar 
 books, he knew were seen by his Majesty and 
 his savans, who could therefore judge, whether 
 there were in them doctrine more scandalous, 
 more detestable, and more pernicious to Christ- 
 ianity, than is contained in the books of Cal- 
 vin and Luther, and all the other heresiarchs 
 put together. This opinion, however, was so 
 impressed upon the mind of the pope, that the 
 book remained prohibited, and himself was af- 
 flicted with ignominy, and condemned to prison 
 at the will of his holiness; "which," he adds 
 "will be for ever. But whither is passion 
 transporting me? I return to the lenses," &c.* 
 
 * restando in tuttavia nella carcere, dove da tre 
 
 anni * * * * sebbeue con la licenza del medesimo S. 
 Officio, doe del maestro. * * * * eppure questo concetto 
 e stato talmente impressionato nella mente del papa, che il libro 
 resta proibito, ed io con ignominia afflitto e condannato alia 
 carcere ad arbitrio di sua Santita, che sara in perpetuo. Ma
 
 36 
 
 It may, perhaps, appear to the reader of 
 these few extracts, that the punishment in- 
 flicted upon the philosopher was, in his esti- 
 mation, not quite so gentle as is sometimes 
 represented. It will appear, likewise, that 
 they recognise two different, but harmonious, 
 proceedings, by two principal organs of author- 
 ity in his own Church the Congregation of 
 the Index, and the Congregation, or Tribunal, 
 of the Inquisition, at the head of both of which 
 is his holiness himself, of the latter as sole 
 prefect.* It is with the latter we are now 
 concerned ; and the extracts which have been 
 given plainly enough prove, that the real 
 charge against Galileo was, his assertion and 
 publication of the Copernican system, and that 
 
 dove mi trasporta la passione ? Torno ai cristalli, &c. The 
 author has availed himself of former inquiries on this subject, 
 in an article which may be read in the Protestant Journal for 
 1834, pp. 65 and following a periodical which, with a few 
 exceptions, contains more well-founded discussion of matters 
 in controversy between the Churches of England and Rome 
 than is to be found iu any other periodical devoted to that 
 subject. 
 
 * Michele Ghislieri, before he ascended the Papal throne, 
 under the name of Pius V., " was appointed and named 
 Supreme Inquisitor ; a title and prerogative he was both the 
 first and the last to bear, the popes having ever after reserved 
 that distinction to themselves." Lije and Pontificate of St. 
 Pius V. p. 16.
 
 37 
 
 all other charges connected with it, were of a 
 merely circumstantial and secondary character. 
 It was a natural, almost necessary consequence, 
 that he should attempt to defend himself; and 
 this could be done in no manner more imagin- 
 able, and indeed unexceptionable, than by en- 
 deavouring to prove the consistency of his phi- 
 losophy with the Scriptures; and all the circum- 
 stances of the case were such as to make a man, 
 even not very choleric, shew temper. But all 
 this has no more to do with the sentence than, in 
 our country and times, it would constitute the 
 crime of a Socialist or Chartist who might 
 have committed some obvious breach of the 
 peace, that he attempted to justify his offence 
 by the principles of his society, or by Magna 
 Charta itself, if he could. Galileo might add 
 to the original and substantial offence by un- 
 suitable self-justification, and by provoking 
 those who had the law in their hands. Both 
 the vexatious enforcement of law, and com- 
 plete evasion of it, are frequently, in imper- 
 fect governments, civil or ecclesiastical, or 
 mixed, more the consequence of personal and 
 very unworthy motives than of the nature or 
 gravity of the offence legally visited more 
 the result of private resentment than of zeal
 
 38 
 
 for truth and justice : and by opportune sub- 
 mission Galileo might have passed smoothly 
 through all. But this is a very distinct thing 
 from the real and declared ground of the con- 
 demnation, as we shall soon see more fully. 
 I am not disposed to deny neither, that the 
 new doctrine would be likely to be ill received, 
 when it was, or those, who knew better, affected 
 to believe it to be, new, and strange, and anti- 
 scriptural. The Church of Rome was com- 
 mitted to an external, exoteric defence of her 
 own most reverenced writers, who were all 
 Ptolemaics. We may even sympathise with 
 her hard necessity, when we recollect the in- 
 genious hesitation with which a man, who had 
 no great fear or love of Rome, and no ex- 
 travagant respect for any other opinion than 
 his own, expresses himself in a poem which is 
 rewarded with a just immortality. Read the 
 beginning of the eighth book of MILTON'S 
 Paradise Lost.* But temptation to an act 
 
 * Milton evidently inclines to the Copernican system, and 
 as evidently strives to appear to prefer the Ptolemaic. The 
 whole, which discovers the versatility and vigour of his 
 powers in ornamenting a subject generally contenta doceri, 
 closes with the moral, good, where better applied, of not dis- 
 turbing ourselves with speculations beyond the sphere of our 
 capacities, and not directly or vitally connected with our actual 
 duty and happiness.
 
 39 
 
 does not at all alter the nature of the act. To 
 that we are to keep. The terms and evident 
 meaning of the document or sentence in ques- 
 tion are the simple and single point to be re- 
 garded. 
 
 Now, then, we come to the pages of the 
 English biographer of Galileo, and to the 
 chapter, already pointed out, where he gives 
 the condemuaton by the Inquisition in English 
 at length, though not for the first time, as he 
 erroneously supposed.* This document begins 
 with stating, that the offence for which Galileo 
 was denounced to the Holy Office was the 
 " holding as true a false doctrine, taught by 
 many ; namely, that the sun is immovable in 
 the centre of the world, and that the earth 
 moves, and also, with a diurnal motion ;" also, 
 for instructing pupils, &c. ; also, for corre- 
 spondence with some Germans ; also, for pub- 
 lishing certain letters, &c. ; " also, for answer- 
 ing the objections which were continually pro- 
 duced from the Holy Scriptures, by glozing 
 the said Scriptures according to his own mean- 
 
 * In DA COSTA 's interesting and instruct! ve Narrative of hit 
 own Persecution, pp. 107-114, is contained both the condemnation 
 and abjuration of Galileo. I do not know of an English trans- 
 lation of them elsewhere ; and I made reference to this in the 
 Literary Policy.
 
 40 
 
 ing ; and whereas," &c. The Inquisitors pro- 
 ceed to say, that by desire of his holiness and 
 the Cardinals of the Inquisition, "the two 
 propositions of the stability of the sun and 
 motion of the earth were gualified by the 
 Theological Qualificators, as follows: 
 
 " 1st. The proposition that the sun is in the 
 centre of the world, and immovable from its 
 place, is absurd, philosophically false, and 
 formally heretical; because it is expressly con- 
 trary to the Holy Scripture. 
 
 " 2ndly. The proposition, that the earth is 
 not the centre of the world, nor immovable, but 
 that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, 
 is also absurd, philosophically false, and theo- 
 logically considered, at least erroneous in 
 faith." 
 
 The prohibition by the Congregation of the 
 Index is referred to. The certificate which 
 the accused produced in his own behalf is 
 represented as aggravating his offence, because 
 it is there declared, that his " opinion is con- 
 trary to the Holy Scripture, and yet he had 
 dared to treat of it." Something is said of a 
 rigorous examination (rigoroso esame) which 
 it was necessary to use with him ; and in the 
 close his judges pronounce him to "have
 
 rendered himself vehemently suspected by the 
 Holy Office of heresy : that is to say, that he 
 believes and holds the false doctrine, and 
 contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures, 
 namely, that the sun is the centre of the 
 world, and that it does not move from east 
 to west, and that the earth does move, and is 
 not the centre of the world." They conclude 
 by enjoining abjuration, and by decreeing that 
 the Dialogue be prohibited by a public edict, 
 and Galileo be imprisoned in the Holy Office 
 at the pleasure of the Inquisitors, and for 
 penance to recite the seven penitential psalms. 
 Seven cardinals subscribe. Of the tremen- 
 dously disgraceful Abjuration we say nothing. 
 The date of the vile transaction was June 20, 
 1633. 
 
 Now, nothing from this document can be 
 plainer than, that the pope, at the head of the 
 Holy Office, condemned the Copernican doc- 
 trine of the solar system per se ; that they con- 
 demned it as formally heretical, or, at least, 
 erroneous in faith at the least, such because 
 contrary to Scripture ; and that the publisher 
 of the doctrine was therefore vehemently sus- 
 pected of heresy, and, of course, liable to the 
 legal penalties, from which the guilty could
 
 42 
 
 not be absolved but by abjuration of the said 
 errors and heresies. 
 
 Several ways have been resorted to to save 
 the Church of Roms from the barbaric dis- 
 grace, not only of ignorance in the matter of 
 science, but of formal sentence against it. An 
 Italian, Tiraboschi, has drawn a subtle distinc- 
 tion between bulls of the pope and Inquisitorial 
 decrees sanctioned by him ; and Englishmen 
 have bethought themselves of solving the diffi- 
 culty by the intervention of technicality 
 every offence cognisable by the Holy Office 
 being, as they affirm, in technical language, 
 called heresy. True, the Office derived its 
 origin and designation from the character of 
 being conservators of the faith against here- 
 tical pravity. But is nothing heresy in this 
 jurisdiction ? and was there nothing in that 
 jurisdiction but heresy? To be sure, the 
 reading and keeping of prohibited books 
 savoured of heresy ; the polygamist might in 
 a sense be suspected of heresy ; usurpers of 
 the sacerdotal function might be esteemed 
 heretical; so likewise blasphemers, sooth- 
 sayers, astrologers, sorcerers, and Jews. But 
 what are we to say of confessors soliciting 
 their female penitents to incontinence, against
 
 43 
 
 which, with such inefficient success, so many 
 Papal provisions were found necessary to be 
 issued, and found so important a part of the 
 business of the Inquisition, that many, if not 
 most, Directories on the subject, either dis- 
 tinctly refer to, or place at full length, the 
 constitutions, or the last constitution, of one 
 or more popes, as it may happen, against so 
 foul, so probable, and so frequent an offence; 
 and the reader of the Rev. Mr. TOWNSEND'S 
 Travels in Spain will remember the defence 
 set up by some Spanish prelates for the Office, 
 namely, that it was the only effectual means of 
 restraining such profligacy ? It will be difficult 
 to qualify this as heresy. But in the case of 
 Galileo all is plain and above board. His new 
 system, that the earth and planets revolved 
 round the sun in our system, was deemed re- 
 pugnant to Scripture, and was therefore formal 
 heresy, and therefore condemned. The Inqui- 
 sitors were sufficiently learned in the laws of 
 the Holy Office, as well as of the Holy Church 
 in general ; and properly, and literally, with- 
 out artificial phraseology, or legal fiction of any 
 kind, they qualified the doctrine of their 
 victim as heresy. If satisfaction on this point 
 be wanted, it may be had to thejull in the
 
 44 
 
 Directorium Inquisitorum of NICOLAS EY- 
 MERIC.* Nothing more is necessary for the 
 matter of science, and Rome's condemnation 
 of it in the present case ; and any demur or 
 quibbling on the point is only not childish, 
 because it wants the simplicity of childhood, 
 confining ourselves even to the doings of the 
 Inquisition which is the least part. Quite 
 enough seems to have been said on this part 
 of the subject. If, then, to the sentence of the 
 Inquisition, during the lifetime of Galileo, we 
 add the explicit condemnations of the Index, 
 as they have been stated, from that time to the 
 year 1835, it is not too much to say, that 
 if the Church of Rome has the power, by any 
 acts of her own, to make herself responsible, 
 then assuredly, by what she has done through 
 these two great organs of her authority, she has 
 made herself responsible for a solemn, explicit, and 
 self-binding condemnation of the doctrine, now, 
 and for a long time universally received, that 
 
 * See, in the Roman edition of 1587, part ii., Quasi, de Her. 
 Pravit. Qutsst. ii. p. 233, where the fourth definition of an 
 heretical proposition is, that it is contrary to Scripture contra 
 Sacram Scripturam. What is found in Qua?st. iv. pp. 376, seqq. 
 will teach the reader the three degrees of comparison in sus- 
 picion of heresy. That de vehementi occupies the middle place, 
 and answers to magna.
 
 45 
 
 in the solar system the sun is the immovable 
 centre, and the earth, and all the other planets 
 in it, revoke round it. This doctrine was 
 originally by her qualified as heresy, and it 
 has been condemned in her most formal judi- 
 cial document on such subjects to the year 
 1835, at which time the condemnation was 
 surreptitiously, and to her own evident in- 
 terest, withdrawn by herself.* 
 
 * See HALLAM, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, vol. 
 iv. pp. 2831. I regret that a writer of such extensive learning 
 and research as Mr. Hallam should have so little instructed 
 himself on this subject as to write that some works of Galileo 
 and others were put " into the Index Eipurgatorius, where," 
 he continues, " I believe, they still remain." They never were 
 in the Index Expurgatorius, of which Rome acknowledges none 
 as her own, though, as appears in these pages, they were in the 
 Prohibitory Index, from which they were all carefully, though 
 silently, dismissed in the last Index. In a note, too, he has said 
 of Mr. Drinkvvater Bethune, that he " seems to be mistaken in 
 supposing that Galileo did not endeavour to prove his system 
 compatible with Scripture ;" and refers to the letter to the 
 Grand Duchess of Tuscany for proof. The biographer had, as. 
 we have seen, referred to the very letter, and pointed to the 
 very fact, proving its irrelevance. And in speaking of the 
 Dublin Reviewer with respect, he seems to have allowed his 
 complaisance to outrun his discrimination. 
 
 I may here likewise notice, how favourable an opportunity 
 Mr. II. lost of throwing decisive light upon so novel and in- 
 teresting a subject as the Papal restrictions upon literature in 
 vol. ii. pp. 507-510, " Index Expurgatorius of prohibited 
 books" is a self-contradiction : it is much the same as to talk 
 of administering an emetic or a cathartic to a man who is dead.
 
 46 
 
 The necessity, at this time in particular, of 
 exposing the disingenuous artifices and astute 
 policy of the Church of Rome, must be the 
 apology of this protracted investigation. I will, 
 
 That, in her prescriptive exploits, Rome " aimed a more deadly 
 blow at literature than perhaps she intended " is very doubtful. 
 The blows, indeed, which recoiled upon herself she did not, as 
 to that effect, at all intend. The Index of Paul IV. was not the 
 first of the papacy, even if we exclude the French and Belgic 
 efforts, as may be seen in accessible works, and such as contain 
 more and better information than should be expected in a writer, 
 however able, who was a century behind hand in the light which 
 has been since shed on the subject, I mean SCHELHORN, in the 
 eighth volume of his Amten. Lit. What relaxation took place in 
 the pontifical censures after PiusV. is not made clear, or whether 
 any. The search for restrictions in any degree equal, or simi- 
 lar, to the Papal, in the regulation of the Star Chamber under 
 Elizabeth in 1585, as they are given in HERBERT'S Ames, iii. 
 1 668, which were accompanied with no penalties worth a thought 
 in comparison with the Papal, and, at the same time, altogether 
 pretermitting those of Henry VIII., and particularly those of 
 Philip and Mary, which were eminently precise, extended, and 
 savage can hardly be designated by any terms which I should 
 wish to use. The writer has a right to his own views in 
 theology, and I have a right to say, that I think them 
 sometimes more distinguished by what is called philosophy than 
 accuracy. His assertion respecting Bossuet's Exposition, vol. 
 iv. p. 130, that it was " approved in the most formal manner 
 by Innocent XI.," is, indeed, what Bossuet himself asserts ; but 
 if Mr. H. means to say, that it was approved at all by that or 
 any pope, it certainly was not the fact ; and I invite him, or a 
 certain J. R. in the Gentleman's Magazine, to confute my 
 proof on the entire subject in the Literary Policy, &c. 
 pp. 218-232.
 
 47 
 
 however, yet farther trespass upon the reader's 
 patience to observe, that cunning men without 
 a conscience are never secure. Into what a 
 dilemma has the attempt to exculpate the 
 Church of Rome in this affair driven her 
 apologists ! That Church does not condemn the 
 philosophic doctrine, but on the contrary believes 
 it to be true ; by asserting, however, or barely 
 admitting, that, although true, it is repugnant 
 to Scripture, is it not a fair a necessary in- 
 ference, that in the view of the Church of 
 Rome Scripture is false? This, I fear, is not 
 an inference very alarming to some Romanists 
 they have still tradition, and then, without a 
 rival. I may be allowed to remark yet far- 
 ther, into what a forest of embarrassment the 
 present ominous erasure has cast the unfor- 
 tunate Church. For, if the doctrine, which by 
 one of her principal courts of judicature in mat- 
 ters of faith she has condemned as heresy, so 
 that the person vehemently suspected of that 
 doctrine is therefore vehemently suspected of 
 heresy, will it not follow, either that what was 
 heresy in the seventeenth century is not heresy 
 in the nineteenth ; or, that the Church has been 
 at one time or the other in error on a matter of 
 faith ; or, that an inerrable and unchangeable
 
 48 
 
 church can tolerate at any given time the 
 heresy which it reprobated two centuries 
 before?* 
 
 But to leave this part of the discussion, I 
 must be indulged yet shortly and finally to say, 
 that when the jealousy of Rome was so alive to 
 her scientific reputation, as it appears to have 
 been in 1835, pity it was that Monsignor 
 Niccola Wiseman, or whoever might be of his 
 
 * FERRARI, a writer of good and deserved repute, in his 
 Prompta Bi'iliotheca, under HEHETICUS, torn. iv. pp. 196-8, last 
 edition, is right orthodox in contending for the simple and for- 
 mal heresy of Galileo's doctrine in the judgment of the Roman 
 Church ; and he defends himself effectually by authorities of the 
 same Church. He has likewise the fairness to insert in a note 
 the objections of a ROMAN THEOLOGIAN, who infers from the 
 expression, " vehemently suspected of heresy," in Galileo's abju- 
 ration, that the philosopher was denounced, not as a heretic, 
 but on it/ as suspected of heresy, not sufficiently considering good, 
 easy, apologist that the main matter concerned, not the person, 
 but the thing not the heretic, whether more or less so, but the 
 heresy, the Copernican system. To do the objector, however, jus- 
 tice, he does not, like some moderns, shift the question from 
 the main one, to a simple accidental and subordinate the phi- 
 losopher's insisting upon the agreement of the denounced 
 opinion with Scripture, much less his passion or obstinacy in 
 justifying that opinion. We have no quibbling about techni- 
 calities. And it must likewise be added, he is perfectly silent 
 about the Index and its decrees. Ferrari was not at all con- 
 vinced by the logic of his corrector, but fortified his view of the 
 offence of Galileo being formal heresy, according to his Church, 
 with additional testimonies ; and he thus plainly established his 
 opinion.
 
 49 
 
 holiness's Council at the time, did not suggest 
 the adoption of the whole of Sir R. H. Inglis's 
 advice, and erase from the damnatory columns 
 of the Index, not only Galileo, with his work 
 and his doctrine, but the name and principal 
 work of the most celebrated father of British 
 science and philosophy ; and no longer suffer, 
 as in the last Index is the fact, the disgrace- 
 ful article to stand BACONUS (FRANCISCUS) 
 DE VERULAMIO. De dignitate, & augmentis 
 Scientiarum. Donee corrigatur. Deer. SAprilis 
 1669. Perhaps, it was an oversight. 
 
 We now proceed with the Gregorian Index. 
 A Mandate and a Monitum have been an- 
 nounced ; and they are both rather remarkable. 
 The Mandate is that of the pontiff, Leo XII., in 
 1825; and he there rouses the principal rulers 
 of the Roman Church to use their authority in 
 wresting from the hands of the faithful every 
 thing in literature which that Church deems 
 noxious and deadly ; evellere e manibus quod 
 noxium ac mortiferum. In the Monitum, the 
 Sacred Congregation reminds the same rulers, 
 specifying them according to their respective 
 rank as before, of the obligation of the Second 
 Rule of the Tridentine Index, concerning here- 
 tical books, and the universal condemnation by 
 
 D
 
 50 
 
 the Apostolic See of all versions of the condemned 
 books in all places, and under the same penal- 
 ties as the originals. The place referred to is 
 the Instruct of Clement VIII., prefixed to his 
 edition of the Index, vi., concerning pro- 
 hibited books. lidem [libri prohib.] quoque, in 
 quamcunque vertantur linguam, censeantur ab 
 eadem Sede, ubique gentium, sub eisdem pcenis 
 interdicti, et damnati. 
 
 Together with the Index of Gregory, I have 
 obtained possession of additional separate De- 
 crees, or Condemnations the word is Damna- 
 tio at length, to the number of nine. They 
 have all more or less interest. The second is 
 remarkably interesting. It is headed Damna- 
 tio ; and is a bull or breve of Gregory XVI., 
 condemning the works of the then late George 
 Hermes, professor of theology in the university 
 of Bonn, in Prussia. The date is September 26, 
 1835. This was followed up by a suitable De- 
 cree, dated January 7, 1836. The attention of 
 the British public has been particularly drawn 
 to this case, by a splendid, seasonable, and, 
 what is more, right-minded article, in the 
 12oth number of the Quarterly Review, en- 
 titled, " Papal Conspiracy Archbishop of 
 Cologne, &c." It there is made evident, that
 
 51 
 
 the condemnation of the Professor was, and 
 may still continue, a part of the regular con- 
 spiracy of the Church of Rome in these times, 
 to recover the dominion which she formerly 
 enjoyed under another Gregory, in modern 
 Europe, and particularly in Prussia, by the 
 agency of the newly elected, Jesuitic, perjured, 
 and traitorous Archbishop of Cologne, Clement 
 Augustus, Baron Droste. The character and 
 acts of this imitator of the ecclesiastical ambi- 
 tion and insolence of Saint Thomas Becket 
 of our country, is luminously exposed in the 
 fourteenth volume of the British Magazine.* 
 The condemnation of the Professor at Bonn 
 was procured from Rome before his elevation 
 to the archiepiscopate, ostensibly for works not 
 sufficiently favourable to Italian views of religi- 
 ous liberty that is, liberty to the Roman Church 
 
 * This great exemplar was not wanting in a specimen of 
 perjury. Matthew Paris, who was no enemy to him and his 
 cause in this instance, relates, that to the Sixteen Constitutions 
 of Clarendon, the archbishops, bishops, &c. juraverunt ; &c 
 firmiter in verbo veritatis promiserunt viva voce tenendas, & 
 observandas domino Regi, & haeredibus suis bona fide fy absque 
 malo ingenio in perpetuum. The archbishop himselt'in particu- 
 lar, it is said, eas observare/urame;ifo firmasset. He, however, 
 repented of his oath the next thing to violating it. And so 
 he did. The hypocrisy and perfidy began with penitence and 
 ostentatious demonstrations of it all in order suspendens se
 
 52 
 
 to invade and destroy the liberty of all others. 
 This scheme has been eagerly pushed by 
 the whole Papal power of late. Besides eulo- 
 gistic lives of Gregory VII. and Innocent III., 
 from the German and French press, (both, stars 
 of the first magnitude in the celestial sphere of 
 pontifical usurpation and arrogance,) we have 
 witnessed a French translation of Professor 
 RANKE'S History of the Popes of Rome, distin- 
 guished for its infidelity, and the insidious 
 attempt to make it subservient to present hopes 
 and acts entertained by the subjects and sol- 
 diers of the Pope. Simultaneously appeared an 
 article in the Dublin Review of the same ten- 
 dency, evidently aiming, from the character of 
 the former part of RANKE'S History, which 
 represents the reaction in favour of the Roman 
 power immediately succeeding the Reformation, 
 
 ab altaris officio, donee per confessionem & condignos poeniten- 
 tiae fructus, a summo Pontifice meruitdevotus absolvi. He ob- 
 tained his wishes, as soon as the boon was applied for, and his 
 lord, the pope, granted him at once, and in due form, the ab- 
 solution from his oath which was desired, giving as a reason 
 and justification, that the act was not voluntary a very intelli- 
 gible bonus to any hypocrisy for the good of the Papal Church. 
 It is ludicrous to wonder at any instance of perjury under simi- 
 lar circumstances in any true, especially ecclesiastical, son of 
 that Church. See MATTH. PARIS, Hist. Ang. Maj. under the 
 year 1164, or Watts's edition, 1640, pp. 101-2.
 
 53. 
 
 to revive the hopes and stimulate the efforts to 
 obtain a similar recovery in the present age ; 
 for, unfortunately, the course of prosperity was 
 not progressive, and therefore an attention to 
 the latter part of the history would not suit the 
 reviewer's purpose, and, of course, was neg- 
 lected. At the beginning of the year 1839, 
 hopes were so ardent on the subject, that the 
 two Papal Annuals in this country had, both, 
 given prepossessing likenesses of the Prussian 
 Becket, the second hope of the Romish world ; 
 and one of them gave a biography very cheer- 
 ing ; the other, either prudently or fortunately, 
 kept back its biography to another year : and 
 in the beginning of the year 1840, the editors 
 of the two annuals, supposing it more conso- 
 nant to the appearance of Catholic unity, to 
 compose their former apparent rivalry, joined 
 hands, and the circumstance afforded an 
 honourable pretence for neglected perform- 
 ance of a promise. Late events explain all. 
 There is subjoined to the second Decretum con- 
 demnatory of Hermes, and the works of other 
 authors, a Monition which will engage parti- 
 cular notice. But we will first despatch an 
 article or two, that we may have uninterrupted 
 freedom to attend to it. In a Decree of Sep-
 
 tember 1836, the Italian version of M'CRIE'S 
 Progress and Suppression of the Reformation 
 in Italy takes its place with other criminals. 
 Another of the 4th of July, 1837, proscribes the 
 Biografia di Fra Paolo Sarpi di A. BIANCHI- 
 GIOVINI ; and likewise his Scelte lettere inedite. 
 A Decree, dated May 2, 1838, claims parti- 
 cular notice, and the reader has already been 
 prepared for it Consider -azioni imparziali 
 sopra la legge del Celibato Ecclesiastico e sul 
 voto solenne di castitd proposte segretamente ai 
 consigJieri, e Legislatori degli stati Cattolici dal 
 prof'essore. C. A. P. This notice attests the 
 compulsory celibacy of the Romish Clergy, and 
 the remonstrances against it. Of the policy of 
 the law there can be no secret or doubt. To 
 have a body, with no local or family attachment, 
 with no diversion of effort or property, devoted 
 to the service of their spiritual sovereign, though 
 at the tremendous expense of morally certain 
 profligacy of the most detestable description, is 
 just the same policy as is pursued by the Turk 
 in the institution of the military order of Janiza- 
 ries men taken into the service at an agre, 
 
 O * 
 
 when all attachments may be easily overcome, 
 denied marriage except at the will of their offi- 
 cer, which is equivalent to absolute prohibition,
 
 55 
 
 or compulsory celibacy, and with all the fearful 
 liabilities, if not certainties, incident to such 
 unnatural restraint. Religion and morality 
 join in demanding its instant and eternal aboli- 
 tion : but policy in the Roman Church insists 
 upon its continuance. Never was the spiritual 
 prostitute more consistent Qualis ab incepto. 
 
 I will now give the Monitnm which has 
 already been noticed. 
 
 MONITUM. 
 
 Cum ad S. Congregationem certe relatum fuerit, 
 Sacratissimos Bibliorum Libros Vulgar! sermone 
 nonnullis in locis typis edi, quin saluberrimee de ea 
 re leges serventur, cumque hide pertimescendum sit, 
 ne, quae hominum nequam hisce prsesertim tempori- 
 bus conspiratio est, errores sanction divini Eloquii 
 apparatu obvoluti perperam insinuentur ; censuit 
 eadem S. Congregatio, revocanda iterum esse in 
 omnium memoriam, quse alias decreta sunt, vernacu- 
 las nimirum Bibliorum versiones non esse permitten- 
 das, nisi qua fuerint ab Apostolica Sede adprobatce, 
 aut cum adnotationibus editce desumptis ex Sanctis 
 Ecclesiae Patribus vel ex doctis Catholicisque viris 
 (ex deer. S. Congr. Ind. 15. Jun. 1757. in addit. 
 ad Reg. Ind.) : iis praeterea omnino insistendum, 
 quse per Reguiam quartam Indicis, et deinceps ex
 
 56 
 
 mandate S. M. dementis VIII. in earn causam 
 prsestituta fuerunt. 
 
 I give a translation in English of the above, 
 that the English reader may have an accurate 
 notion of the simple and unqualified love of 
 the present head of the Roman Church for the 
 Scriptures, and for their most extensive and 
 unfettered diffusion. 
 
 " NOTICE. 
 
 " Since the Sacred Congregation has been cer- 
 tainly informed, that the most sacred books of the 
 Scriptures have in some places been printed in the 
 Vulgar tongue, because the most salutary laws on that 
 subject are not observed, and since it may thence be 
 apprehended, such is the conspiracy of wicked men, 
 particularly in these times, that errors, clothed in the 
 sanctified garb of the Divine oracles, may be mis- 
 chievously insinuated ; the same Sacred Congrega- 
 tion has determined again to recall to the memory of 
 all, what has been elsewhere decreed, namely, that 
 no vernacular versions of the Scriptures are to be 
 permitted, but such as have been approved by the 
 Apostolic see, or are accompanied with annotations 
 taken out of the Holy Fathers of the Church or 
 learned and Catholic men, (from the Decree of the 
 Sacred Congregation of the Index, June 15, 1757,) 
 [in the addition to the Rules of the Index :] besides,
 
 57 
 
 those regulations are especially to be insisted on, 
 which were set forth in the Fourth Rule of the In- 
 dex, and afterwards by command of Clement VIII., 
 of holy memory "* 
 
 Here we have the cloven foot of Rome, 
 which is so essential to her being, and yet so 
 important for her to conceal. The Sacred Con- 
 gregation was visibly and not moderately 
 alarmed by the vernacular versions of the Scrip- 
 tures, made by a " conspiracy" of what have 
 the honour to be called by her, " wicked men ;" 
 and, in consequence, it urgently calls the at- 
 tention of " all," to a former Decree of June 
 15, 1757, which declares, that no vernacular 
 versions of the Holy Scriptures are permitted 
 but such as are approved by the Holy See, or 
 accompanied with annotations from the Fathers 
 and learned doctors of the Roman Church, in- 
 sisting particularly upon the observation of the 
 Fourth Rule of the Tridentine Index. This, with 
 the various outstanding condemnations of all 
 vernacular translations of the Scriptures by the 
 
 At the anniversary of the Bath Protestant Association, 
 May 1, 1840, the Rev. Mr. M'GHEE introduced a notice of the 
 whole Index of Gregory, and this Motritum in particular, with 
 so much effect, that I should have felt gratified to transcribe 
 that portion of his triumphant speech entire. 
 
 D2
 
 58 
 
 Indexes of every pontificate, the breves of 1816 
 to the prelates of Mohilow and Gnezn, denied, 
 till they were recognised by subsequent Papal 
 authority,* together with the authorised Bible- 
 burnings and Bible-buryings-f- of Ireland, may 
 serve to illustrate, in a manner which would 
 charm Dr. Wiseman, " the Catholic's love for 
 the Bible." In spite of all that Protestants 
 hear on this side the sea, in Italy, the seat of 
 orthodoxy, the centre of catholicity, the Rules 
 of the Index, (sanctioned, by anticipation and 
 
 * The facts bere mentioned are stated in full and substan- 
 tiated in an article of the Church.of-England Quarterly Review, 
 vol. i. pp. 53-67, entitled, Treatment of the Sacred Scriptures by 
 the Modern Church of Rome. See, particularly, pp. 64-66. I 
 acknowledge myself the writer of that article. The Fourth 
 Rule of the Index against the Bible has been more repeatedly 
 and vigorously backed, by Bulls and Encyclical Epistles, &c., 
 than almost any other law of the Roman Church. It is puerile, 
 though it may be politic, to deny this. 
 
 f See, for a signal instance, not only of the hurying, hut of 
 an episcopal sanction of the loathsome act, J. K. L., or the late 
 Dr. DOYLE'S Letters on the State of Ireland, 1825, the " not-a- 
 Protest<mt-alive " year, pp. 179-182. The burnings I have 
 been weary, from the multitude, of noting down. But I will 
 give a few references: Record, 1836, Nov. 24; Protestant 
 Journal for 1834 and 1835, see Indexes; for 1836, p. 128; 
 for 1837, pp. 279, &c. ; O'SULLIVAN'S Speeches, 201 ; and just 
 now in the Report of the Bible Society for 1840, Appendii, 
 pp. 63, 70. But any references are superfluous : it is the plain 
 duty of a thorough-paced Papist, as such , to treat the Bible, par-
 
 59 
 
 responsibility, by the Council of Trent, the 
 most binding of all the Roman Councils, as 
 being the last esteemed ecumenical,) and 
 the fourth anti-biblical one in particular, are 
 esteemed as of universal force throughout the 
 
 o 
 
 whole extent of Papal Christendom. But the 
 truth is, here, in England, the advocates of 
 Rome may talk as largely and boldly as lan- 
 guage will permit them, of the free allowance 
 of the perusal of the Scriptures to the members 
 of her Church. The liberty she gives them is 
 that of doing whatever she pleases. She has the 
 
 ticularly a Protestant translation, in this hostile and brutal manner. 
 God forgive and convert ! As respects the burning part of the Pa- 
 pal Catholic's love for the Scriptures, the reader may be referred 
 to a valuable tract or epistle of J. R. KIESI.INO, entitled, DePcena 
 ignis in Tabularum Sacrarum Versiones a Romanensibus constitute, 
 insigni Scriptures Sacrce Contemptus Teste. [Lipsiae] 1749. In all 
 persecutions of seceders from Popery by Papists, the rage of the 
 latter against the Bible is critically and pre-eminently conspicu- 
 ous. I bavebeen lookingthrough the two accounts of the persecu- 
 tion and exile of the Protestants in the archbishopric of Saltzburg, 
 about a century ago, and of which a signal repetition has just row- 
 been given in nearly the same place, and under the same circum- 
 stances, particularly the asylum afforded by the same prince, as 
 the English reader can hardly fail to have learned from the in- 
 teresting translation of the Exiles of Zillerthal: and there, par- 
 ticularly in the second part, it appears, how faithfully the 
 executioners of the commands of the main persecutor, the 
 archiepiscopal sovereign, took care to discover and destroy all 
 prohibited books, but especially as the root of the evil the 
 Sacred Scriptures !
 
 60 
 
 reins sufficiently in her own hands. It is hers 
 to determine, who are the persons fit to be in- 
 trusted with the liberty in question ; and she 
 needs no more. Confessors manage the business 
 ultimately ; and it is their office to make author- 
 itative inquiries. Real liberty in this respect 
 requires no provisions at all. And such is the 
 condition of things in simply Christian Britain. 
 What, then, mean the multiplied, the minute, 
 the rigid, the jealous, the varying regulations 
 in the Church of Rome ? In connexion with the 
 profession, that she imposes no restraint upon 
 the reading of the Scriptures, they are vile 
 hypocrisy, and nothing other or less. But 
 while the cloven foot is an essential member of 
 Rome, we are thankful to her for occasionally 
 shewing it. No : she does not enforce her Bibli- 
 cal restrictions. We do not accuse her of doing 
 what she cannot. And as little do we accuse 
 her of publishing the wish, when by the same 
 act she would publish her impotence as well as 
 excite alarm and counteraction.* 
 
 * There is a Papal document, which Roman apologists are 
 much accustomed to appeal to, and use, as the most triumphant 
 confutation of the alleged calumny of Protestants in the charge 
 of the latter, that the Church of Rome discourages and restricts 
 the free perusal of the Scriptures. 
 
 This document is the letter of Pope Pius VI. to Martini,
 
 61 
 
 It will be proper here in a few words to 
 notice the reprint of the edition of the Index, 
 which is the subject of the present publication, 
 at Mechlin, in the year 1838. The title is, 
 Index Librorum Prohibitorum juxta Exemplar 
 
 subsequently Archbishop of Florence, on the presentation of an 
 Italian translation of the Scriptures, by the translator, to the 
 head of the Church. And I give it entire, making a division 
 into two parts, for a purpose which will appear. It is given 
 in an English translation, and 1 copy it from the Cathoiicon, 
 for 1817, vol. iir. pp. 71-73. 
 
 " POPE PIUS THE SIXTH. 
 
 " Beloved Son, Health and Apostolical Benediction. 
 
 " At a time that a vast number of bad books, which most 
 grossly attack the Catholic religion, are circulated even among 
 the unlearned, to the great destruction of souls, you judge ex- 
 ceedingly well, that the faithful should be excited to the read- 
 ing of the Holy Scriptures, for these are the most abundant 
 sources, which ought to be left open to every one, to draw 
 from them purity of morals and of doctrine, to eradicate the 
 errors which are so widely disseminated in these corrupt times. 
 
 " This you have seasonably effected, as you declare, by 
 publishing the sacred writings in the language of your coun- 
 try, suitable to every one's capacity ; especially when you 
 shew and set forth, that you have added explanatory notes, 
 which, being extracted from the holy Fathers, preclude every 
 possible danger of abuse. Thus you have not swerved from 
 the laws of the Congregation of the Index, or from the Con- 
 stitution published on this subject by Benedict XIV., that im- 
 mortal Pope, our predecessor in the Pontificate, and formerlv, 
 when we held a place near his person, our excellent master, in 
 ecclesiastical learning ; circumstances which we mention as 
 honourable to us. We, therefore, applaud your eminent learn- 
 ing, joined with your extraordinary piety, and we return you
 
 62 
 
 Romanum Jussu Sanctissimi Domini nostri, 
 editum Anno MDCCCX. Accesserunt suis locis 
 nomina eorum qui usque ad lianc diem damnati 
 fuere. Mechlinise, P. J. Hanicq. Typogr. 
 Archiep. Mechl. 1838. The date of MDCCCX. 
 
 our due acknowledgments for the books which you have 
 transmitted to us, and which, when convenient, we will read 
 over. In the meantime, as a token of our Pontifical bene- 
 volence, receive our Apostolical benediction, which to you, 
 beloved son, we very affectionately impart. Given at Rome, 
 on the Calends of April, 1778, the fourth of our Pontificate. 
 PHILIP BUONAMICI. 
 
 " Latin Secretary. 
 "To our Beloved Son, Antony Martini, at Turin." 
 
 The correspondent of the Catholicon is quite elevated with 
 this document, and calls it " a Goliah ; a practical and unan- 
 swerable argument, which speaks of itself volumes" true, in 
 another sense than that intended ; for Martini's translation, 
 meant doubtless for every cottage in Italy, extended to twenty- 
 three quarto volumes. He asserts, and there is no question of 
 his accuracy, that to some editions of the English Papal Scrip- 
 tures this letter was prefixed entire. This, however, was not 
 the case in later times, succeeding those of the writer ; for in 
 some Irish editions, the first half only was used, and for very 
 obvious reasons. It was seen plainly enough, that the second 
 part quite undid the first, considered as a proof of the com- 
 plete unrestricted allowance of the Scriptures by the Roman 
 authorities. A very late convert to Popery, Sir Charles 
 Wolseley, was allowed by his new superiors, into whose 
 clutches he no sooner got than he fled out of them, to make 
 the assertion, that this, meaning the first half of Martini's letter, 
 was prefixed to every copy of the Roman Catholic Scriptures. 
 This was proved to be false by inquiry made in Bath par- 
 ticularly, by the Rev. Mr. Bedford ; an account of which
 
 63 
 
 for MDCCCXXXV. is a strange and very dis- 
 creditable oversight, (for I impute no worse) ; 
 when it is perfectly plain, that the edition 
 reprinted is the last Roman one. The address 
 to the reader by Fr. Thomas Antoninus Des- 
 
 appeared in the British Magazine, for 1839, and was copied in 
 the Record. 
 
 But let the reader observe how this mutilation and impo- 
 sition was taken by some of those, and not of the lowest au- 
 thority, whom it was meant to serve. First, we have the Ursa 
 Major of the Midland District, Dr. Milner, who, in his Inquiry 
 into the Vulgar Opinions concerning the Irish Catholics, p. 441, 
 writes, " Among other pious frauds of the Bible Societies in 
 Ireland, in order to trick the Catholic inhabitants out of their 
 religion," &c. " For this purpose they have published and 
 circulated among the Catholic poor a garbled and corrupt 
 translation of a letter from Pope Pius VI. to MARTINI, of 
 Florence, in commendation of bis translation of the Scriptures 
 into Italian. But they have taken care to suppress the passages 
 in which his holiness enforces the rules of the Index, and 
 praises the work for having notes to explain difficult passages 
 conformably to the doctrines of the holy Fathers : in fact, it 
 consists of twenty-three quarto volumes." Whether the Bible 
 Society did any thing of this kind I know not : but it is noto- 
 rious that it was done by Popish editors, who thought it " an 
 ingenious device,'' and deserving, not of rebuke, but commenda- 
 tion, from their superiors. It will be observed how reverently 
 the learned Dr. Milner speaks of the Rules of the Inde.r, which 
 the common run of Papal controvertists now agree to treat as 
 of no authority. Not so those who know something of their 
 Church, and speak honestly. This is not all. The supreme 
 authority of the Roman Church in the person of her Pontiff, 
 Pius VII., has confirmed the censure of the English Vicar 
 Apostolic ; and in his breve to the Archbishop of Mohilow,
 
 gola is in both editions precisely the same. 
 The only difference in the body of the last 
 Index is, that it has, as it professes, incor- 
 porated the books condemned in the subse- 
 quent Decrees ; and, at page 87, under the 
 
 1816, accuses bim of Laving used the artifice above exhibited 
 of truncating the Pontiff, Pius the Sixth's letter to Martini ; 
 " For when," he proceeds, " that wisest of pontiifs commended 
 the version of Martini for this very circumstance, that, strictly 
 observing the rules of the Congregation of the Index, he had 
 abundantly enriched his work with expressions drawn from 
 tradition, you have suppressed that part, and not only excited 
 suspicion respecting yourself, but given occasion of serious 
 errors to others. Quid enim aliud mutilutiones illce signifi- 
 cant, &c." 
 
 Those who know any thing of Popery and its arts, know 
 well enough that the permission in the Pope's letter was a per- 
 fect mockery. All the restraint upon the perusal of Scripture 
 which was desired was completely secured under phrases and 
 references, which could easily be drawn upon when their 
 assistance was required. Was it for nothing lhat the rules of 
 the Index, and the Constitution of Benedict XIV., and the ex- 
 planatory notes, and extracts from the holy Fathers, were in- 
 troduced to check any abuse of the apparent and fallacious 
 license at the beginning 1. And is it for nothing, that so late as 
 the year 1838 those restrictions were enforced, as we have just 
 seen, with fresh energy ? Any one who wishes may see these 
 statements in a more detailed form, and supported by additional 
 and irresistible, by my acute and learned friend, the Rev. JOHN 
 EVANS, then of Whitchurch, now of Hadnet, in his Letters of 
 Observatm, and the Rev. Eugene Egan, in 1835, 6, On the 
 Free Circulation of the Scriptures. Whitchurch, 1837. See 
 particularly pp. 82-4. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to add, 
 that his opponent left him in undisputed possession of the
 
 65 
 
 article, Considerazioni imparziali, Sec., ap- 
 pears one of the date of May 2, 1838. We 
 find likewise in it the remarkable omissions 
 upon which some attention has been bestowed 
 in considering the original Index. So that, 
 hardly any evidence of identity is wanting. 
 
 field, with hearty repentance, I doubt not, at least of others 
 for him, for his temerity. Romanists think they hare a 
 triumph in the number of early vernacular versions of the 
 Scriptures by their community. The work was principally done 
 before the Reformation had shewn its danger to the Papal 
 edifice. It was likewise a private voluntary work, not a work 
 of the Roman Church. We never denied that there were som 
 righteous in Rome, even in her worst times : it was from such 
 that the Reformation sprang. And we may add, that the pro- 
 scribing Indexes of the unreformed and unreformable Church, 
 as well as the preface to the reluctant translation of Rhemes, 
 give little encouragement even to the versions of their own 
 community, except as defending their people from Protestant 
 and purer translations ; they view it plainly as an evil, and 
 only to be tolerated as a less, rebus sic stantibus. The laborious 
 and valuable LF. LONG, in his Bibliotheca Sacra, led the way in 
 this unsuccessful, indeed to his Church, treacherous argument, 
 i. ix. x. Praif. Paris, 1723 ; and a large class of minor heroes 
 has followed to partake in the supposed triumph. But the im- 
 practicable condition of understanding the Scriptures according 
 to the unanimous consent of the Fathers is quite enough, 
 and was known to be so ; for what priest or pope will venture 
 to say what that non-existent consent is 1 And then, how are 
 the commonalty to know it ? The pretence that Protestant 
 versions are condemned for their infidelity or corruptions, is 
 the most unprincipled subterfuge and falsehood that can be 
 conceived ; since there does not exist a Romanist of the 
 humblest pretensions to general information, who does not
 
 66 
 
 The reprint, however, in its execution, does 
 credit to the press which gave it birth : it 
 proves, moreover, the indefatigable zeal of the 
 agents of Popery to promote its revived efforts 
 for its own advancement, and the confidence 
 
 know, that there is not one of the great bodj of such versions 
 which is not preferable, as a fair representation of the original, 
 to the Latin version called the Vulgate and that, allowing to 
 that venerable version its due honour. 
 
 It is a fact worth knowing, that, from the revival of letters, 
 or the era of printing to the present time, all the presses of the 
 principal countries and cities of civilised Europe issued a great 
 abundance of the original, the Greek Testament the great re- 
 ligious charter of real Christendom ; while, from the Eternal 
 City the City of the great Pontiff the source and centre of 
 Catholicity, has issued for the same extended space of nearly 
 three centuries, not one no, wot one! All this is easily ex- 
 plained. The Vulgate is the grand original ; and its preroga- 
 tive must not be invaded. In a fit of unconscious rectitude or 
 shame, Bellarmine proposed an edition to Pius V. This we 
 learn from the biographer of Bellarmine, BARTOH, Rom. 1678, 
 p. 388, who is referred to for this fact in the Literary Policy, 
 p. 77. Did such an edition ever appear ? No. Rome could 
 edit from her authorised press a Greek translation of the Old 
 Testament. There was no rival. But of the Greek New Testa- 
 ment, and of the Hebrew Old, the Sacred Latin of the Vulgate 
 kept her in continual dread. Four years ago, Dr. Wiseman 
 announced a facsimile of the celebrated Vatican MS., then in 
 considerable forwardness. Better late than never. Rome may 
 at last turn Protestant or Christian. But our facsimile still 
 hangs fire. The report had some policy in it. The Consultor 
 of the Congregation of the Index held out some hopes of a 
 private critical edition of his own of course with all the light 
 of Trent, and the uniform consent of the Fathers.
 
 67 
 
 with which they reckon, particularly in Papal 
 countries, upon the reverence and submission, 
 with which the formal and authentic announce- 
 ment of pontifical judgment and decree, on 
 subjects of literature, must be received by 
 every faithful and obedient member of the 
 Roman Church. The whole speculation, in- 
 deed, appears to have originated in the organ- 
 ised conspiracy in favour of Papal against all 
 fecular power , in which the Archbishop of Co- 
 logne was to have taken a conspicuous part 
 indeed, taken the lead. 
 
 I shall make the present publication inter- 
 esting to readers whose approbation is of any 
 value, by appending to it an infant Index of 
 extreme rarity, and of importance as well as 
 curiosity. It is a Venetian production of the 
 year 1554. 
 
 By referring to my Literary Policy of the 
 Church of Rome, pages 37 to 40, it will be 
 seen, that Peter Paul Vergerio has attested 
 and described four early Papal and Italian Ca- 
 talogues of prohibited books, issued respect- 
 ively from Venice, Florence, and Milan. The 
 call for such attempted antidotes in the north 
 of Italy seems to have arisen from its nearer
 
 68 
 
 vicinity to the countries infected with heresy, 
 and particularly with the pabulum of all opi- 
 nion books. The first of these appeared at 
 Venice : it was short ; and I have given from 
 a work of Vergerio the list copied by him, 
 and which should seem to embrace nearly the 
 whole. The second came from Florence in 
 1552, and of that no account is extant, to my 
 knowledge at least. The third is issued from 
 Milan, the title of which was CATALOGO del 
 Arcimboldo Arcivesco di Milano. 1554. I 
 owe this information to SCHOETTGEN, who yet 
 had not seen it, and supposes, on insufficient 
 grounds, that it was reprinted by Vergerio.* 
 The next, which is our present subject, was a 
 production of Venice, in the same year. 
 
 Pietro Paolo Vergerio, whose life may be 
 
 * De Indd. Comment. I. pp. 9, 10. What is to be under- 
 stood by an Index pointed out by VERGERIO, in his dedication 
 to the work, De Jdolo Lauretano, dated 1556, as published in the 
 same year, I cannot well conjecture. Certum est hoc ipso anno 
 evulgatum fuisse ab ipso Papatu Mediolani Catalogum, in quo 
 trecenti ejus hostes numeramur, quanquam non omnes adhuc, 
 qui aut Latine, aut Italice scripsimus, numeramur, qui vero 
 tantum Gennanice, aut Gallice scripserunt, fuerunt omissi. 
 Opp. Tubing. 1563, fol. 309 rect The date may originate in 
 a mistake of IV. for V I., although IV. was at the time generally 
 written in Roman figures IIII. There is a reference to 
 Arcimboldo's Catalogue, quern nuper adornavit, fol. 542.
 
 69 
 
 found in any biography, from MELCHIOR 
 ADAMS,* and FiscnLiN's,f to any modern's, 
 had performed good service for the See of 
 Rome against the Reformers, for which he was 
 rewarded with the bishopric of Capo d'Istria. 
 He did not, however, escape suspicion of 
 heretical leaning ; and for the purpose of vin- 
 dicating his Papal orthodoxy, he undertook to 
 write a refutation of the existing reputed he- 
 resies. His success was that of many well- 
 meaning persons : he became a convert to the 
 principles which he had undertaken to demo- 
 lish ; and, the discovery being made, the usual 
 methods were resorted to to make him harmless. 
 The notorious Giovanni della Casa, Archbishop 
 of Benevento and Apostolic Nuncio at Venice, 
 was, with the Patriarch of the place, commis- 
 sioned to institute a process against him in 
 1546. He was summoned to Rome; and, 
 knowing what he might expect, he took care 
 to remove to a place of safety. Casa was not 
 idle ; but in 1549 published a list of proscribed 
 
 Vita Theolvg. Eiteror. ed. Franc. 1705, pp. 59-61. 
 
 t Memoria Theolog. Wirtemberg. Ulmse, 1710, Supplement. 
 pp. 113, seqq. This Lutheran, like many others, indulges an 
 illiberal and unwor.thy prejudice against the Reformed. In 
 the present instance he has somewhat gratified the enemies of 
 religious truth.
 
 70 
 
 books, which is the first Italian effort of the 
 kind with which we are acquainted. Neither 
 was Vergerio idle in repelling the attack, and in 
 exposing the character of the infamous censor. 
 That the character of infamous properly 
 belongs to the Archbishop of Benevento, is, in 
 effect, freely acknowledged by his friends. It 
 is plainly admitted by his latest biographer, 
 CASOTTI ; and though there should remain any 
 doubt as to the most formidable charge against 
 his morals, in an infamous poem which he 
 could not disown, the very ambiguity and the 
 shuffling defence which he has made of him- 
 self, are sufficient to convict him of quite guilt 
 enough.* The scurrilous Dissertatio levelled 
 against his main accuser carries with it its 
 own confutation, if it had not been completely 
 repelled by the learned SCHELHORN, in a par- 
 ticular treatise to that effect, Ulmae, 1754.f 
 It is not at all unlikely that Casa had some- 
 thing to do with both the Catalogues of 1554, 
 at least the Venetian, as well as with the first. 
 
 * See MARCHAND, Diet. Hist. art. CASA. 
 
 t Apologia pro PP. Vergerio adv. J. Casam. It is remarkable 
 that it should come from Ulm, where the Reformer was so 
 lately treated neither as a friend nor a brother. The most 
 triumphant part is, perhaps, the testimony from UGHEI.LI'S 
 Italia Sacra, pp. 5456.
 
 71 
 
 He understood parental relation, if not affec- 
 tion, and would not renounce it when his in- 
 tellectual progeny was concerned. 
 
 It is by no means affirmed that Vergerio 
 was without his infirmities : far from it. He 
 was precipitate and rather intemperate. But 
 with all his failings, and their effects, he has 
 done far more essential service to the cause 
 of religious truth, and appears to have been 
 generally and prevailingly actuated by a more 
 sincere and zealous anxiety for the interests of 
 pure religion, and the salvation of human souls, 
 than perhaps many, if not all, of those who 
 assume to sit in judgment upon him, and 
 condemn him. At all events, there are few 
 writings among the multitudinous remains of 
 his time and cause, which have conveyed to 
 our distant age more singular and important 
 information. Except for him we had known 
 little of the knavery and imposition of Rome, 
 in the province of religious literature, as it is 
 exhibited in the early Italian Indexes. Many 
 of his small works, of which GESNER'S ar- 
 ticle will shew what was their number, were 
 ephemeral : but many, though small, were, 
 and are, of permanent interest ; and I heartily 
 wish he had been allowed by the bigotry of his
 
 72 
 
 age to continue his own collection of the most 
 important, beyond the first and last volume. 
 He meditated two additional. He had so 
 much to do with the incipient Indexes of his 
 country, as historian and annotator, that I 
 have been tempted to make these observations, 
 preliminary to the presentment of the Index 
 which I am now publishing. 
 
 The volume is small octavo, as will appear ; 
 but as I shall give it as nearly as possible, 
 paginatim, liueatim, and for letter, in facsimile, 
 it is superfluous to add any thing more in the 
 way of description. I regret, that my copy is 
 deficient in one leaf: but from circumstances 
 which will be stated at the deficient part, the 
 reader will, perhaps, join with me in the opinion, 
 that only articles of inferior importance have 
 been lost.
 
 NOTE. 
 
 THE leaf in the Venetian Catalogue of 1554, sig- 
 nature B, which was defective in my copy, and for 
 which a leaf of explanation was substituted, has 
 been most kindly and unexpectedly supplied by an 
 individual, with whom I am thus happy to become 
 acquainted, Friederick Lorenz Hoffman, Doctor of 
 Laws and Censor, in Hamburg, who possesses a 
 perfect copy of the Catalogue, and has had the good- 
 ness to send me enclosed in a very friendly and 
 flattering letter, a transcript of the leaf absent from 
 mine, and which is now printed. The letter is dated 
 April 21, 1842, just a fortnight before the com- 
 mencement of the calamitous conflagration at Ham- 
 burg; from which, I trust to hear my friend and 
 his books have escaped. 
 
 The name Daczer, which disappears in the Cata- 
 logue of 1559, and in all subsequent, is, I have no 
 doubt, agreeably to the conjecture of Mr. Bohn, 
 who has rendered me important assistance relative 
 to the above communication, Decanus Pataviensis 
 (Passau), who does appear in the next and later 
 Catalogues ; and Gigas Norlus amoy (so printed) 
 should, as evidently, according to the correction of
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Dr. Hoffmann, be Gigas Northusanus (Northaitsen), 
 as it stands in the subsequent Catalogues. 
 
 This leaf may be either left in its place to follow 
 the supplied leaf, or inserted after p. 72, or at the 
 end of the volume.
 
 IT will be proper to make a few observations 
 on the preceding Catalogue. It will be recol- 
 lected, that Vergerio had made some free, or 
 indeed caustic, animadversions on the first 
 Catalogue, and on the personal character of 
 della Casa, the professed author, as he was 
 possibly of the succeeding, and even of the 
 last, that which has just been given. For, 
 although in 1554 he was generally resident in 
 Rome, yet he remembered his residence and 
 occupations in Venice, and doubtless kept up 
 his old interest in the supervision of the press, 
 particularly the censorship of heretical books. 
 It is plain, from a careful inspection of the 
 Catalogue under view, that, if his, he had not 
 forgotten his old friend and instructor, the 
 
 O ' 
 
 ex-bishop of Capo d'Istria. He takes politic 
 care, however, to make his castigator as little 
 conspicuous as possible. The notice is dis- 
 covered by no sign but the addition of the con- 
 traction Verg. at the end of the article ; a 
 mark which would be overlooked by all who 
 were not a little in the secret of the rancour 
 felt by the compiler towards his reprover.
 
 The instances are as follow: Consiglio, &.C., 
 of which we shall have something to say 
 Copia duna lettera scritta alii quattro di 
 Genaio. 1550 Declaratione de Giubileo 
 Disordine della Chiesa Discorsi sopra H 
 Fioretti di San Francesco Due letter e d'un 
 Cortigiano nelle quali si dimostra che la Fede 
 Matrimonio delli Preti Sf delle Itfonache. 
 This article has already been alluded to, as 
 standing in the last Roman Index ; but, let the 
 reader notice, without the Verg. It would 
 have been going too far to omit the name of 
 Vergerio as a separate article. And it is not 
 omitted. But how is it inserted? Not in the 
 way usual in most, if not all, alphabetic cata- 
 logues of the time, by placing it under the 
 initial letter of the Christian name, but under 
 V Vergerius, Episcopusde Capo cCldstria. It 
 may just be observed farther, that the top of 
 recto (signature B. 8) D. XV. is a reference 
 to the first portion of the Jus Canonicum, the 
 Decretum, and the place intended is Dist. 
 XV. iii., Sancta Romana Ecclesia, the list of 
 books condemned by Pope Gelasius, A.D. 493. 
 The Decretalibus, Sig. C. 1 , verso, signifies the 
 Libri Decretales which follow the Decretum. 
 But ex Vag. lo. Papa xxii., on the same page,
 
 75 
 
 might puzzle some readers ; it is meant for 
 JExtravafjtantes,$ic., another, and the last, portion 
 of the pontifical code. I can hardly think that 
 the colophon implies a reprint. If it does, it 
 was almost certainly a reprint by Vergerio, 
 synchronous, and of nearly, if not quite, equal 
 value with the original. 
 
 Let us now examine the first of the fore- 
 going articles, reserved for after consideration 
 Consifflio d'alcuni Episcopi congregation Bo- 
 logna. Verg. This entry, for substance, stands 
 in all the ensuing Papal Indexes to the last ; 
 but with this signal difference the name Verg. 
 or any allusion to the writer or editor, is 
 altogether omitted. This is not accidental. 
 Rome has a great objection, that any of her 
 sons, especially her bis/tops, should appear as 
 deserters and heretics. Vergerio has, in his 
 Annotations to the Index of Paul IV., made 
 and established this remark. In order to 
 make the inquiry upon which we are entering, 
 and which has embarrassed some good scho- 
 lars, clear, the piece before us is carefully to 
 be distinguished from another of the same 
 character, and somewhat the same title, as we 
 shall see, the Consilium de Emendanda Ecclesia, 
 of the date of 1537, and which is likewise
 
 76 
 
 inserted in the Pauline and Tridentiue Indexes.* 
 This latter produced a lively controversy, as 
 it well might ; for, the Advice which was given, 
 with others, by Carafa, as Cardinal, he him- 
 self afterwards condemned as Pope Paul IV 7 . 
 It stands in his Index under Lib. inscript., and 
 so in the Tridentine ; afterwards, under Con- 
 silium. Cardinal Quirini was beaten out of 
 the solution, that only an edition by heretics 
 was condemned, in his controversy with Schel- 
 horn in 1748. And now, mark the impudent 
 knavery of the Church of Rome on the sub- 
 ject. Not in the Index immediately following, 
 1750 that was too soon but in the next to 
 that, 1758, the article appears thus: Con- 
 silium deemendanda Ecclesia. Cum Notts vei 
 Prfefationibas Hareticorum, Ind. Trid. The 
 Italics are a pure addition, and the thing im- 
 plied necessarily by the Ind. Trid. is abso- 
 lute, interested falsehood, and such as could 
 not be unknown or unintended. f This excur- 
 sion is worth being made. 
 
 We now rejoin our proper subject. The 
 Consiglio is evidently Italian, and implies that 
 
 * Dr. M'CmE, in his very valuable Hist, of the Reforma- 
 tion in Italy, pp. 113-5, has confounded the two, supposing 
 that the De Emendanda was signifi"d by the Consiglia. 
 
 t See Lit. P,>1. pp. 48, 49.
 
 77 
 
 the treatise was written in that language, t 
 do not know that the work is any where ex- 
 tant or accessible. But no one can doubt, 
 particularly considering that it must .precede 
 1554, that it is the same as is known under 
 the following title, which, as the book itself, is 
 in Latin : Consilium quorundam Episcopo- 
 rvm Bononice congregatorum, quod de ratione 
 stabiliendce Romance Ecclesice Julio III. 
 Ponb. Max. datum est. This document ap- 
 pears in BROWN'S Fasciculus Rerum Exped. fy 
 Fug., which I adduce first, though out of 
 chronological order, for reasons which will 
 appear. It is in the second volume, pp. 641, 
 and following, and is copied from the edition 
 of William Crashaw in 1609, who derived it 
 from different originals, not very distinctly 
 described. There is, however, no reason to 
 doubt their genuineness. It is dated and 
 subscribed thus: Bononice, 20 Octob. Anno 
 MDLIII. 
 
 1. Vincentius de Durantibus Episc. 
 
 Thermularum Brixiensis. 
 
 2. Egidius Falceta Episc. Caprulanus. 
 
 3. Gerhardus Busdragus Episc. 
 
 Th essa lo n icensis . 
 VERGERIO, in the first and only volume of
 
 78 
 
 his collected works, 1563, includes the Con- 
 silium, with the same date, but without the 
 signatures. WOLFIUS has the work, with the 
 signatures, in his Lectiones Mem., but under 
 the year 1549, and with that date; and con- 
 sistently therewith it is addressed to Paul III., 
 instead of Julius III., and wants the allusion 
 in the end to Mary I. of England, who was 
 not then reigning. If the Italian original had 
 this date, this may have been a translation 
 from it. But this supposition involves conse- 
 quences ; and Wolfius gives no information. 
 Dr. WILLIAM CLAGETT gave a translation in 
 English of this and the preceding Consilium, 
 in 1688, under the title, Slate of the Church 
 of Rome when the Reformation began, &c. ; 
 and in his preface rather wonders at the varia- 
 tion of Wolfius, as if he transcribed from "a 
 false copy." It deserves here to be mentioned, 
 that there is another piece very similar to that 
 under consideration, and, I have no doubt, 
 proceeding from the pen of Vergerio, the first 
 edition of which, as it plainly is, being, in the 
 copy which I have, bound up with other 
 acknowledged productions of the same author, 
 Actiones DUCK, Address to the Dominican 
 fathers about il Roaario, and others. It is
 
 79 
 
 entitled, Exemplum Liter arum R. D. Gerardi 
 Dusdragi in Episcopatu Patavino Suffraganei. 
 Ad Illustrissimum et Reverendissimum D..D. 
 Franciscum Pisanum, In quibus agitur. Qita- 
 r/arn ratione prceservari possit Italia, ne Lu- 
 theranismo inficiatur. It is subscribed, Datum 
 Padua die xv Decembris, Anno M.D.LVIIT. 
 Gerardus Busdragus, Episcopvs Argolicensis. 
 It may be seen likewise in GERDESII Miscell. 
 Groning. I. 319, &c. He was not aware of 
 the original edition. 
 
 Now here a question of some importance 
 arises. Most writers, all indeed, whom I have 
 named, consider the Bolognese Consilium as a 
 serious and real thing, and not as the fiction of 
 Vergerio, like his Actiones and some other 
 works. Clagett, in the preface to his transla- 
 tion, ingeniously enough observes, that the dif- 
 ference between the two Consilia seems to be 
 this, that the Advisers in the first seemed to be 
 serious, and were not ; those in the latter were 
 serious, and seemed not to be so. It must be 
 acknowledged, that in the piece with which 
 we are now concerned, there is every appear- 
 ance of a highly finished parody or satire, such as 
 would naturally flow from the pen of Erasmus 
 or Vergerio. But it may be said with justice,
 
 80 
 
 that men of such views and necessities as be- 
 long to every Papal corporation, when they 
 talk freely and confidentially among them- 
 selves, often, without being sensible of it. use 
 language which appears very like the ridicule 
 of their opponents. And it must be admitted 
 that, in trying matters of fact, mere internal 
 evidence is frequently very insufficient and de- 
 lusive. A clever speculator in this way might 
 easily prove to his own satisfaction, that every 
 action in the life of Julius Caesar, or any other 
 well-known individual, was highly improbable; 
 and perhaps bring himself, and others like 
 himself, to the conclusion, that no such person 
 ever existed. But there is reason in things ; 
 and we have in the present case some data of 
 facts, which may serve as a guide and test. 
 
 Vergerio himself might have settled the 
 business ; and in the preface to his collected 
 works he has done something. After correct- 
 ing the mistake of some, who thought his 
 Actiones a real transaction, he says of the 
 other contents, one of which is the Bolo;nese 
 
 * O 
 
 Consilium Quid inaliis Tractatibus aaatur,non 
 opus est dicer e, cum apertissime <Sf sine ullo fuco 
 impetatur \scil. Papa~\, dianissimus qui impete- 
 retur cum omnibus suis creaturis, ego hie quan-
 
 81 
 
 dam impeto. I confess I do not quite under- 
 stand this, and if I did, I think that Vergerio 
 overlooked the piece in question, and referred 
 to the remaining. But we have some other 
 criteria of the description of facts. The two dif- 
 ferent dates of 1553 and 1549, with agreeing dif- 
 ference of facts, the two popes addressed, and a 
 princess, reigning, or not reigning, agreeably 
 to the differing dates. Then, in Vergerio's 
 own reprint, of his own recital at least, the 
 names of the very persons who give the charac- 
 ter and authority are wanting. And when we 
 make use of those persons, or their names and 
 designations, the matter does not much im- 
 prove. I have availed myself of the assistance 
 of a well-qualified friend, with facilities which 
 1 want ; and he informs me, that of the prin- 
 cipal person, Busdragns, and of his episcopate, 
 whether Thessalonica or Argolis, he can find 
 no trace in UGHELLI'S Italia Sacra, or SAVONA- 
 ROLO, or RICHARD'S Bibliotheque Sacree. He 
 is not to be found in any list, Greek or Latin, 
 of the bishops of Thessalonica ; and such a see 
 as epixcopalus Argolicensis does not appear to 
 exist. From the Index Geographic/is Episco- 
 patuum, however, of J. ALB. FABRICIUS, sub- 
 joined to his Sal. Lux Evangel. &c. Hamb.
 
 82 
 
 1731, I transcribe Argolicen&is (Argos) in 
 Peloponneso : * Thessalonicensis, GsffgaXovixiK, 
 Kdffris &srraMa,$, Thessalonicse, in Macedonia 
 (Saloniki) Metropolita. Phillppi Peciputi S. J. 
 Illyricum Sacrum, & promissum opus Urban i 
 Godfrid. Sibbern, Ecclesiastse & Professoris 
 Lips, de Thessalonicse Antiquitatibus. Etiam 
 Ancyrani locum tenebat tempore Andronici 
 Palaeologi. The asterisk signifies episcopates 
 existing in 1731. Vincentius Durantes, or de 
 Durantibus, appears in UGHELLI as Episcopus 
 Thermulensis from 1539 to 1565; and Aegidius 
 Falzetta, or Falcetta, as Episcopus Caprulensis, 
 from 1542 to 1563, and therefore stand good 
 as solid entities; both, indeed, attended the 
 Council of Trent; but Busdrao-us seems to be 
 
 * O 
 
 an ens rationis. 
 
 I fear, therefore, the conclusion to which we 
 nuist come is, that the production in question 
 was one of those ingenious effusions for which 
 Vergerio was eminently fitted, and to which he 
 was highly provoked. It is, however, impossible 
 to withstand the conviction, that, as a picture, 
 the Consilium, and its later partner, have done 
 no injustice whatever to the religion, the 
 morality, the wisdom, and the honesty of 
 Rome, in the times of Vergerio, or, since, to
 
 83 
 
 our own times certainly with circumstantial 
 variations of things and degrees, but with sub- 
 stantial identity. Such literary composition, 
 to borrow a term from the school of painting, 
 is intelligible and harmless enough, besides 
 its real truth and use. But when it is re- 
 flected, how often and almost irresistibly it is 
 misrepresented by unprincipled persons as 
 forgery and intentional imposition a mis- 
 representation, of which, while the authors are 
 conscious, they avail themselves of the benefit, 
 and repeat the slander as long as they feel 
 that it is believed and works ; it might be ad- 
 visable, either to discontinue the practice alto- 
 gether, or to be very cautious in the use of it. 
 
 It has been pretended, that the damnatory 
 Indexes of Rome have no force " no force 
 whatever," according to Dr. Murray's solemn 
 declaration before the Parliamentary Commis- 
 sioners in this united empire. From pages 
 38 and onwards of the Literary Policy, it 
 will appear, that the very first Index invested 
 with direct Papal authority and responsi- 
 bility, that of Paul IV. was expressly founded 
 on the Bull Ccena Domini, which is said to 
 have been first published by Urban V. in his 
 first Constitution. This Constitution, how-
 
 ever, has nothing, as I can discover, relative 
 to doctrine, but is simply an excommunication 
 and anathema emitted against certain invadersof 
 secular property, and to be denounced annually. 
 But I can speak with certainty as to the bull 
 in its present form (having the documents), 
 that one, in substance the same, was issued by 
 Sixtus IV. 1476, 3. Id. April. One by Julius 
 II. followed ; another by Leo X. ; another by 
 Adrian VI. (the two latter of which I have). 
 Perhaps no succeeding pontiff failed in sending 
 forth one of his own. Repetitions, for sub- 
 stance, that is, with alterations of no great 
 extent, suited to times and circumstances, are 
 publicly extant to the sixth year of the ponti- 
 ficate of Clemens XIII., who published one A.D. 
 1764, May 20. He had done the same before 
 in 1759. In fact, BARBERI, in the JBullarium, 
 now in course of publication in Rome, has given 
 the bull at length only in the first instance.* 
 For prudential, or other reasons (it is of no im- 
 portance what, but in all probability the same 
 as induced the suppression of the Jesuits), Cle- 
 ment XIV. discontinued the annual publication 
 
 * See Bull. Rom. torn. II. 461, and I. 116. In the Appendix 
 ad Synod Tusc, of the Card. DUKE or YORK, Rome, 1764, the 
 bull is transcribed at length in its last form.
 
 85 
 
 in Rome of a form justly offensive to the Euro- 
 pean powers. But this was no repeal; much 
 less was it any command or permission to the 
 bishops to discontinue their enjoined publica- 
 tions in their respective cathedrals. In fact, the 
 bull is in as full and strong validity and opera- 
 tion as ever ; and it cannot be otherwise with- 
 out breaking down the whole edifice of Papal 
 discipline. That its primitive force continues, 
 notwithstanding partial, or rather simply ap- 
 parent, relaxation, is proved by the admission 
 of Romanists : Count FERDINAND DAL Pozzo, 
 Catholicism in Austria, pp. 182, 3; Card. 
 ERSKINE, in Parliamentary Report concerning 
 Roman Catholics in Foreign Countries, 1816, 
 p. 341 ; Dr. SLEVEN, in the Eighth Report on 
 Irish Education, p. 256.* 
 
 But in order to put the reader in a position 
 to judge for himself on a point where every 
 artifice is used to mislead, I will set before him 
 the clause in the anathematising bull, which 
 concerns literature, and which stands first and 
 foremost in the black list; putting within 
 brackets a clause which has been added in 
 later times. 
 
 See the testimonies at length in Lit. Pol. pp. 260, 1. DE 
 POTTER is added.
 
 86 
 
 Excommunicamus, et anathematizamus ex 
 parte Dei Omnipotentis * * * ac omnes, 
 et singulos alios Haereticos * * * ac 
 eorumdem libros [hseresim continentes, vel 
 de Religione tractantes,] sine auctoritate Nos- 
 tra, et Sedis Apostolicse scienter legentes, aut 
 retinentes, imprimentes, seu quomodolibet 
 defendentes, ex quavis causa, publice, vel 
 occulte, quovis ingenio, vel colore : nee non 
 Schismaticos, et eos, qui se a Nostra, et Ro- 
 mani Pontificis pro tempore existentis obedi- 
 entia pertinaciter subtrahunt, vel recedunt. 
 
 This, in plain English (and it ought to be 
 known and well considered by every English- 
 man), is to the following effect : 
 
 "We (the pontiff) excommunicate and 
 anathematise after certain heretics named 
 all others, and those who, without Our autho- 
 rity, and that of the Apostolic See, knowingly 
 read, or keep, or print, or in any way defend, 
 for any cause, publicly or privately, with 
 whatever intention or pretence, the books of 
 such heretics, [containing heresy, or treating 
 of Religion :] as well as all Schismatics, and 
 those who persist in disobedience to the 
 Roman See." 
 
 The addition within brackets will appear
 
 87 
 
 to have been made with some policy, particu- 
 larly as Britain, and other heretical states, are 
 concerned ; for in them the attempt to restrain 
 the Papal residents from the perusal of all 
 the works of the country would only serve to 
 make disappointment more certain, and put to 
 hazard even a partial obedience. A discreet 
 relaxation of claim is often the best game 
 which ambition can play. Thus, when a 
 Popish government cannot get the control of 
 National Education directly, it will attempt the 
 thing by appointment of schoolmasters. If that 
 scheme fail, then inspection will be tried for ; 
 and so on, till defeated, if defeated at last. 
 
 Still further to shew the application and 
 importance of the bull in question, or the par- 
 ticular section with which we are concerned, 
 to the subject immediately in view, it is to be 
 recollected, that its provisions, or decisions, 
 are made the groundwork of all the popular 
 books instructing and directing Confessors, in 
 what way they should perform their peculiar 
 duty. This, at least, is the character of the 
 Spanish manuals which I have consulted. The 
 bull Ccence Domini is expressly referred to as 
 the rule. And I believe it is so in all other 
 manuals for the same purpose, circulated by
 
 88 
 
 authority in Papal countries.* In non-Papal 
 countries it is to be expected that such things 
 will be kept out of public sight, or neutralised, 
 or disguised. However, that even in the 
 United Kingdom, and in the present age, this 
 bull supplies the authorised rule and matter of 
 the inquiries in the Confessional, is established 
 past a doubt, by the volumes of PETER DENS, 
 republished in 1832 by the express and pro- 
 claimed authority of the Supreme Ecclesiastic 
 Ruler in the Papal Church of Ireland, as " the 
 surest guide of his clergy " and the text-book for 
 their conferences. The repudiation of these 
 portentous volumes, on their first discovery 
 and exposure, succeeded, as it has been, by a 
 shuffling, but very intelligible and real re-ein- 
 bracement, has done all that could be wished 
 by the friends of truth for settling their cha- 
 racter, as the absolute and authorised standard 
 
 * The intimate, or rather necessary, connexion of the bull 
 in question with the duty of confession is decisively and 
 strikingly established by the fact, with which FEIIRARI, in hia 
 Prompta Bibliotheca, acquaints us, under VISITARE, &c. ix. 272, 
 that, among the articles for inquiry by the visitors of churches, 
 besides others of very significant importance, under the sub- 
 division, Pceidtentia, stands the following An in Sede Con- 
 fessionali sit affixa tabella Casuum Reservatorum, Sc SUM- 
 MARIUM BULLS IN CCENJE DOMINI? This Summarium is found 
 in Dens, as will be immediately seen.
 
 89 
 
 of Italian theology in Ireland.* If the reader 
 will take up the sixth volume, which is oc- 
 cupied by the subject of the Sacrament of 
 Penance, and, of course, its integral parts, of 
 which Confession is one, he will find, under the 
 general head of Reserved Cases, a No., that 
 of 219, pages 298 and following, entitled De 
 Bulla Coence Domini, and specifying the sub- 
 stance of each of the twenty objects of male- 
 diction in order. Each of these are sins, 
 
 * See Dr. MURRAY'S Letter of Oct. 5, 1836, in all the 
 Dublin papers, on his return from his visit to Rome. I feel 
 impelled to notice one particular passage in this wonderful 
 letter, because it contains a sentiment very vulgarly repeated 
 by the lower class of Popish writers. Its object is to vindicate 
 the Romanist's regard for his oath. " Our inviolable regard 
 for the sanctity of an oath was the only fence that shut us out 
 for centuries from every office of honour and emolument in the 
 State, and left us as despised and degraded aliens in our native 
 land. Our adversaries know this." Could Dr. Murray be so 
 stolid, or imagine that others vere, as not to know, that there 
 may be perfect indifference to the sanctity of oath, and at the 
 same time an insuperable dread of the infamy attached to its 
 infraction, or to perjury 1 This, indeed, since 1836, has suffered 
 some abatement. But it is so clear, that the infamy attendant 
 upon perjury in the view of the uncontaminated portion of the 
 British Protestant public would be an important fence against 
 the intrusion of Romanists into Parliament, that, allowing all 
 the force claimed for their regard to the sanctity of an oath, 
 that regard could not be the only fence. And yet Dr. Murray, 
 relying upon bold assertion, or the deceivability of the mass of 
 mankind, ventured to repeat the untruth. Dr. Murray is H 
 finished Jesuit, and seems to hold the opinion in common with
 
 90 
 
 whether from circumstance, mortal or venial, 
 into which the confessor is in duty bound to 
 inquire. And that he is not likely to overlook 
 the first article, relative to heretical books, is 
 plain enough from the No. quickly ensuing, 
 that of 222, which is headed, " Faculties usually 
 granted to the Bishops of Belgium, to allow the 
 reading of prohibited boohs to those who apply 
 for the license for the purpose of impugning 
 them."* These faculties were not confined to 
 
 professors of the magical art, that it is a point of honour to be 
 relied upon from the company, for whose amusement the per- 
 formance is given, to appear to be completely deceived, and an 
 egregious breach of the same to appear to perceive the decep- 
 tion absolutely shocking to expose and publish the discovery. 
 The Doctor's letter to the approaching meeting of the Papal 
 Institute, dated May 22, 1840, is an admirable instance of the 
 familiar art of contriving to say some truths with the effect of 
 falsehood an effect so obvious, as by no possibility to be con- 
 idered as unknown or unintended. Mr. M'Ghee quickly tore 
 away the deceptions veil. 
 
 * For every thing, however, relative to the infamous bull 
 in question, see the beginning of the most seasonable, im- 
 portant, and unanswerable " Nullity of the Government of Q. 
 Victoria in Ireland," &i.c. by the llev. R. J. M'GiiEE. At p. 13, 
 he has referred to the Vlllth, the Supplemental, volume of 
 Dens, pp. 73, 74, 82-84, 98, 99, 101, 164, 165, as decisive 
 proofs of the recognition of the bull in Ireland, as of standing 
 authority. Some I had before noticed to that effect : but I have 
 since examined the whole number. It is of some importance 
 likewise to observe, that in the elaborate and celebrated work f 
 the Prompta Bibliotheca of FERRARI, under the word Excom- 
 municatio, iii. 487 492, the bull in question, as issued by
 
 91 
 
 Belgium: Pius VII. granted an Indult to the 
 prelates of France, February 27, 1809, autho- 
 rising them to permit the having and reading 
 prohibited, heretical, and infidel books 
 d 'avoir et de lire les livres dtfendus, mime ceux 
 des heretiques et des incredules, d ^exception 
 neanmoins des livres d'astrologiejudiciaire, des 
 livres superstitieux, et des livres obsccnes ; et de 
 communiquer a d'autres la mime faculte, ay ant 
 egard a la science et la probite des supplians.* 
 
 Let the reader now revert to the Bull 
 Ccence Domini, particularly as relates to litera- 
 ture. Let him reflect upon the circumstances 
 by which it is illustrated and confirmed. Let 
 him recollect that the kind of books pro- 
 scribed is not left to random conjecture, but, 
 in catalogues solemnly compiled, and from 
 time to time enlarged and altered by the 
 highest authority in the Roman Church, is 
 
 Clement XL in 1701, is recited at length as the most authentic, 
 and, till repealed by lawful authority, universally binding rule, 
 for the emission of that formidable thunderbolt. If any thing 
 were wanting to preclude the pretence of the bull not being in 
 force in any part of the Papal dominions, it would be supplied 
 by the assurance to be found in Dens, ii. p. 129, that tacit con- 
 sent is sufficient. All other formalities are unessential. 
 
 * Complement de la Corresp. de la Cour de Rome avec Buona- 
 parte, $c. par MUZARELLI, Paris, 1814, pp. 508-512. I seek 
 the document in vain in the London Relation, &c. 
 F2
 
 92 
 
 minutely and precisely defined and published. 
 Let him, moreover, consider how intimately 
 the subject is connected with the ordinary and 
 daily occupations of every individual of Papal 
 society, and particularly with the duties of 
 Papal confessors. Let him then weigh well 
 the awful authority, as it must be to every 
 sincere Romanist, of the maledictory judgment 
 of the Great Head of his religious communion, 
 the successor of Apostles, the Vicar of Christ, 
 the Vicegerent of God, his Sovereign Lord on 
 earth. And then then let him say, whether 
 he believes it possible, that a sincere member 
 of the Church of Rome, whether laic or cleric, 
 can set at nought the published judgment of 
 such authority, without either gross irreli- 
 gion, or gross hypocrisy? That the hypo- 
 crisy may have considerable advantage, both 
 negative and positive, to recommend it, I 
 am very far from denying. But hypocrisy 
 must not be allowed to escape under such a 
 screen. 
 
 But that the authority of Papal restrictions 
 in literature is felt and respected, we need not 
 the simple, though irresistible, deductions of 
 reason. It is proved by facts. 
 
 We might naturally expect that it would
 
 93 
 
 openly and honestly appear in countries, which, 
 having neither Protestant opposition, nor Pro- 
 testant scrutiny, to encounter, would want 
 temptation to hypocrisy. And therefore the 
 first instance to be produced is the less ex- 
 traordinary. 
 
 I. It is that of the most respectable con- 
 vert, ANDREW SALL, with whom the public, 
 for its benefit, is likely to become better ac- 
 quainted.* In the Preface to his True Catho- 
 lic and Apostolic Faith maintained in the 
 Church of England, he produces a License of 
 the Bishop of Palencia, for three successive 
 years, to keep and read prohibited books. The 
 date is, Madrid, June 15, 1652. At page 128 
 he refers to it, with some of its untoward 
 effects. f 
 
 * His principal work, with copious illustrative notes, has 
 just appeared. 
 
 f The reader will find a good deal that is interesting re- 
 specting Dr. Sail, in the Preface of PETEU WALSH, Franciscan, 
 to his Four Letters, 1686. He honourably vindicated the se- 
 ceder from the Roman Church, against the rhodomontade attack 
 of that episcopal weathercock, Nicholas French, of Ferns, in a 
 piece, of rather rare occurrence, the Doleful Fall of Andrew Sutl. 
 It goes over all the trite topics of the argument for itself and 
 against Christianity which Popery can muster : witli a com- 
 petent quantity of punning abuse. Walsh, in the view of this 
 particular case, in his second Letter, which is to the odd, clever 
 pseudo-bishop just mentioned, after claiming in favour of Sail's
 
 94 
 
 II. My next instance is that of an English- 
 man and priest, THOMAS FITZ-HERBERT, who, 
 in a treatise published at Rome, Superiorutii 
 Permissu, 1610, An sit Utilitas in Scelere, and 
 evidently, though covertly, a studied and 
 
 conduct the sovereignty of conscience, adds " All which being 
 true, it were worth the while to consider, what is it hurries on 
 our Catholic writers generally to such exorbitant passions and 
 barbarous language (besides many downright lies, and mere 
 calumnies often) against all those that leave our Church." This 
 MBteace wffl soCciently explain the similar style in which it 
 has of late been common to assail the reputation of Walsh by 
 individuals, laic, priestly, or noble, who, in no respect, would 
 bear comparison with the calumniated Franciscan. Walsh has 
 frequently referred to a prior piece of French, not very ob- 
 vious, I believe, though something was promised of a reprint, 
 some years ago, The Bleeding Iphigcnia. This performance 
 originated in the news of Sail's abjuration ; and it is worth 
 while to see, how the author speaks of his former friend, and 
 with what infatuated simplicity be draws the teeth with which 
 he would bite. The paper containing the news, he writes," gave 
 me a great heaviness of hart ; for I loved the man dearly for 
 his amiable nature and excellent parts, and esteemed him both 
 a picas person and Learned, and soe did all that knew him ; but 
 I see we were all deceiv'd in him.'' Then, after making him 
 east by the infernal beast " out of a little heaven : ( The State 
 of Religia*) wherin," he adds, " for a tyme hee shined like a 
 small stair in vertue and learning," be proceeds thus" After 
 desalting the Soeie? ey of Jesus, and naming away with infamy 
 and shane, oat of the whole [holy ?] House of Cod, I could 
 not endure him, and therfore resolved to give him a sharp re- 
 prehension : at which, if hee shall repine, and fall into c holler 
 for my endeavouring to doe him good, I shall houlde that for an 
 ill Syraptome," &c.
 
 95 
 
 bitter, I might say, blood-thirsty, attack upon 
 James I., to whom he attributes Machiavel- 
 lian principles of government, professes, in the 
 Dedicatory Epistle, that he obtained a license 
 to read Mackiavelli from the Inquisition im- 
 petrata prius ab Illustrissimis Sanctae In- 
 quisitionis Cardinalibus legendi Machiavelli 
 facultate, ut ex eoruin diplomate, quod penes 
 ine est, satis liquet. This work is bound up 
 with a vile Jesuitic lampoon against James I. 
 by BARTHOLUS PACENIUS, I. C., E^raois Epi- 
 stolae nomine Regis, M. B. &c. I. C. Monti- 
 bus, Impressore Adamo Gallo. Anno 1610; 
 forty unpaged leaves, remarkable for a pro- 
 fligate profession of contempt for the obliga- 
 tion of an oath, and noticed by Richard 
 Thompson,* Ussher, Henry Mason, and others. 
 
 * As this work of Pacenius is exceedingly unknown, and 
 that of Richard Thompson throws more light upon it than I 
 have any where else been able to find, the reader must tolerate 
 a few words upon a not unimportant subject. The full title of the 
 first is ~E^.Ta.tii Epistola; nomine Regis Magns Brittanias, ad 
 omr.es Christianos Monarchas, Principes Sc Ordines, scriptze ; 
 qua: Prsefationis monitoris loco, ipsius Apologias pro jura- 
 mento fidelitatis, pra?fixaest. Eisdem Monarchis, Principibus, 
 & Ordinibus dedicata, a Eartholo Pacenio, I. C. Claudianus 
 de Inst. Priu. Qui terret plus ille timet, Sors ilia Tyranno 
 convenit, Montibus, Impressore Adamo Gallo. Anno 1610. 
 It extends to forty folia, and is small 8vo. From the absolute 
 non-appearance of author or book in any of the regular books of
 
 96 
 
 I was confirmed in my interpretation of Fitz- 
 herbert's book, which in language is confined 
 to generals, from this association. 
 
 III. The Rev. JOHN HAWKINS, a Romish 
 priest in Worcester, renounced Popery, and in 
 
 reference in my own possession, or accessible by means of 
 friends, I was early convinced, that the usual marks of appro- 
 priation were fictitious ; and my conviction was confirmed by 
 the first and only minute notice of the work by the afore- 
 mentioned Richard Thompson. His little work is far from com- 
 mon. It is an answer to a Jesuitic attack upon the Oatli of 
 James, entitled Elenchus Refutationis Torturae Torti. Pro 
 Reverendissimo in Christo Patre Domino Episcopo Eliense, 
 Adversus Martinum Becanum Jesuitam. Authore Richardo 
 Thompsonio Cantabrigiensi. Londini. Excudebat Robertus 
 Barkerus, Sereniss? Regiae Majestatis Typographus. Anno 
 Dom. 1611. Small 8vo. pp. 104. At page 5, adverting to 
 the King's assailants, he says, that they all wrote irreverently. 
 He proceeds 'Quidam etiam furiose, ut impurissimi oris 
 Pacenius, with whom he joins Coefeteau, who yet, he adds, 
 observed some moderation. Then, giving a reason of the dif- 
 ference, he says, that the Frenchman was under the restraint of 
 his sovereign, Henri IV., who detested brutal writers. But his 
 language with respect to the former is Alter ille sycophanta 
 Romse scripsit, ubi, ut alios taceam, qui ilium in hoc scelus 
 armarunt, invenit ipsum P. P. qui dirum hoc, & horribile 
 carmen sibi prseiret, & fere cocceptis verbis dictaret. Vera 
 historia est. For a few lines more the writer goes on to castigate 
 the libeller for sneering at James's preference of letters to 
 wars, and dismisses him with the words Sed hanc belluam 
 sinamus. He then turns to Becan. Perhaps the name Pace- 
 nius was adopted as a jeering allusion; and Montibus may 
 require only Septem to be added. Here, however, is a direct 
 assertion, that the book was got up at Rome, and the work,
 
 97 
 
 his defence wrote An Appeal to Scripture, 
 Reason, and Tradition, &c. Worcester [1786]. 
 He likewise published A General Defence of 
 the Principles of the Reformation in a Letter 
 to the Rev. Joseph Berington. Worcester, 
 
 or dictation, of Paul V. There is no reason to discredit the 
 assertion. The Papal court was well attended by English 
 traitors at the time. Parsons had just died, but there were 
 Fitz-herbeit, and others of his scholars to continue his services ; 
 and in truth, some parts of the work savour of English manu- 
 facture : the unctura sutoriu shoe-blacking is a notion and 
 expression which would naturally flow from an Englishman. 
 In fact, the drift of this book and that of Fitz-herbert (both of 
 which in my copy are bound together, with an unmeaning one 
 between, and they belonged to the Jesuits' College at Antwerp 
 before the volume came into Mr. Heber's possession,) are so 
 alike, or rather identical, that they may appear to be two 
 different weapons made by the same hand, and for the same 
 purpose : the one perhaps to succeed where the other might fail; 
 or, better, both to unite their effect. It can escape no one, 
 with what prudent dexterity both writers (supposing them two) 
 unite in a significant suggestion of the judgments which may 
 be expected to visit a heretical and Machiavellian tyrant, 
 whether by divine or human means. Hints of this kind are 
 intelligible enough to prepared minds, and they are often as 
 effectual as they are safe to the authors. Ireland can attest 
 the use and efficacy of this method ; and who knows but that, 
 in that favoured land, in which the religion of Rome expands in 
 unrestrained freedom, the lives of the whole Protestant popu- 
 lation may come to be at the mercy of a heartless and venal 
 ruffian, who, by means, and at the sole risk, of others, may 
 be able, with perfect security to himself, to effect atrocities, 
 which, with no want of will to commit himself, he may feel 
 much want of will to be responsible for ?
 
 98 
 
 1788. In the last, page 23, answering an 
 opponent, the unconverted Dr. Carroll, he in- 
 troduces him as asserting, " that Roman 
 Catholics read, without censure or hesitation, 
 whatever controversial books they please. 
 This," he adds, " is notoriously untrue, as 
 Mr. Pilling has confessed." And he refers 
 immediately to a full and decisive passage in 
 the Conferences d' Angers, a work of great re- 
 pute, published about the time of the author. 
 We shall hear more of this from another con- 
 vert. But before we come to that, we observe, 
 that Mr. Hawkins in his first work, the Appeal, 
 and in connexion with the Bull Coencs Domini, 
 mentioned in the text, writes in a note, page 
 29, " The reading or keeping of books written 
 by Protestants, or even published by them, is 
 prohibited under pain of excommunication in- 
 curred by the very fact. The severity of dis- 
 cipline which prevails in this regard, if we give 
 any credit to your best modern divines, is 
 scarce to be conceived by any who are unac- 
 quainted with their writings." At page 130 
 and onwards, he expresses his indignation at 
 the Index of prohibited books, especially ihe 
 Spanish, which was new to him. And at 300 
 and the two following, he again dwells upon
 
 99 
 
 the barbarous exploits of this restrictive engine. 
 He mistakes, however, in supposing the in- 
 famous bull, which is at the bottom of it, to 
 have been repealed. The confessional would 
 be terribly crippled by its withdrawal. 
 
 IV. We proceed to another valuable de- 
 sertion of Popery from the same city, the Rev. 
 CHARLES HENRY WHARTON, D.D., who set- 
 tled in America. In A Reply to an Address to 
 the Roman Catholics of the United States of 
 America [by Dr. Carroll], and published at 
 New York, 1817, pp. 8-10: after observing 
 that the notorious bull is received and observed 
 in some countries and not in others, which 
 makes that which is a grievous crime in one 
 country to be not even a venial offence in 
 another, he adds, " This must be the senti- 
 ment of every Roman Catholic ; and yet its 
 consistency can hardly be admitted. For, if 
 the Pope be a Doctor of the Church, by way 
 of eminence, as he is frequently styled, if he be 
 entitled to the pompous appellations of Master 
 of the world, of Universal leather, which were 
 frequently bestowed on him in the eleventh 
 century ;* if he be a Divine Majesty, the hus- 
 band of the Churc/t, the Prince of the Apostles, 
 
 * MOSHEIM'S Church History.
 
 100 
 
 the Prince and King of all the Universe ; if he 
 be the Pastor ; the Physician, and a God, to 
 use the language of the Council of Lateran 
 speaking to Leo X.,* who will dare question 
 his right to proscribe such sources of informa- 
 tion, as in his wisdom he shall deem pernicious 
 to his subjects? Inconsistency apart, he must 
 have a daring soul who shall venture upon a 
 pasture, which the Universal Shepherd pro- 
 nounces to be poisono'us, and forbids his flock 
 to taste at the hazard of their salvation. The 
 rev. gentleman will not deny that these lofty 
 pretensions have their effect to this day. Else 
 why are Roman Catholics constantly advised to 
 obtain permission to read heretical books for 
 the security of their consciences ? Among the 
 faculties, as they are called, or parochial powers 
 conferred on R. C. missionaries even in Eng- 
 land, is not a special license granted for keep- 
 ing and reading heretical books? The Chap- 
 lain's warrant on this head is expressed in these 
 words : Conceditur facultus tenendi et legendi 
 libros hcereticorum de eorum religione tract antes 
 ad effectum eos expugnandi. ' Leave is granted 
 to keep and read the books of heretics, which 
 
 BASNAGE, vol. iii. p. 556. [The work referred to is, 
 Hist, de la Rel. des Egli$es Reformees : but the volume should be 
 the Second.]
 
 101 
 
 treat of their religion, in order to refute them' 
 These lines place this whole matter in its pro- 
 per point of view. They evidently evince to 
 what purpose Roman Catholics are indulged in 
 the reading of Protestant authors. Not, it is 
 presumed, for the sake of impartial investiga- 
 tion, but solely to combat and refute them. The 
 rev. gentleman may say, then, with as much 
 confidence as he pleases, that rational investiga- 
 tion is as open to Catholics as to any other set 
 of men on the face of the earth* But persons 
 of real candour will stillf give the chaplain 
 credit for the same valuable quality, until it be 
 proved that religious information also is equally 
 open to Roman Catholics as to others ; or, that 
 the Protestant churches forbid the reading of 
 P,oman Catholic writers, unless it be with a 
 view to confute them." 
 
 V. Another testimony to the same effect is 
 extant in a pamphlet written in defence of the 
 Rev. ANDREW MEAGHER, a well-known and 
 learned convert from Popery to Protestanism. 
 He published, in vindication of the step which 
 he had taken, a volume entitled, " The Popish 
 Mass" &c. or a Sermon, &c. It is intended 
 
 * Address, p. 11. 
 
 t [Should not refuse to or some equivalent, be here in. 
 serted ?]
 
 102 
 
 to shew the conformity of Popery with Pagan- 
 ism. Limerick: printed by T. Welsh, 1771. 
 Every one is acquainted with the eminent merit 
 of the work, which roused an antagonist, to 
 whom a Reply was given in a well-written 
 pamphlet in 1772, without name of place or 
 printer, Truth Triumphant, a refutation of the 
 Word to the Wise, and other pretended Answers 
 to Dr. Meaghers Popish Mass. By EUSEBES 
 MISOPSEUDES. It appears from page 11, that 
 the author of The Word to the Wise was W Ish, 
 so written, but hardly, I should suppose, though 
 so near the mark, the printer of Meagher's 
 work. This, indeed, is immaterial. The de- 
 fender of the convert, however, at the page 
 cited, speaks of a remonstrance made to the 
 assailant by " some well-bred sensible men of 
 his [the assailant's] own religion," the purport 
 of which he gives in four succeeding pages ; 
 and in page 14 they say, " We can look into 
 Dr Meagher's book only by stealth, for you 
 have forbidden the reading of it under pain of 
 excommunication. Nay, some of yourselves 
 say, you would not for a thousand pounds look 
 into it." Eusebes adds in a note, " This is a 
 fact ; for a priest in my neighbourhood made 
 this declaration not long ago in public company
 
 103 
 
 Thus have they closed their eyes, lest at any 
 time," &c. There is a passage of so much point 
 and accuracy in Meagher's own work, that 
 although I have seen it quoted in some place 
 before, I am tempted to repeat it. It refers to 
 Purgatory. " Upon the whole, then, it is evi- 
 dent, that the doctrine of Purgatory is of 
 heathen original ; that the fire of it is, like the 
 thunder of the Vatican, a harmless thing which 
 no wise man would be afraid of, were it not too 
 often attended with Church- thunderbolts, perse- 
 cutions, and massacres; and that it only serves 
 to cheat the simple and ignorant out of their 
 money, by giving them bills of exchange upon 
 the other world, for cash paid in this, without 
 any danger of the bills returning protested." 
 P. 90. 
 
 VI. The honest and acute O'CoNou, D.D. 
 (we might perhaps call him another convert), 
 in his Historical Address, &c. Part I., 1810, 
 p. 128, has strikingly corroborated the fact of 
 the submission to Papal literary proscriptions 
 in Ireland. " Can we wonder at it," (the dis- 
 appearance of fugitive pamphlets at a particular 
 period), " when we find the learned Lynch 
 expressing scruples, whether he can read Sir 
 Richard Belting's excellent defence of the
 
 104 
 
 supreme Catholic Council against the censures 
 of the Roman Court, because that work was 
 condemned at Rome ! ! " 
 
 VII. Another proof how little credit is due 
 to the pretended disregard of pontifical book- 
 censures by Romanists is furnished by the Rev. 
 BLANCO WHITE, in his Evidence against [Ro- 
 man] Catholicism, in a note, p. 157, second 
 edition " The inveterate enmity of the sincere 
 Roman Catholic against books, which directly 
 or indirectly dissent from his Church, is uncon- 
 querable. There is a family in England, who, 
 having inherited a copious library under cir- 
 cumstances which made it a kind of heir-loom, 
 have torn out every leaf of the Protestant 
 works, leaving nothing in the shelves but the 
 covers. This fact I know from the most un- 
 questionable authority." Should it be said, 
 that there is here no reference to the condemna- 
 tions by the Roman censors, it will only prove 
 that well-instructed subjects of the Papacy, in 
 consequence of the second nature thus im- 
 parted to them, think and act spontaneously 
 just as their mother does.* 
 
 All above is remarkably and decisively confirmed by what 
 we read in the valuable Prompta Bibliotheca of FERRARI, under 
 LIBRI PROHIBITI, near the end, torn. v. p. 398.
 
 105 
 
 And so much for the liberty which the 
 members of the Roman Church derive from her 
 to read what books they choose. The liberty 
 which they enjoy in that respect, they owe, not 
 to their Church which only allows it because she 
 must, but to the true Christianity and liberality 
 of a country, which protects them against the 
 barbarous tyranny of the government to which 
 
 Quasi. IV. Utrum decreta, quibus Romse prohibentur 
 libri, obligent omnes omnino fideles 1 
 
 Resp. Affirmative. Primum, id liquet ex verbis supraci- 
 tatis regulae Clem. PP. VIII. ubi dicitur libros prohibitos a 
 Sede Apost. in quamcumque vertantur linguam, " censeri ab 
 eadem Sede ubique gentium sub eisdem pcenis interdictos & 
 damnatos." Deinde, hujusmodi Decreta approbari solent a 
 Summis Pontificibus, ac de re sunt, quae ad omnes fideles 
 pertinet, cujusmodi est fidei, & morum doctrina. Quis vero 
 dicat, Decreta edita a summis viris, quales sunt Cardinales, 
 & approbata a Summo Pontifice, qui fatentibus omnibus Catho- 
 licis, auctoritatem & jurisdictionem babet in universam Eccle- 
 siam, vim non habere obligandi omnes fideles ? Ab eo enim 
 approbata vulgantur, qui potestatem & animum obligandi 
 babet. Ne dicas, recepta non esse, vel non esse satis vulgata. 
 Quis enim dicat, ex ovium acceptatione vim pendere legum, 
 quas pro communi bono supremus Ecclesiae Pastor constituat, 
 quibus velit omnes omnino obligare ? Vel satis vulgata non 
 esse Decreta, qua? ita publicantur, ut facile ad omnium noti- 
 tiam pervenire possint ? Nam praeterquam quod decreta 
 hujusmodi typis consignatur, ut facile per manus Episcoporum 
 ad omnium notitiam pervenire possint, libri proscripti Indici 
 librorum probibitorum inseruntur, ex quo fideles omnes facile 
 intelligere possunt, quinam sint libri, Apost. Sedis decreto 
 damnati.
 
 106 
 
 they yield their principal allegiance. And let 
 British Protestants well assure themselves, that 
 if Popery should again spread its dark and 
 pestilent wings over this country, no greater 
 delay would take place than was expedient, 
 before the Index of Rome and all its penalties 
 would be established in full force in our land. 
 
 A decree of the Sacred Congregation was made Dec. 4, 
 1674, determining that their Decrees oblige in the Spanish 
 Dominions abroad, and indeed oblige all Christians (universes 
 Christianos). 
 
 And the reader is to note, that where, through the tolerance 
 of the Apostolic See, the Rules of the Index and the Bull 
 Caena are not received, it only follows, that the readers of 
 books do not incur the censures therein expressed. At certum 
 est (proceeds the author), graviter peccare contra Ecclesiae 
 praeceptum quae semper vetuit horum librorum lectionem, 
 quaeque eandem [idem ?] per Rom. Pontificem inculcat &c reno- 
 vat. Hinc boni probique Catholic! ex omnibus partibus recurrere 
 solent ad Apost. Sedem, vel ad habentes ab ea facultatem, ut 
 legendi vetitos libros licentiam obtineant. 
 
 It is rather instructive to observe, how irresistibly this 
 uncompromising writer knocks to pieces all the ingenious pre- 
 tences of certain softeners or dissemblers of his communion, 
 who would persuade the world, that the sacred proscriptions, 
 and appendent penalties, of Rome, are not of universal obliga- 
 tion. The faithful are well, and somewhat sarcastically, 
 guarded against so mischievous an error. What ! the will and 
 law of the Supreme Pontiff and his cardinals to be set light 
 by ! the law of him, whose will is law, to depend upon the 
 reception of the sheep ! the pretence of (w-publication, or 
 not sufficient publication, to afford a subterfuge, when the de- 
 crees in question are attended with every notoriety, are printed,
 
 107 
 
 That this is a consummation which Popery has 
 always devoutly panted after and anticipated 
 as not unattainable, is put past a doubt by the 
 Memorial of the Reformation of the Church of 
 England, &c. by ROBERT PARSONS, written in 
 1596, and first published by the Rev. E. Gee, 
 in 1690. See particularly Part I. chap. ix. 
 
 are inserted in an Index promulgated for the very purpose, that 
 all the faithful every where may easily know what books are 
 condemned at the fountain of infallibility ! And if the subjects 
 of Rome, residing in happy Protestant England, should think 
 that they are out of the reach of the tyrant over sea, and that 
 his restrictions upon their reading are null and void, be it 
 known, as this honest fellow-religionist will tell them, that 
 although, by the toleration of his holiness, the Build Coena and 
 the Index with its Rules are not enforced in this country, yet 
 those who read books condemned by the Vicegerent of Deity 
 without license from him, or others deputed by him, are guilty 
 of a grave offence against a precept of the Church. And now, 
 humble, devoted servant of your Church in Italy, fly, like the 
 busy bee, from flower to flower, in the garden of literature, 
 and read at your pleasure, or rather, if a terrified conscience 
 will suffer you, the various works, (particularly in Latin, or 
 Italian, or French, or translated into any of those languages,) 
 contributed by the pens of such Reformers, Historians, Poets, 
 and even Philosophers, whose names appear in an Index of pro- 
 hibited books published with the sanction of the reigning pontiff', 
 particularly the last ! His holiness, indeed, cannot legislate, or 
 rather execute here as he likes : but you will not be able to 
 commit a grave offence against a precept of his and your 
 Church, without some compunctious visiting. I am not speak- 
 ing of those who profess your faith, but believe no more of it 
 than a Protestant does.
 
 108 
 
 pp. 94, 95, where the reader will find direc- 
 tions given for searching after offensive books, 
 wherever they existed, committing them to the 
 flames, and appointing severe order and punish- 
 ment for such as shall conceal writings of that 
 description. This was part of the scheme to 
 restore in full authority all the old laws of 
 Papal England. I consider myself happy in 
 having an early MS. copy of Parsons's work, 
 of the genuineness of which I believe no doubt 
 can be entertained. The preceding statement 
 may be seen more at length in the Preface to 
 the Literary Policy, pp. xviii.-xxii. 
 
 Drs. Douglass, Milner, and others, shewed 
 some good inclination to apply the wholesome 
 severities of the Index to the Reverends, Geddes, 
 Berington, O'Conor, and more, if they had felt 
 less of Protestant awe. See the caustic Letter 
 to the Bishop of Centuries ; the Preface to 
 BERINGTON'S Memoirs of Panzani ; the Letters 
 
 of COLUMBANUS, MoRISSY, O'CROLY, &C. We 
 
 may here subjoin an earlier proof than has 
 already been given of the deference which true 
 subjects of the Church of Rome are expected 
 to pay to her authorised biblical proscriptions. 
 ROGER WIDDRINGTON, whose. real name was 
 Thomas Preston, was fairly persecuted by his
 
 109 
 
 Church for his loyalty to his sovereign, James I. 
 He defended the Oath of Allegiance to that 
 prince against the pontiff and his party, who 
 justly feared, that if England were peaceable 
 and happy, even the sons of Roman darkness 
 would gradually and imperceptibly enter the 
 light of reformed Christianity. A considerable 
 portion of the works of Widdrington was 
 upon this important subject. That which has 
 the last date of any is, his Last Rejoynder 
 to Fitz-herbert, Permissu Superiorum, 1633, 
 without place or printer, in 4to. Most of 
 his works were condemned by a decree (in- 
 deed, by several decrees) of the Congregation 
 of the Index ; and in the Preface to the work 
 just mentioned, he writes of his adversaries 
 " They have caused his holiness to condemn 
 our books, which, in our judgment, do plainly 
 discover their forgeries, and to forbid all Catho- 
 lics, as well learned as unlearned, to read them, 
 without signifying unto us any one thing in 
 particular which we have written amiss," &c. 
 The particular Decree and the Purgation of the 
 author by himself are to be found pp. 625 to 
 the conclusion. The enemies of this honest 
 man at least so far knew they had an engine 
 in their hand not perfectly powerless.
 
 110 
 
 I will add a more modern instance of 
 the literary influence which Rome has and 
 exercises over her subjects. The person con- 
 cerned is the celebrated, and in some sense 
 meritorious, Dodd, author of the Romish 
 Church History of England, now being re- 
 edited by the Rev. M. A. Tierney. The 
 papal historian, who must be acknowledged to 
 be a very competent judge, being, of course, in 
 the secrets of his own communion, has described 
 the mcthode of the Jesuits (and Jesuitism is no 
 more than Popery highly rectified) in disposing 
 of works which they disapprove in the follow- 
 ing manner. Those who are influenced by 
 them, and under their direction, he observes, 
 " are commonly forbidden either to read or pur- 
 chase such books, as might contribute towards 
 setting them right in several matters where false 
 notions had taken possession of them to the 
 prejudice of truth. To carry on this contri- 
 vance, their way is to buy up, commit to the 
 flames, and use several other uncommendable 
 methods, to hinder the spreading of such books 
 as would give proper intelligence, in order to 
 establish the reputation of their own writers. 
 This, I apprehend, may be the fate of my Re- 
 ply : there being no other way left to support
 
 Ill 
 
 the credit of your Specimen." Apology for the 
 Church Hist. &c., being a Reply to***, a Spe- 
 cimen of Amendments, &c., under the fictitious 
 name of Clerophilus Alethes. [Constable] 
 1742, p. 204. 
 
 I conclude this exposure of the policy the 
 unlimited and all-penetrating policy of Rome, 
 as respects religious and even other literature, 
 wherever her interest is concerned, with the 
 moral, of no trifling importance, that it becomes 
 every Christian individual to be well aware of 
 the subtilty of his most inveterate and very 
 powerful foe ; and that it eminently behoves 
 every Christian government to understand, and 
 guard against, the necessary hostility and ma- 
 chinations of the same foe, and, as its only 
 security, to break through and cripple its OR- 
 GANISATION ; insisting that its operations shall 
 be subject to legal inspection and effectual 
 regulation. For it is intolerable, that, in a 
 simply Christian state, there should be fostered, 
 enjoying its best blessings, a corporation or fac- 
 tion, necessarily and illimitably of hostile in- 
 terests and feelings, and of sworn enmity to its 
 religion, and that, to the same corporation or 
 faction should be allowed, as a divine claim, 
 the unshackled liberty of communicating
 
 112 
 
 with a sovereign power in all the schemes 
 which that power cannot fail to meditate, as 
 well for its own advancement as for the subver- 
 sion of the object of its most intense antipathy. 
 That power well understands its own preten- 
 sions : it knows that, of Britons, as far as Papal, 
 the souls are its own ; and it can afford the car- 
 cass, or a part of it, to the temporal sovereign. 
 This necessarily divided allegiance, and so un- 
 equally divided, was for a long time denied 
 and ridiculed by the hired and deceived. 
 NICHOLAS FRENCH, in his Bleeding Iphigenia, 
 before referred to, has expressed this doctrine 
 of his Church in a very happy way, with a 
 mixture, somewhat Hibernian, of simplicity and 
 cunning, " It is true the Luminare Majus, (the 
 Pope,) Catholicks venerate more, then Lumi- 
 nare Minus, (the King), because Luminare Majus 
 hath the greater light and influence ; yet they 
 doe not therfore omitt to pay due veneration to 
 the King." Observe the word due. You may 
 pay a person due respect by treating him with in- 
 dignity. In fact, the word due will shelter any 
 thing, and is sometimes made to insinuate and 
 introduce more than the truth. French was a 
 resolute promoter and apologist of rebellion. 
 And here we may observe, that the whole secret
 
 113 
 
 of the grand quibble, by which Papists would 
 make it appear that their priests in Elizabeth's 
 reign suffered for their religion, is explained, 
 by observing, that religion and rebellion in 
 their case were, by the general principles of 
 Popery and the particular bull of anathema by 
 Pius V., so perfectly amalgamated, that from 
 the religion might legitimately and necessarily 
 be inferred the rebellion. It is so undeniable, 
 that it would be childish to deny, that Eliza- 
 beth and her government used the most intense 
 pains to avoid punishing for religion simply ; 
 so much so, that Rishton, the continuator of 
 SANDERS'S libel de Schismate Angl., with per- 
 verse ingratitude, and an infatuation apparently 
 judicial, writes, Et hanc in omnes Ordines cru- 
 delitatern dicunt se non exercere propter reli- 
 gionem, (sicut certe putamus putantque etiam 
 prudentes omnes, qui jam a multis annis adver- 
 terunt, iis qui reruin potiuntur in Anglia, de 
 fide, utcunque id praetendant, nullam curam ha- 
 beri, sed de statu suo solum esse solicitos,) &c. 
 Fol. 196, edit. Colon. 1585. The imposition is 
 now no longer necessary. And we may now 
 comfort ourselves with one advantage at least, 
 and no mean one, that Popery now exhibits her- 
 self as she is, and does not put us to the diffi-
 
 114 
 
 culty any longer of grappling with denials and 
 sophistications of all sorts, but is, in open ap- 
 pearance, and even ostentation, the unprin- 
 cipled and perjured creature, which it was be- 
 fore thought illiberal to charge as her character. 
 
 A government of Christianity and conscience 
 might have had the honour of preserving the 
 country from its present disgrace and calamity. 
 But it seems to have been the just, though par- 
 tially mysterious, design of the Most High, 
 after due chastisement and consequent purifi- 
 cation of the British Church, to bestow upon 
 her the honour, of which her natural protector 
 adjudged itself unworthy, independently and 
 single-handed, to vanquish and put to rout her 
 insolent assailant, and to shew the world, that 
 the arm on which she relies can give her the 
 desired triumph, not only in the absence of all 
 human help, but in spite of it, and to its per- 
 manent infamy. 
 
 Rome will find, that she has to descend 
 into a new field. In the secular one she met 
 with a resistance paralysed by treachery and 
 heartlessness to a truly alarming degree, 
 and gained an easy triumph. She will now, 
 as she has begun to feel, have to fight the 
 battle on a SPIRITUAL ground, and with men
 
 115 
 
 of real power and courage, who understand 
 their religion, and will defend it with a loyal 
 heart to the utmost. A little more than a 
 century ago she had to sustain a contest much 
 of this character, and was driven from the 
 field with utter rout and disgrace ; when a 
 noble band of sound Protestant warriors were 
 roused to the defence of their purified Christ- 
 ian faith, then assailed by the combined powers 
 of Popery, headed by the reigning sovereign, 
 James II. It must, indeed, and with grief, 
 be acknowledged, that a large mixture of 
 what was merely secular, though valuable, 
 and of what was merely intellectual, though 
 valuable likewise, with the spiritual object 
 and means, rendered the victory less pure 
 and decisive that it would otherwise have 
 been. But with no disposition to boast, of 
 which the cause is far enough from us, it may 
 yet be confidently asserted, to the honour of 
 those who are now unfurling the banner of the 
 true cross against the bearers of the false, 
 that they are prevalently faithful, intelligent, 
 and devoted soldiers of their Divine Sovereign 
 and Captain, and both understand and adorn 
 the cause in which they have enlisted them- 
 selves. Few, indeed, are now the cases in
 
 116 
 
 which the champion of the Protestant faith 
 differs but little, in his fundamental belief 
 from the subject of Rome. The points of 
 difference are at this time well perceived and 
 justly appreciated. They are felt to be funda- 
 mental and important, and as they are prac- 
 tically embraced, are cordially defended. With 
 exceptions, which hardly deserve to be taken 
 into the account, those who remain faithful 
 to the Christian cause see where its distinctive 
 nature and value lie, and are ready to sacrifice 
 their worldly fortunes, and their lives too, in 
 the service in which they abide. They do 
 not disdain the secular assistance which is 
 their due, and which they rate at its proper 
 value, but disdaining an undue reliance upon 
 it, their ultimate and supreme hope is reposed 
 in Him, who has all means and all events 
 at his command ; and they trust that He will 
 not the less own and vindicate his own cause, 
 because it is prosecuted in simple dependence 
 upon Him, but will, for that very reason, above 
 any other, crown them with a signal, final, 
 and everlasting victory. As in all human 
 events and revolutions, He will pay so much 
 respect to his own exquisitely beautiful machi- 
 nery of united cause and effect, as to put in
 
 117 
 
 action for his own purposes human agents 
 and agencies ; and, by a combination the least 
 to be expected, and the least capable of being 
 compassed by the policy or power of man, we 
 may live to see the day, and no distant one, 
 when that mighty engine, which other bad 
 causes in conjunction with Popery labour to 
 create and wield, turned against them, and 
 a simultaneous union of Protestant will and 
 effort issue in a GREAT MOVEMENT, which shall 
 bear down all before it, and leave the Grand 
 Deluder of ages to the vain refuge of his own 
 lies, his own folly, his own iniquity.
 
 118 
 
 I MAKE no apology for subjoining the spe- 
 cimen of politic misrepresentation and obvious 
 falsehood, in the literary dealings of Romanists 
 with Protestants, exhibited in the following 
 letter, although I am the subject, because, in- 
 dependently of that accident, it goes directly 
 and emphatically to illustrate the precise sub- 
 ject of the present work, and is an instar plu- 
 rimorum, if not omnium. 
 
 British Magazine, Vol. XV. for 1839, pp. 
 394-7. 
 
 " On the Literary Treatment of English Catholics 
 by Roman Catholics. 
 
 " Sir, The case which I am about to set 
 before you and your readers is, in part, per- 
 sonal to myself, as it concerns a work of mine, 
 Memoirs of the Council of Trent, &c. It is 
 likewise personal to yourself, as you were 
 pleased to pronounce an encomium upon the 
 work, of which I have gratefully availed rny- 
 self in every advertisement of it which has 
 appeared. But neither of these facts, or both 
 together, are the chief reason by which I 
 should feel inclined, or perhaps justified, in 
 troubling either myself or the public on such
 
 119 
 
 a subject. It is because the case which I 
 shall produce is of a public character, as illus- 
 trating the kind of honesty and honour which 
 Protestant writers have to expect from authors, 
 particularly professed critics, of the Roman 
 Church, more especially if anonymous, that I 
 venture to occupy a portion of your pages with 
 a discussion which might otherwise need an 
 apology. 
 
 " In a Dublin Review for last year, No. 
 IX. p. 43, at the close of the note, occur the 
 following words : ' M. Ranke refrains from 
 quoting Mr. Mendham's Memoirs of the Coun- 
 cil of Trent, because, as he justly observes 
 (Vol. iii. p. 289), the author of them has not 
 displayed the learning and study necessary 
 for working out his materials.' The article is 
 a review of RANKE'S History of the Popes. 
 
 " I apprehend that any competent reader 
 will interpret this passage as an assertion, in 
 the first place, that Professor Ranke has re- 
 frained from quoting the Memoirs ; secondly, 
 that he has given as the reason of the alleged 
 omission, that the author failed in certain 
 necessary qualifications ; and thirdly, that the 
 necessary qualifications in which he was de- 
 ficient were, both learning and study.
 
 120 
 
 " The reviewer expressly refers to the place 
 of Ranke's history, which he professes to re- 
 present. It is as follows : 
 
 " ' In Mendhams Memoirs of the Council of 
 Trident, findet sich inanches neue und gute ; 
 z. B., finden wir p. 181, einen Auszug aus den 
 Acten des Paleotto, sogar dessen Einleitungen, 
 selbst zu einzelnen Sessionen, wie zur 20 sten ; 
 aber es ist nicht das gehb'rige Studium dahin- 
 tergesetzt.' 
 
 " I will now give an English translation of 
 the passage, with which a friend familiar with 
 the German language furnished me ; as indeed 
 with the original passage, before I possessed 
 the book. 
 
 " * A great deal that is new and good is to 
 be found in Mendham's Memoirs of the Council 
 of Trent; for example, p. 181, we find an 
 extract of the Acts of Paleotto, particularly his 
 Introductions, even to separate Sessions, as to 
 the 20th ; but it has not been backed by the 
 requisite study.' 
 
 " It may just be observed, that the French 
 translation by A. de S. Cheron* agrees as 
 closely as need be with this version, tome ii. p. 
 penult. And now I freely profess, that I feel 
 
 * [Should hare beeu J. B. Haiber.]
 
 121 
 
 no dissatisfaction with the judgment of Pro- 
 fessor Ranke. He is certainly mistaken in 
 representing a particular passage as an extract 
 from Paleotto ; for the whole account of the 
 concluding sessions of the Council have for 
 their continued basis the Acts of Paleotto, 
 which are a regular and continued history of 
 the final assembly of the Council. The letters 
 of the principal agents of the time form the 
 other principal source. I am convinced, how- 
 ever, that this inadequate representation arose, 
 not from any design, but from the hasty man- 
 ner in which the author turned over the pages 
 of the Memoirs. It is as well not to hazard a 
 judgment on such examination ; but in par- 
 ticular cases it may be excused. To the cen- 
 sure contained in the last sentence, I might 
 reply, that the professor is a gentleman not 
 easily to be pleased. He has treated my bet- 
 ters, Sarpi, Pallavicino, Raynaldus, Le Plat, 
 with a hypercritical severity which might well 
 render me contented under my own lash. But 
 the censure is exceedingly indefinite; and I 
 must say, that I feel no particular mortifica- 
 tion in not coinciding in taste with Professor 
 Leopold Ranke. If he had written his history 
 after more experience, he would, I doubt not,
 
 122 
 
 have thought and written in a style very dif- 
 ferent from that which characterises his pre- 
 sent work. He and his sovereign, like honest 
 men, were full of charity and confidence 
 towards the subjects of the Pope. But the 
 Archbishop of Cologne has taught them both, 
 as the events of the last ten years have taught 
 us, that the only natural reward of kindness 
 and favour towards true sons of the Italian 
 See, is the gratitude of the cherished viper. 
 As to the defects of the Memoirs, of which I 
 am sufficiently sensible, and only wish that the 
 task had fallen into abler, and as willing , hands, 
 I can only say, that my real object was, not to 
 display study or learning, but to give the 
 public information in a simple, straightforward 
 way, which, it is no affectation to add, would 
 not be otherwise within their reach. And upon 
 this point I am not at all anxious to dwell. 
 Fact, which is plainly fact, must be known. 
 
 "And now, to come nearer to the main 
 point, it is assumed, and really asserted, by 
 the Dublin Reviewer, that Ranke has refrained 
 from quoting the Memoirs. He clenches the 
 assertion by the following statement, that 
 Ranke's opinion of the work was the reason of 
 the omission. It should be understood, that
 
 123 
 
 the Memoirs and the first volume (first edi- 
 tion) of Ranke's work, were published in the 
 same year, 1834 the Memoirs at the begin- 
 ning of the year, as far as> my recollection 
 serves Ranke's Popes, of course, as the fact 
 will prove, at a later part of the year. Now 
 it would be nothing very extraordinary, in this 
 case, since the only portion of his history in 
 which he had any concern with Tridentine 
 matters was confined to the first volume, if he 
 had omitted all reference to certain English 
 memoirs of the Council : unless, indeed, this 
 view were contradicted by an express assertion 
 of his own, that he had purposely neglected 
 those English memoirs for certain alleged 
 reasons. It is well known by those who have 
 any acquaintance with the Berlin professor's 
 able, but far from faultless, work, that his 
 views of the transactions which he records are 
 very summary and sketchy ; and that in rather 
 an arbitrary manner, as well as degree. It is 
 likewise to be observed, that the author has 
 pretty exclusively confined himself to the MSS. 
 documents to which he had access, generally 
 pretermitting printed and common sources. 
 And it is the fact, that in his brief outline of 
 the two first assemblies of the Council of
 
 124 
 
 Trent, there is no reference to the English 
 memoirs published in the same year, and, in 
 all probability, not till after the part of Ranke's 
 first volume was in the press and printed. In 
 the account, however, of the third, last, and 
 most important convention of the Council, of 
 which the account occurs pp. 329-351 of the 
 first volume, second edition in 1838, there are 
 three distinct references to the Memoirs, as 
 authority, pp. 334, 344, 345. In the third 
 volume likewise among the documents, in 
 that, the subject of which is Sarpi, p. 276, 
 speaking of a MS. history of Milledonne, which 
 he possessed, he adds, * welche auch Fos- 
 carini und Mendham kennen.' These, added 
 to the reference first adduced, are really more 
 notice than a foreigner, with so little notoriety 
 and introduction as the present writer can 
 pretend to, could well expect from a distant 
 university. The only wonder with me is, that 
 the work was known at Berlin at all, par- 
 ticularly so early. 
 
 " But now, what becomes of the Dublin Re- 
 viewer's assertion, that Ranke has refrained 
 from quoting Mr. Mendham s Memoirs, with 
 the reason given by the author for the same 't 
 and what becomes of his veracity ?
 
 125 
 
 " The reason for a false assertion falls, to- 
 gether with the falsehood of the assertion, and 
 only serves to render the falsehood double. 
 
 " It will be remembered, that the Dublin 
 Reviewer perhaps throughout he will claim 
 the benefit of an Irish bull has thought fit, 
 under shelter of the Prussian professor, to im- 
 pugn the ' learning,' as well as ' study' of the 
 author of the Memoirs. I am not at all con- 
 cerned to vindicate the learning of that author : 
 but I am concerned to expose to the public the 
 sheer invention, the palpable, interested, 
 calumnious, and, I fear, I must add, inten- 
 tional falsehood, of the gratuitous addition. 
 
 " The reader who examines well the extract 
 from the Dublin Reviewer, will probably ad- 
 mire the dexterous construction of the whole, 
 and the art displayed in it of intertwining so 
 much neutral truth with so much substantial, 
 though similar, untruth, as either to recom- 
 mend the fabrication in a lump, or provide a 
 point of defence on detection, as the case may 
 require. 
 
 " I cannot, however, conclude without offer- 
 ing the critic my best thanks, for the real, 
 though involuntary, compliment which he has 
 paid my work. If there were not something
 
 126 
 
 in it calculated to make him and his Church 
 feel, I believe he would as gladly have omitted 
 all reference to it, as he feigns the professor of 
 Berlin to have done. I do not take to my 
 learning, or study, or any other quality, the 
 credit of being formidable to the members of 
 the Roman communion : but I well know, that 
 nothing is more closely concealed, and more 
 dreaded when exposed, than some of the vital 
 documents of their own Church. Nothing 
 which her enemies can say, carries so much 
 terror to her heart as the echo of her own 
 words. In the case of a work, then, which is 
 hardly more than such an echo, the point with 
 them (since compulsion as yet is out of the 
 question) is, to obviate the curiosity, especially 
 of their own people, as effectually as possible. 
 And this is be done, not by violent or elaborate 
 censure, which would disclose the feeling ex- 
 cited, but by an apparently dispassionate and 
 passing remark, which shall impress upon the 
 reader, that the work in question is entitled to 
 no particular attention, and may be neglected 
 without any loss of valuable information. The 
 obnoxious author is not to be set upon with 
 sword or pistol, but he is to be quietly 
 smothered with a wet blanket. To do them
 
 127 
 
 justice, Romanists have treated their own 
 brethren, on necessity, in the same way. A 
 Watson and a Widdrington, a Berington and a 
 Geddes, have been silently entombed with the 
 observation, as the sub-jesuitic C. Butler 
 would phrase it, ' they are not much esteemed 
 by Catholics.' Even their great historian, C. 
 Dodd, fell within the gripe of a Catholic con- 
 stable, who compelled him to say, that ' there 
 is little mercy to be expected from those who 
 attack the Jesuits.' He adds, 'The cry is, 
 Lord, have mercy upon him : take him, gaoler.' 
 Dodd well understood his own Church.* 
 
 "Whether the reported be the real con- 
 ductors of the Dublin Review, I know not, 
 though I believe it. I certainly had it to 
 learn, that it was so important an object to 
 them to put an extinguisher upon their own 
 most authentic conciliar records, as exhibited 
 in the Memoirs, that, for the sake of attaining 
 it, they were content to deliver up their own 
 veracity, or, what may be dearer to them, their 
 reputation for veracity, to irretrievable con- 
 tempt. One effect of their inconsiderate liber- 
 
 An Apology for the Church History, &c. 1742, p. 202. 
 This, with the " Specimen of Amendments" will doubtless be 
 reprinted by Mr. Tierney.
 
 128 
 
 ality is certain and entitled to gratitude for 
 the future, their world, as well as our own, will 
 understand the exact value, not only of their 
 judgment, but of their assertion. 
 
 "JOSEPH MENDHAM. 
 " Sutton CoUfield" 
 
 P.S. The appearance of Mrs. S. AUSTIN'S 
 long-expected English translation of Professor 
 RANKE'S History of the Popes affords me the 
 opportunity of observing, that her translation of 
 the passage, with which I am particularly con- 
 cerned, iii. Appendix, 81, perfectly in substance 
 agrees with my own. In a communication of the 
 Professor with Mrs. Austin, he complains heavily 
 and justly of the bad faith of the French transla- 
 tor, M. J. B. Haiber, and hopes that amends will 
 be made by the English translator. It will still 
 farther illustrate the subject of the preceding pages 
 to adduce a signal specimen of infidelity in that 
 translator out of a good number, some of which 
 he has been compelled to acknowledge and correct. 
 It concerns Fra Paolo Sarpi, and the differences 
 between the republic of Venice and the Papacy. 
 Ranke has certainly no prejudice in favour of the 
 Venetian. His translator, however, could not 
 digest the following passage, and has accordingly
 
 129 
 
 altogether omitted it. " Justly is Paolo Sarpi's 
 memory held in reverence in all Catholic states. 
 He was the able and victorious champion of those 
 principles determining the bounds of ecclesiastical 
 authority, which are their guides and safeguards to 
 this day," ii. 369. Here was no very violent temp- 
 tation ; ard the falling by it, united with my own 
 experience of Papal dishonesty as far as the Dublin 
 Review is concerned, painfully impresses the iron 
 necessity, under which every committed son of the 
 Italian Church finds himself bound to violate truth 
 and sincerity, when and wherever the felt interests 
 of his Church require the sacrifice. To the very 
 ambiguous censure of my Memoirs by the Prussian 
 Professor, I have only to reply, that it would have 
 been simply the employment of longer labour to 
 have increased the matter considerably, and perhaps 
 profitably. Whether systematic and theoretic views 
 of the facts, just or unjust, but by courtesy of the 
 age esteemed philosophic, would have materially 
 edified, or even gratified, the reader, may be classed 
 with doubtful matters. Perhaps many, and not the 
 worst qualified, readers, may be as well pleased to 
 have inferences and conclusions left to themselves. 
 These may be sentimental, visionary, acute, or pro- 
 found, as best suits their humour. My object was, 
 to select, from materials not open to all, funda- 
 mental and apparently most important points, and
 
 130 
 
 present them with their best evidence and better, 
 I may be allowed to say, than has yet been produced 
 on the subject. Had the task been accomplished by 
 another, I could not have denied that he had done 
 some good service ; and it is not too much to add, 
 that I expect and believe I have found more equity, 
 as well as favour, from the competent part of the 
 British public, than has been awarded by the criti- 
 cism of Professor Ranke ; for the main body of which 
 I have proved myself not ungrateful. 
 August^, 1840. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRIKTKD BT MOYKS AVD BARCLAY, CASTLE blHEET, LKICE8TKR SUUAKK.
 
 REMARKS 
 
 ON 
 
 SOME PARTS OF THE REV. T. L. GREEN's lid. LETTER 
 TO THE YEN. ARCHDEACON HODSON. 
 
 Nihil est quod absque argento Romana curia dedat. Nam et ips-a- manus 
 impoaitiones, et Spiritus Sancti dona venduntur. Nee pecoatorum venia 
 nisi nummatis impenditur. JEs. SYLVH Bp. LXVI. p. 549. Opp. Basil. J571. 
 
 IN this Letter Mr. Green has honoured me with a notice, for 
 which he is entitled to my best thanks ; and not the less for the op- 
 portunity which he has afforded me, p. 22, of correcting an over- 
 sight into which I had fallen in my Venal Indulgences, <%c. p. 105, 
 where, in a note, meaning to refer to Bellarmine de Indul. 1 , ix. I had 
 cited the cardinal as adjoining the remission of culpa, at least venlalis, 
 to the Plenissima Indulgentia. He disclaims the opinion himself; 
 while he attests it as that quorundam. My monitor therefore has 
 given me plural for singular. I have accordingly in the first line of 
 the note, after plenissima, added in MS. for any future edition, the 
 words " according to the opinion of some, in his church necessarily, 
 and possibly quite as good as his own, although rejected by himself, 
 as not solid." Lines 5 and 6 I alter thus " They will probably 
 kick away any of their advocates for the turn." 
 
 My obligation does not end here. Mr. G. has attracted the 
 attention of the public to a subject of mighty importance, particu- 
 larly at the present crisis ; and he may be assured, that the reading 
 and better judging part of that public will not rest satisfied with 
 interested, superficial and partial views of it. If the effect be such 
 as I anticipate from his criticism of my own small works, and his 
 intention were in accordance, I ought to express my gratitude to 
 him for much good will. 
 
 For my own subordinate concern in the burthen of two years' 
 gestation, of which Mr. G. has just been happily delivered, I should 
 be perfectly contented to throw myself on the re-perusal by any can- 
 did and competent reader of the works which Mr. G. would appear 
 to have shaken. Those works, the Spiritual Venality of Home, giving
 
 a particular account of the Spiritual Taxes of the Papal church, and 
 the Venal Indulgences and Pardons of the same church, I presume, 
 from the skill and pains discoverable in his pretermissions, he has 
 perhaps read through. Although he must be acquainted with, he 
 has failed to notice, another publication, which originally appeared 
 in a Quarterly periodical, Home's Traffic in Pardons substantiated. 
 This I the rather regret, because it contains information respecting 
 his own church of some importance, especially on one of the subjects 
 handled by him, and from his own church's authors, principally from 
 Amort, which to all appearance he has yet to acquire. If the omis- 
 sion were intentional it cannot be denied to be prudent. Had he 
 ventured to give its established conclusions with any fidelity he 
 would have had a very different tale to produce to the public. It is 
 a right pleasant thing for a smooth, plausible priest of Rome to 
 select from the variations of his own church a line, or col- 
 lection of eminent doctors, who all teach a doctrine perfectly 
 uniform, without a single interference of dissent or opposition, and 
 make his humble and trustful flock believe, that this, and no other, is 
 the doctrine of u the catholic church" while at the very time he 
 knows, or shame to him if he does not, that upon almost every doc- 
 trine which he esteems vital, and particularly on that of Indulgences, 
 his great doctors are all to pieces, some differing pretty diametrically, 
 others by shades and conundrums, but all of them in their degrees 
 much ahout as harmonious as the tongues of the builders at the dis- 
 persion of Babel. These differences indeed did not proceed to blows ; 
 for while the fundamental point, the income from Indulgences was 
 satisfactorily forthcoming in its season, mere words and opinions were 
 tolerated. When the opinion of Luther touched this, matters were 
 altered. 
 
 The first part of Mr. G.'s letter is no concern of mine, and is 
 evidently intended, or, at least, is only fit, for his own particular 
 adherents, who are bound to trust him for a fraction of his church's 
 vagrant infallibility. 
 
 At p. 35 the engineer opens his battery upon the Centum Gra- 
 fimina, of which any one who knows any thing will at once perceive 
 that the assailant knows next to nothing. However, with his little 
 lie does his best. He finds it too late in the day to repeat the 
 bouncing experiment of instantaneous denial of facts which fair his- 
 tory well attests ; but he flees to the convenient refuge of abuses 
 a name, which will throw a plausible mantle over any crime. And 
 further, they were condemned !>>/ the Church. Just as if it were a 
 rare thing for his church to commit and condemn the same thing ; 
 or, like a living ornament of the papal Church i:i Ireland, abjure with
 
 one side ofher mouth to one audience, what she sanctions and pro- 
 motes with the other side to another audience. Tacitus somewhere 
 says, fact urn esse scelus loquunturfaciuntque. This church has not been 
 set upon her hills so short a time as to be unseen and unknown. 
 This flexible and accommodating entity has prudence if she has not 
 shame ; and it is not for her most valued interests that she should 
 herself appear in all her transactions, and bear the occasional infamy 
 of instruments, which her inclination prompts, and her conscience 
 does not forbid, her to employ. 
 
 It is rather amusing to find Mr. G. p. 37, resorting to the con- 
 dition expressed pro forma in the billets of Indulgences, and in 
 other documents, " truly contrite and confessed," or to the same 
 effect, as proof that the condition was literally enforced or required ; 
 when by the application of his technical explanations, and his annexa- 
 tion of the terms " not properly," at pleasure, he has completely 
 emasculated his own argument. I am quite satisfied, that his 
 " ingenious device" is far more applicable to these conditions than 
 to the spiritual graces granted by the author or authors of the In- 
 dulgences. These Indulgences, by those who issued them, were 
 well enough known to be base coin ; they were nevertheless put 
 into circulation as true and legal. The church, from whose mint 
 they came, did mean to deceive; but she did not mean to be de- 
 tected in the attempt, and exposed. Such abuses do not now exist 
 why ? because they cannot. The trade of the Great Impostor is 
 up ; " for no man buyeth her merchandise any more." Rev. 
 xviii. 2. 
 
 At p. 46, in order to gain some advantage to his cause, the pre- 
 sent champion makes a scape-goat of poor Tetzel. This is, indeed, 
 only the way in which his brethren treat their own most sacred 
 Breviary, and its stupendous miracles one grand mark of the true 
 church. But poor Tetzel ! what a return, as he himself feelingly 
 complained, for all his honest and laborious efforts for the catholic 
 church, and even for her tenderest part, her purse ! His " Puffs" in 
 the virtuous indignation of the rather ungrateful censor so called, 
 were good orthodox pleadings at the time, and would never have 
 been esteemed otherwise by the rulers of Rome had not their effec- 
 tual exposure thrown back disgrace upon the zealous official, which 
 threatened to go on and terminate in the disgrace of the church and 
 its head which employed him, unless prompt measures were used to 
 avert it. Tetzel is no favourite with protestants of course; but to 
 be abandoned by those, who pretend to be true sons of that church, 
 which he devoted his great, approved, and for a time, rewarded la-
 
 hours, even to the sacrifice of conscience, to serve, is hard indeed; 
 and shews that Rome has little pity for those of her servants whose 
 zeal and labour are not rewarded with success. Had he succeeded 
 always, as at first, all would have been well the Dominican (and 
 noticed with real respect in the Bibliotlieca of the Fraternity by 
 Quetif and Echard, ii. 40, 1 ;) Inquisitor General ; Sub-commis- 
 sary ; and for his merits promoted by Albert, Archbp. of Magde- 
 burgh, to the honour of Commissary and Special Inquisitor ; and 
 loaded with no moral vice but such as he shared in abundance with 
 popes, cardinals, and father confessors ; and this man, for his final 
 failure, is so furiously rated by another, and no better servant of his 
 master, Miltitz, that he sank under it, and in his last hours had 
 none to pity him but Luther ! 
 
 I perceive by the same note, that the Summary which I have 
 given in the original at length of the Indulgences for the repair of the 
 Cathedral of Saintes in Saintogne, somewhat discomposes Mr. G.'s sere- 
 nity; and I do not wonder; for it contains a faithful and graphic 
 description of his church and her doings. In puerile imprudence he 
 lets out his wrath against the Commissary, Raymond Peraudi, who, 
 let him remember, was a purpled ornament of his church, and as 
 pains-taking a gentleman as Mr. G. himself. Yet of him he says 
 " he was, in all probability, as accomplished a questor as the cele- 
 brated Tetzel himself. And the Summary is worthy of its author." 
 He was, in all probability, as worthy a man as the priest who 
 should solemnly deny " that he knows of his own personal knowledge" 
 or," so that Jte may tell" (according to Tresham's Treatise of Equinjca- 
 tion, or Soto's instruction, see Mason's New Art of Lying, p. 27,) 
 what in all Ireland and the Breviary is as obtrusive on the view 
 as the light of the sun at mid-day. 
 
 Mr. G. might have spared the second edition of his imaginary 
 wit about " six folio volumes," had he foreseen that he himself 
 would designate the places in Labbe's Councils by folia. He should 
 have written columns ; and any of the young gentlemen of Oscott 
 would tell him, that in one folium there are four columns. I may 
 here suitably enough introduce another specimen of the habits in 
 which Romish controvertists familiarly allow themselves. Arch- 
 deacon Hodson quoted from Bp. Stillingfleet an Indulgence which 
 contained a remission of all sins to those who in the article of death 
 should devoutly commend their souls to God,&c. without referring 
 to the authority. This made Mr. G. particularly urgent to obtain 
 the reference. The call, however, suddenly dropped. Why? Be- 
 cause Mr. G., in exploring Ferrari's Prompta BiUioiheca under Indul-
 
 ytntia, found three distinct copies of Indulgences containing pre- 
 cisely the same form one by Benedict XIII. the other two by Be- 
 nedict XIV. See iv. 525-8, and Addenda p. 35, ed. Venet. 1782. 
 And if the Letter-writer had not determined to spoil some sheets 
 of clean paper, he might have eased himself of the labour of collec- 
 tions from various councils condemnatory of the abuses of the Quaes- 
 tors all very right, with a good meaning of many individuals, and 
 to save appearances by the rest. We ever admit, that there have 
 been conscientious and even good men at all times in the Roman 
 apostacy, or we should never have had the reformation. The fact 
 contended for is denied by none, and the proof superfluous. Even 
 Trent made bold demonstrations amounting to nothing. The thitnj 
 was still secured, and the control was all in the hands of the Pope. 
 He and his certainly wished the affair to be managed decently ; but 
 fhe rule was 
 
 Rem, 
 
 Si possis, recte, &c. 
 
 To close the first part of the subject, Venal Indulgences, I will 
 simply observe, that Mr. G. has done what is done by most in 
 the same predicament he has mixed some truth with his fiction, 
 as much as would do him no harm, and would save or assist his 
 credit, and the credit of the prevailing fiction. He has pretty 
 adroitly selected what accorded with this plan. He has performed 
 various contortions to extricate himself from the net in which he felt 
 himself caught. But his main contrivance and refuge has been^w- 
 UnMlM*. Of the plain grammatical meaning of the indulgences in 
 question of the necessarily popular interpretation of the expres- 
 sion of that popular interpretation in the jingling, proverbial 
 phrase, tantum donant quantam sonant of the naturally conse- 
 quent disputes among the doctors of the church herself respect- 
 ing the honesty or knarery of that church ; and lastly and eminently, 
 of those interesting and little known forms, the Confess\s,nals, of 
 which 1 have given both a fac-sitnile specimen and so extended an 
 account, with the priced varieties of spiritual graces contained in 
 them, particularly the optional confessors he has preserved a pro- 
 found and very prudent silence. In fact, I fear that Mr. G. has 
 throughout been fighting against his own convictions ; and that he 
 inwardly feels, because he knows, that he is incapable of facing, much 
 less of confuting, a single substantial statement in what 1 have 
 written on the subject of his Church's Veual Indulgences. 
 
 At p. (i6 and onwards Mr. G., with his two years' preparation, 
 "boldly" enters upon the subject of the Penitentiary Taxes uf.l'mf. 
 as presented in my fyirituol Venality. He will readily agree with 
 
 Al
 
 G 
 
 me, if he has any experience in such cases, that works and children 
 of darkness do not ordinarily court the light. From the offenders 
 and their friends, as is evident in the proceedings of every court of 
 justice, it is with the utmost difficulty, that any thing in the shape 
 of criminating evidence can be wrung. So that the friends of truth 
 and equity are often under the necesssity of satisfying themselves 
 with evidence of a broken and deficient character accidental and 
 apparently involuntary both admission and disclosures the light 
 mutually reflected by different and distant admitted facts upon each 
 other, and various other proofs weaker or stronger seldom suffi- 
 cient for conviction absolutely fajal, and yet quite sufficient for per- 
 sonal and moral assurance of the truth of the particular charge quite 
 sufficient to exclude all reasonable doubt. 
 
 This is precisely the case of the Church of Rome as respects the 
 iniquities charged upon her, particularly that under consideration. 
 
 I have done my best to collect and present all the evidence, 
 weighing its value as I could, extant upon the subject. Kven an ad- 
 vocate of Rome would riot expect me to invent evidence; this at least 
 is not the practice with protestants. Had I allowed myself such 
 liberty I might have made out a much clearer, indeed a perfectly 
 clear case 
 
 totus teres atque rotundus, 
 
 Externi ne quid valeat per leve morari. 
 
 1 have given my materials as I found them in their natural order : 
 some of them new, others improved or enlarged, all pertinent, 
 many important. It is needless to say what I have done, as any 
 reader who chuses may have recourse to my volume. 
 
 It is more to my purpose to shew what my opponent has done, 
 and likewise what he has not done. 
 
 He has done as follows: He has given a long detail of ex- 
 extracts from the Venality, with the effect, whatever were the in- 
 tention, of appearing to present an extended and fair statement of 
 the argument oppugned. But with this he has intermingled passages 
 selected to favour his purpose from different parts, and some of 
 them rather obtusely perverted : and assuming, that my cause is 
 answerable for all the imperfections and variations in the docu- 
 ments facts, not denied but openly and carefully stated with no- 
 thing but a protestant though valuable re-print, and another, in his 
 own possession, he feels himself warranted to come to the bold 
 conclusion, " Now, Sir, whether I can reasonably be called upon 
 to defend or reply to any of the individual charges in documents so 
 strangely discordant with each other, and so totally destitute of 
 valid authentication, I may fearlessly leave to the judgment of the
 
 reader." To this piece of flippancy it would be sufficient to answer, 
 that particulars in the documents concerned may rar>j with times, 
 places, and persons, and not be discordant ; and if they were, there 
 may be good reasons for preferring one to another. And as for 
 valid authentication, I believe I have displayed more than the 
 priest resident in Tixall quite relishes, and more than is usually 
 found in such dark cases as those in which papal iniquity abounds. 
 Let me add, that I apprehend the fearless writer will on reflexion 
 feel that he has committed somewhat of an oversight in bringing, 
 as he has done, to the acquaintance of his own people, so large a por- 
 tion of the contents of mv volume thinking rather fondly, that he 
 is doing no more than helping forward his own object, forgetting, at 
 the same time, their wry suspicious character, and exciting the almost 
 irrepressible inquiry what can all this mean ? can such things have 
 originated in nothing ? in what point do the converging lines unite ? 
 
 But I must tell the reader what Mr. G. has not done. I do 
 not say that he has altogether omitted, but he has done what 
 perhaps is quite the same thing for effect, he has deprived of 
 their prominence, he has thrown into the back ground, the 
 main supports of the charge against his church the copy of 
 the Penitentiary Taxes which I have reprinted the most au- 
 thentic recognition which they have received by their being re- 
 printed repeatedly in the body of law, the Oceanus Juxis, published in 
 Venice, the volume in which it is found being dedicated to the reign- 
 ing pope and the celebrated passage in Claude d'Esjiense, fixing upon 
 the document the awful and indelible character, which not all the 
 ingenious processes of the most expert of Rome's artizans can 
 erase or expunge. No, no : whatever postern doors may have been 
 provided as an escape from detection, Rome is openly convicted of 
 having carried on a profligate trade in the souls of men, their crimes 
 and their pardons, for many long centuries. The respectable 
 Richer, Historian of the General Councils, knew what he said, 
 when he charged her with " making the sins of men her golden harrest;" 
 and Pius II. before he was Pope, and saw belter, than when at the 
 last year of his life he was made to recant, felt himsL j lf secure against 
 contradiction when he wrote, that at Rome " not eren the pardon of 
 fin conld be obtained without being paid for in solid cash. 
 
 Mr. G., however, Is disposed to nibble and qu'bble a little, and 
 complains, pp. 88, &c. of the words " of sinning" being added to 
 the word Ucfntia in d'Espense. They were added, because they ap- 
 peared necessary ; and so, from the current of thought and aru- 
 ment in the author, and the following context, I still think un-
 
 8 
 
 moved by either the philological or logical finesse of Mr. G. His 
 assertion, p. 89, that protestants industriously circulate a book, in 
 which more wickedness may be learned than in all the Tax-tables, 
 has no doubt reference to the Whole Duty of Man. The writer, in- 
 dulgently, I suppose, adds, that he " need not specify it." This 
 is the very matter which led the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Spencer into a 
 labyrinth of puerile blunders. The Rector of Sutton Coldfield put 
 him to complete rout and shame on the subject ; and the publication 
 of his own Letters on Auricular Confession, together with those of his 
 opponent, who, characteristically enough, had published his own sepa- 
 rately by tltemsdves, has demonstrated not only the vile iniquity of 
 the Confessional, but the utter impotence of the new comparative 
 argument set up in its defence If Mr. G. could have pointed to a 
 popular manual among us, containing the filthy pages which dis- 
 grace a popular manual well-known by himself, the " Garden oft/ui 
 SW" pages, of which the intrinsic uncleanness is the slightest part of 
 their guilt ; for they acquire a satanic virulence by the practical con- 
 sequences which can hardly fail to follow the atrocious instructions 
 of such " sure guides" as Dens and others, pages, so revolting as 
 to render it expedient that another book should be provided as 
 a substitute for decent Romanists, females especially could he have 
 done this, he would have done something; but he knows he cannot. 
 
 It may be my defect of sagacity, but I can discern no other 
 quality than that of quibbling in the note p. 92, on the phrase in 
 foro conscientice ; and apprehend, that in the presence of leading ar- 
 guments it is worth little, and may be left to its own insignifi- 
 cance ; at least so I am content to leave it. 
 
 What I read in p. 88, referring the reader to the Taxos in the 
 BuUarium as " the genuine Taxae," might have occasioned sur- 
 prise, if any thing in modern Papal tactics could. The things 
 themselves are the most innocuous in all directions that can be 
 imagined. I had expressly guarded against them as a common 
 fallacy in my Venality, p. u, and hardly expected that any champion 
 of Rome had forehead enough to attempt to palm them upon the 
 public as the genuine, and only, or principal Taxae of the Roman 
 see. They are, except for the cupidity which characterises them, per- 
 fectly innocent matters, and have no appearance of being intended 
 for deception, presenting, however, strong temptation in such times as 
 the present to those who have an interest in so employing them. It is 
 rather unfortunate that, when I had done my best to warn the pub- 
 lic, particularly Romanists, of the danger, Mr. G. should span, 
 taneously step into the not very honourable niche which 1 had
 
 unconsciously cut out for such indiscreet and not very high prin- 
 cipled adventurers. But as long as Popery exists, her impostors 
 will. 
 
 I now travel back to pp. 76-9 in order to notice an argument 
 which should not escape. It belongs to an approved canon of so- 
 phistry, to wit, that of breaking the force of, or evading, a charge 
 by a parallel, or similarity, meant to be complete as far as the argu- 
 ment is concerned. Mr. G. has found a parallel, and therefore 
 a justification to his church, in the pecuniary provisions of the An- 
 glican. This line the author has adapted from Dr. Milner, C. 
 Butler, Esq. and Dr. Doyle, without naming either, and rather 
 disguising his obligations. He has acted prudently. At least he 
 might know, that in my Venality, pp. 80 G, I had given that fallacy 
 due consideration, and I believe, a death's blow. And it is curious 
 to observe how, of two mutually destructive defences of the Church of 
 Rome, that of Fees of Office is exchanged in Mr. G.'s epistle for the 
 more general and evasive term " compensation for services" services, 
 not likely to be extravagantly taxed, if rated at the valuation of 
 Mr G., or according to the real worth of the trumpery published in 
 the Romish annuals ; but calling for very high esteem, and verv 
 costly remuneration, when understood in the good orthodox sense, 
 as a release from sin, and a passport to the joys of paradise. 
 
 The class of Taxse to which I have confined myself is that of 
 the Penitentiary. In a catalogue, as authentic as authentic can be, 
 to be discovered and published against the will and efforts of its au- 
 thors, absolutions for various sins are included, and a price annexed 
 to them. It is notorious, that such absolutions, and indulgences 
 containing them, were put to sale, and vast sums collected in conse- 
 quence. Those individuals who had, value received,- in spiritual 
 graces, doubtless thought them worth something, as, if they were 
 not deceived, they must do; and it is historically certain, that 
 armies, (" truly penitent and contrite," as most armies, particularly 
 Crusaders, must be !) went to the field of battle with the gay assur 
 ance, that, if they fell, their church's indulgences would blot out all 
 their sin?, and carry them clean and straight to heaven. 
 
 But it seems they reckoned without their host ; for their host 
 had a salro, which, were he called to account, he would be sure to 
 produce. He had contrived certain reservations to save his credit. 
 Just as if a banking company, with no capital, should issue ficti- 
 tious notes to an enormous amount, thinking it quite enough to 
 provide secret technical forms invented and used by themselves, such 
 as would enable them to prove in a court of law, if called upon,
 
 10 
 
 that the said notes were worth just so much waste paper. The 
 whole indeed of Rome's defence is that of the Jew, whose razors 
 were not made to shave but to sell. 
 
 It is plainly to be perceived, that the present popular method 
 with Romish apologists is, to approach as near as possible to heretical 
 protestancy. They can put a good face upon their religion, either 
 wholly, or in its parts, only by assuming this mask. Their gene- 
 rally rigid, but occasionally most elastic principles allow them 
 in this hypocrisy, for a season, and for a purpose. To attain that 
 purpose they will virtually renounce, perhaps verbally abjure, all 
 that constitutes their existence as a church, their supreme sove- 
 reignty ; their intolerant exclusiveness ; their duty of persecution ; 
 their transubstantiation ; their paramount tradition ; their splen- 
 did adolatries ; the canonized heroes of their breviary ; and, as Mr. 
 G. here does, the richest treasures of this rich church, her Indul- 
 gences and Remissions, total, of all sins, full, fuller, and fullest, from 
 guilt as well as from punishment,* made sure against accidents by 
 being ready for use in the article of death, or as often as that danger 
 occurs, the whole secured on the inexhaustible fund of merits, 
 human and divine, in the hands of the vicegerent of heaven on 
 earth, whether Alexander VI. or Gregory XVI they will thus, 
 for justification, or advancement, renounce or abjure the absolute 
 substance and vitality of their Popery. O! if this transformation 
 which truth and conscience as well as policy extort if this hypo- 
 crisy were converted into sincerity and reality, idolaters and here- 
 tics would become Christians and our real brethren. But the fa- 
 ther and mother of lies forbid the union : they cannot part with 
 their children at least as yet ; and we must wait till " the spirit 
 be poured out from on high," and all will be united to one another 
 by being united in the abandonment of religious error, and the 
 reception of divine truth. 
 
 Here then I close, regretting that I have been engaged in an 
 occupation which may be considered as auperfluous ; and promising, 
 as far as I can, that 1 shall not easily be led to repeat the apparent 
 indiscretion. Mr. G. has not shaken one material position in my 
 books ; he has not, he cannot, and he knows it. I have anticipated 
 his dialectic manoeuvres, and have provided antecedently for the 
 
 * In the palmy days of Rome they were not at all coy on this subject. In 
 the 12th book of Gio. Villani's Cronica, the author mentions the founder of the 
 Jubilee, Boniface VIII., as pardoning colpa e pena ; and his.brother Matteo, who 
 continued his Chronicle, in book i. cap. Hi., writes, that Clement VI., in a time 
 of pestilence gave grandi indulgenzie di colpa e di penadi tutti i peccatl, &c
 
 11 
 
 dispersion of his mystifications, and those ingenious tortuosities 
 which have retired from every other profession than that of Roman 
 controvertists. He will please to bear in mind, that the charge 
 ag\inst his church is, not that she herself declares trust her for 
 that but that from doings of her own proved upon her, it may 
 legitimately be inferred, that in every single item of the spiritual 
 articles in which she deals, she is saleable when her price is bid. 
 Mr. G. therefore will excuse me if to his ineffective exculpation, I 
 prefer the opinion of two of his betters in his church that of the 
 Pope, who affirms Nee peccatorum renia nisi nummatls impenditur, 
 and the tuneful Carmelite, a second Mantuan, who, with much 
 more to the same purpose, sings Sacra sunt xenalia Romce. 
 
 Should Mr. G. be inclined again to try his skill in the art, fami- 
 liar to the defenders of his church, of confuting an opponent by omit- 
 ting his main strength, he may become the unintentional occasion of 
 exposing to the English public, more fully than has hitherto been 
 done, the kind of u services" for which the Roman Penitentiary 
 and her Tax-tables prescribe the pecuniary " compensation." 
 
 Sulton Colctfield, Oct. 14, 1840. 
 
 P.S. The reader may consult with advantage a review of my 
 Venal Indulgences in the Church of England Quarterly Renew for 1840, 
 pp. 138152, where he will see the old doctrines of Home on the 
 subject made the present by Dr. Murray's sanction of Dens's Moral 
 and Dogmatic Theology. I take this opportunity to observe, 
 that the Confessionals, as bills of pardon, &c. are distinctly mentioned 
 in the Card. Poli Mandatum de Confessionalibus, &c. 1557, as facul- 
 ties or licenses, called Confessionals, obtained from the Pope, or the 
 Penitentiary office, by letter, or breve, or otherwise. See Wilkins's 
 < '<>iiril. M<t>j. Brit, iv., 14. See likewise Catal. Lib. MSS. M. Parker 
 a Nasmith, No. cxi. 1610, p. 132. 
 
 In my Index of Gregory XVI., at the end of the note p. 68, add 
 The mistaken date is rectified by the fact, that Vergerio's Latin 
 translation of the de Idolo Lauretano was first published in 1554 ; 
 and the Epistle is addressed Othoni Henrico Palatine Rheni, dated 
 Kal. Septembris, 1534, while in the 2d edition the Dedication, which 
 is nearly the same, is Wolfgango Palatino Rheni, pridie Kal. Oc- 
 tobris, 1">5G. The Rev. Mr. Gibbings, who gave me this informa- 
 tion, has mentioned the earlier edition in his Index of Brasichellen, 
 I'ri'f'iC'' ]). xvii. 
 
 By the same friend I am admonished, that before I treated 
 Gcrardus Busdragus as an ens ratwn'a, p. 82, I should have con-
 
 12 
 
 suited POSSEVIN, who, I find in his App. Sac. thus notices him, 
 Lucensis, et Episcopus Argolicensis Lecturam super Canone, de 
 Consecrations Dist 3 De aqua benedicta. An edition was published 
 of this book Wiliorbani 1594, 8vo. A copy is in the British Mu- 
 seum. The Dedication, dated Padua, 1554, at the beginning has 
 the words, sed cordialissime sum gavisus, cum nuper vidissem 
 catcdogum et libros vestros. The place, Padua, connects with the 
 date of the Exemplum Literanim and the Bishop addressed. 
 
 I can make the present trifle useful, by adding, at the suggestion 
 of another friend, to the purport of the note ending p. 107, a pas- 
 sage of the brere of Benedict XIV. prefixed to his Index, and con- 
 stantly repeated to the last atque ab omnibus, et singulis personis, 
 iMcunque locorum existentibus, inviolabiliter, et inconcusse observari 
 pracipimus, et mandamus sub pcenis, 8[C. 
 
 In fugam vacui, I add the valuable and pertinent lines of Cowper 
 in his Expostulation, suppressed by amiable feelings, but honestly 
 restored by Southey. The British nation is addressed : 
 
 Hast thou admitted with a blind fond trust, 
 The lie that burn'd thy fathers' bones to dust, 
 That first adjudged them heretics, then sent 
 Their souls to heaven, and cursed them as they went? 
 The lie that scripture strips of its disguise, 
 And execrates above all other lies ; 
 The lie that claps a lock on mercy's plan, 
 And gives the key to yon infirm old man, 
 Who once ensconced in Apostolic Chair, 
 is deified, and sits omniscient there ; 
 The lie that knows no kindred, owns no friend 
 But him that makes its progress his chief end, 
 That having spilt much blood makes that a boast, 
 And canonizes him that sheds the most. 
 Away with charity that soothes a lie 
 And thrusts the truth with scorn and anger by ! 
 Shame on the candour and the gracious smile 
 Bestowed on them that light the martyr's pile, 
 "While insolent disdain in frowns expressed, 
 Attends the tenets that endured the test! 
 Grant them the rights of men, and while they cease 
 To vex the peace of others grant them peace ; 
 nut trusting bigots, whose false zealhas made 
 Treachery their duty, thou art self-betrayed. 
 
 We might almost imagine Cowper were now living, and had 
 written the a./ove in these bright days of liberal bigotry.
 
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